The Greatest Showman

A lightly-edited journal entry from 11 March 2018.


Last night, Shalene and I saw The Greatest Showman in the Bengal Theater. After the movie, I thought it was decent, but as I’ve been thinking about it all day, I’ve really enjoyed it. There were a lot of things I learned from the movie!

Entrepreneurship

The biggest highlight for me was someone finally got my entrepreneurial mindset and not just desire but the fixation with and necessity for achievement. My passion pushes me to my limits all the time. I’ve really struggled with work-life balance.

Family

The second point that was very evident as I watched was how PT Barnum’s drive pulled him away from his family. During the movie, though, he figured out what was most important to him and was still able to succeed even as he dedicated energy and time to be with his family. It was reminiscent of when I read Elon Musk’s biography and told myself that with all the success he’s had, he’s gone through two divorces.

During the movie, I decided that my summer home with the family was more important than killing myself my last year to get that B.S. Economics. I’m giving it up and sticking with a minor.

Shalene has also been very (albeit sometimes begrudgingly) supportive of my adventures, especially for someone so risk-averse. That was also echoed in the movie as Charity sang, “However big, however small, Let me be part of it all. Share your dreams with me. You may be right, you may be wrong, But say that you’ll bring me along, To the world you see.”

In-Laws

The last takeaway is that I’m super lucky to have extremely supportive in-laws. This was key, as when I was a missionary, I quickly picked up on just how important in-laws would be.

I posted a status on Facebook to get the word out on Hibernate Storage taking off, and they (not sure because of the joint account…) shared my status to spread the word! In fact, I’ve never felt I’ve had anything to prove to them.


I’ve been listening to the music non-stop! You can find it on Spotify here:

Also interesting is this blog post by Carly Findlay on disabilities and the cast of the movie. I found it while trying to look up the cast for the performers, which the movie did a terrible job of listing in the credits.