Learning to McFly

Tonic Pop

Let’s talk about George McFly.

George was an overthinker. He was a bit gawky and dorky. And he was toes to eye-balls full of self-doubt.
When his son Marty went back in time and caught up with his none the wiser teenage Dad, he son saw in George potential but realised that those fitting adjectives were holding him back.

Now, if you haven’t seen the film – firstly – what the? Second – spoiler alert –

Marty unwittingly stuffs up an important moment in his parent’s timeline when George was to almost literally fall into his future wife’s arms. Instead, Marty ends up becoming the twinkle in his own mother’s eye. Yeah that sounds weird.

Marty realises that he now needs to help get the timeline back on track or he and his siblings will never be born.

George has lost his accidental opportunity to date and initiate the path to marriage. Now he must take control of the situation but the problem is as we indicated earlier – the guy has no confidence around girls, especially Lorraine who he is infatuated with.
There are 2 big moments in George’s attempts to woo Lorraine that set him on a path to reaching his potential, a potential which would exceed the position he was in as his former future self.
1. George and Marty had come up with a plan to make George look like a hero at the school dance. The plan went awry though and hapless George found himself facing the large and fierce town bully Biff. Biff was sexually abusing Lorraine and when caught by George gave George the opportunity to just walk away.

George had a decision to make. He could walk away with his face intact and pretend he hadn’t seen anything, or he could stand up to Biff and defend Lorraine’s honour.

He chose the later. With a clenched fist he swung an almighty punch which landed cleanly on Biff’s jaw – knocking him out.

This got him the girl – not the violence per se – but the willingness to put his timidity to the side and stand up for what was right. At least initially. When dancing with Lorraine at Enchanted Under the Sea, he almost reverted back into his old, weaker self when another boy intimidatingly cut in their dance. As he walked away from the confrontation we see that this just about ended the idea that Marty and his siblings would ever exist.

But then he realised something – THIS was his moment and it was a moment that he could never retrieve and likely never repeat.
There is a Balance that must be found between thought and action and most of us find that to be a real challenge.

Sometimes we spend an inordinate amount of time imagining what our event, project, creation whatever – is going to look like and be like – we could be worrying about every problem that may pop up or on the other end of the spectrum dwelling on and daydreaming about how wonderful it’s going to be

Thinking and planning is a necessary phase. But so is action.

George found himself in the right place at the right time, but history would only consider it the right place and time if he made use of the opportunity that was presented.

George had made a decision to act – but he still had to act. He had to do it with tremendous discomfort as it went against his very nature. We can only guess what may or may not have happened due to inaction but we can always analyse the ripple effects of action.
As Gregg Krech writes in his book The Art of Taking Action: Lessons from Japanese Psychology, external reality remains exactly the same after your decision to ask someone out, to write a book, or leave your job. What matters is “creating ripples”, as he puts it — actions, however tiny, that alter things in the world outside your head.

Inaction is an expensive habit.

Dale Carnegie said, “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

See Action on the other, no matter how big or small leads to Momentum and will animate your life.

It can be really uncomfortable to take action but that’s okay. The lack of comfort in the process of taking action transforms into confidence. That’s how it was with gawky George and that’s how it can work for each of us.
I’ll share our final thoughts from the great Charles Dickens

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
Music by Mayan Fox
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