I love the movie The Incredibles for many reasons: great design, fun writing, strong characters, good music. Most of all, I love it for Edna Mode. She is the fashion designer character who is modeled after another of my Hollywood favorites, Edith Head.
Why do I love Edna so much? Because she doesn’t listen to others’ opinions–she keeps on her own track, knowing, absolutely knowing, that what she is doing is the best work she can do and she is compelled to do just that.
…and she puts on a great show of it.
Mr. Incredible shows up needing a small repair and she instead creates a brand new costume for him…and for the rest of his family. She is not asked to do these things, she is not hired to do these things, she just does them because she knows they must be done. She can’t do anything half-way.
Her presentation of her creations is magnificent. What a show! No (real) apologies, no excuses beyond the underlying understanding that she had to make this stuff. Had to.
And she gives the best quote ever–when asked what she thinks the baby might possibly do, she replies, “I’m sure I don’t know, Dah-ling. Luck favors the prepared.”
That is a wonderful thought we should all keep in mind when it comes to our businesses and the market forces with which we interact: do our best work, do it for ourselves because we simply must, and when someone asks how our work and its marketing functions, reply:
I’m sure I don’t know, Dah-ling. Luck favors the prepared.