Movies have always been more than entertainment for me. The right film at the right moment can articulate what you’ve felt but couldn’t express, can validate paths you’ve chosen when doubt creeps in, can illuminate truths about your own journey that were hiding in plain sight.
Four films in particular have followed me throughout my life, resonating in different ways at different stages. What connects them—and what connects them to my own story—is a central truth about authentic success that I’ve lived by for decades: win your way, not theirs.
Wax On, Wax Off: The Power of Unconventional Methods
I first watched “The Karate Kid” as a teenager in the Netherlands, not long after my family had moved following my parents’ divorce. My hockey career abruptly ended, my world upended, I found myself starting over with cricket—a sport I’d only played casually before.
What struck me about Daniel LaRusso wasn’t just his underdog status, but how his karate journey defied everyone’s expectations. Mr. Miyagi’s training methods—painting fences, waxing cars, sanding floors—contradicted everything the Cobra Kai dojo represented. The conventional path was clear: join a proper dojo, learn the established techniques, follow the traditional progression. Instead, Daniel found success through methods that everyone else dismissed.
I saw myself in that story. While traditional cricket coaches insisted on orthodox techniques—standing tall, rotating the arm past the ear—I developed what would later be known as a “slinger” style, years before it became recognized in international cricket. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.
“That’s not how it’s done,” one coach told me, shaking his head as I practiced.
“But it works,” I replied, just as Daniel might have.
The traditionalists wanted me to abandon my natural approach for conventional methods. But like Mr. Miyagi’s unorthodox training, my different technique wasn’t wrong—it was simply optimized for who I was. Understanding this distinction became the first seed of what would later develop into my core philosophy.
Going the Distance: Finding Strength in Difference
Few cinematic moments have stayed with me like Rocky Balboa’s pre-dawn training, punching meat in the freezer, running up those Philadelphia Museum steps. What resonates isn’t just the underdog story—it’s how Rocky succeeded specifically because of his unconventional approach.
Apollo Creed had the proper boxing pedigree, the traditional training, the established team. Rocky had frozen meat and city stairs. The champion followed the established path; the challenger created his own. And in doing so, he found his unique edge.
This image returned to me years later in the corporate world. At companies like IBM and Dell, I encountered sophisticated sales methodologies designed by experts with decades of research behind them. The SPIN Selling approach I learned at DHL provided a structured framework for sales conversations—Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff—a clear progression to follow.
But like Rocky’s meat-punching approach, I found greater success when I adapted rather than simply adopted these methodologies. Where SPIN prescribed a methodical sequence, I moved fluidly between elements based on genuine curiosity and conversation dynamics. My adaptations weren’t rejections of the system’s wisdom but enhancements that leveraged my natural strengths.
“You’re not doing it the IBM way,” colleagues would observe.
“But we got the result,” I’d respond, echoing Rocky’s practical effectiveness.
Both approaches—the conventional and my adaptation—aimed for the same destination. The difference was in finding a path aligned with authentic strengths rather than forcing myself into someone else’s mold.
The Pursuit of Authenticity: Creating Value from Crisis
When everything falls apart, when the systems you’ve relied on collapse, that’s when authentic approaches matter most. No film captures this better than “The Pursuit of Happyness.”
Chris Gardner’s journey resonates deeply with me—not just as inspiration, but as validation. When he finds himself homeless with his young son while pursuing a stockbroker internship, conventional wisdom would suggest abandoning the path, finding stable employment, following established steps for people in crisis. Instead, Gardner creates unconventional solutions for each challenge, from sleeping in bathrooms to maximizing phone calls during work hours to solving a Rubik’s Cube to make an impression.
I found myself in similar territory when, just six days after completing cancer treatment, the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. Our home in Kyiv, our possessions, our pets, the infrastructure of our business—all suddenly unreachable behind the lines of a conflict we had no power to stop.
Conventional wisdom would suggest retreating, simplifying, returning to traditional employment during such extreme uncertainty. Instead, like Gardner, we found opportunity in crisis. We reimagined The Banking 50 not as a locally-focused community but as a bridge between banking worlds, creating cross-border knowledge exchange programs that connected Western European expertise with Eastern European innovation potential.
This approach wasn’t in any business continuity textbook. It emerged from the unique circumstances we faced and the authentic strengths we maintained even when everything else was stripped away. Like Gardner racing through San Francisco with his son and their belongings, we weren’t following someone else’s crisis management playbook—we were writing our own based on the principles that mattered most.
Show Me the Humanity: Relationships Over Transactions
“Jerry Maguire” might seem like just another sports film on the surface, but its core message—the triumph of relationship-centered business over transaction-focused approaches—perfectly captures what I’ve found throughout my career.
When Jerry writes his mission statement questioning his industry’s approach and declaring “The key to this business is personal relationships,” he’s challenging the fundamental assumptions of his field. His journey from high-powered agent to struggling independent represents the courage it takes to maintain authentic approaches in environments designed to reward conformity.
I faced similar crossroads throughout my corporate career. At DHL, I discovered that authentic human connection created more sales success than rigid adherence to methodologies. My approach—”I don’t sell to companies; I build relationships with people who happen to work at companies”—paralleled Jerry’s philosophy precisely.
The scene where Rod Tidwell demands that Jerry “Show me the money!” but then insists he say “I love you” first captures perfectly the tension between transactional and relationship business approaches. The money matters, but without the human connection, it’s empty.
This principle guided my approach to building The Banking 50 community—focusing on authentic connection rather than transactional networking—and proved especially valuable during our rebuilding phase after displacement from Ukraine. When everything else was lost, the relationships remained, becoming the foundation for everything we rebuilt.
The Pattern Emerges: The Authentic Path Framework
Looking across these films and my own journey, a clear pattern emerges that forms what I call the Authentic Path Framework:
- Study the Conventional Path – Daniel learns about traditional dojos, Rocky understands professional boxing training, Gardner studies stockbroker practices, Jerry learns the sports agent business.
- Understand Core Principles – Each character grasps the fundamental principles behind their field’s traditional approaches.
- Identify Authentic Strengths – They recognize their unique capabilities that don’t fit conventional methods.
- Adapt Implementation, Not Principles – They maintain respect for core principles while adapting implementation to leverage their authentic strengths.
- Validate Through Results – Their adapted approaches are proven through outcomes, not through adherence to conventional methods.
This framework isn’t about rejecting established wisdom or traditional approaches outright. It’s about the discernment to distinguish between principles that matter and implementations that can be adapted. It’s about understanding conventional paths deeply enough to know when and how to forge your own.
Throughout my journey—from developing an unorthodox cricket technique, to adapting corporate sales methodologies, to rebuilding after displacement—this framework has been my guide. It’s about winning your way, not theirs.
In my upcoming book, “Win Your Way, Not Theirs,” I explore how this approach has shaped my path from professional sports to corporate leadership to entrepreneurship to crisis survival. The book traces this principle through various challenges and contexts, showing how authentic approaches create sustainable success when conventional paths fall short.
Like Daniel’s crane kick, Rocky’s meat punching, Gardner’s unconventional persistence, and Jerry’s relationship focus, the most powerful results don’t come from perfect adherence to established methods. They come from understanding fundamental principles deeply enough to adapt their implementation to leverage your authentic strengths.
That’s where true excellence emerges—not from winning someone else’s way, but from winning your own.
Morten Kriek’s book “Win Your Way, Not Theirs: Unconventional Lessons in Leadership, Resilience, and Transformation” will be released in Summer 2025.