Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy. 🐍

There are things in life that have no right to be any good.

Like Cobra Kai - the made-for YouTube sleeper hit Netflix has now turned into a global phenomenon. 

The show is set 30-something years on from the events of the Karate Kid and - without wanting to give too much away - comes complete with a hefty dose of nostalgia, teenage angst, and an epic soundtrack of 80s power rock.

Daniel Larusso running a car dealership emporium, Johnny Lawrence as a washed-up alcoholic, and the same premise of a new kid in town being bullied before becoming an absolute ninja after discovering karate has no right to be good. At all. But it really is.

This is escapism TV at its best. It’s brilliant. It’s hilarious. And, for anyone who grew up in the 80s, it’s a must watch.

Emblazoned on the wall of the Cobra Kai dojo is the mantra: “Strike first. Strike hard. No mercy.”

The mantra, and Sensei Johnny Lawrence himself (“Striking first is about being aggressive. Alright? If you're not aggressive, then you're being a pussy. And you don't wanna be a pussy! You wanna have balls!”), are complete anathema to the world of 2020 where the default settings of outrage, offence, and judgement mean many people live in fear of upsetting the apple cart.

We don’t do things, or try things, or put ourselves out there because we’re worried we’ll get it wrong, or be judged, or be laughed out of town.

But what if we flipped this around? What if we did strike first and strike hard? What if we do things from a place of courage and belief?

Look at this way, I’ve been working on website copy with a client for about 6 months now. They’re a big international company. But the quest for perfection - and the fear of putting the wrong message out there - has become debilitating. 

The copy has undergone countless iterations. Yet, the very first version we did is infinitely better than what’s currently in place. For me, 80% perfect and 100% out there is always going to be better than constantly striving for perfection - because perfection is a place we’ll never reach.

The same is true for start-ups, people going freelance, new product launches, new business ventures and everything else in between - we become so defined by fear, the pressure to be perfect, and how we think we’re going to be perceived, that we strive to have everything ‘just so’ before we put it out there to the world.

It’s nonsense.

And that’s why we should all be a bit more Cobra Kai (albeit without Sensei Lawrence’s unique take on life and political correctness - “We don't allow weakness in this dojo so you can leave your asthma, peanut allergies, and all that other made up bullshit outside. Understood?”). 

If we have something we want to share with the world then why keep it trapped inside? Why wait? Why not strike first? Sometimes ideas don’t work and sometimes people get upset but we don’t know what will work until we try it and we’re never going to be able to make everyone happy.

So fire up the muscle car, pull on the shades, whack the Rocky IV soundtrack on, max out the volume and start cruising down the road to glory. (Or, at the very least, do the things you want to do and if you’ve got something you want to share with the world then get it out there - it’ll either work or it won’t - but you’ll never know until you try.)

When we step out of our bubble of fear, with courage and with a clear-eyed belief in what we’re doing, we can make great things happen.

Now that is badass.

TT x