Make the big leap.

I promise you’ll land somewhere far out.

Somewhere fricking beautiful.

— Rex played by Emma Roberts, Space Cadet

So many people struggle with self belief and the barriers to their dreams and goals are often internal. 

Take myself for example, before starting Scripting Life, I was thinking, researching and going back and forth in my mind about whether this was a good idea. 

Would people like what I write?

Would people care?

Do people still read blogs?

Would people find the blog posts useful?

Should I even start?

Is it even worth the time and effort?

Then I came across this Tim Ferriss’s interview with Maria Popova of The Marginalian (formerly known as Brain Pickings) and Maria was talking about the topic of producing content which is what most people categorize web publishing these days.

Why do it? 

Oh it’s content marketing, or it’s for content etc…

What if… You did it for yourself. You write because you want to. You write to express yourself and you’ll continue to write even if you have no web traffic. 

Then what? What Maria shared really resonated with me and so I started Scripting Life.

I am my own unique person with my experiences, insights that I want to share.

So if my sole purpose isn’t to get readers, and to just write for the sake of writing. Then I’m all in.

Thanks Maria!

This brings me to a fun, light, frothy comedy starring Emma Roberts whom I have loved since Wild Child. 

Emma plays Rex, an intelligent, confident and creative person who loves Space but doesn’t have the credentials to enter the NASA Space Program.

Despite that, she applies for the NASA Space Program, making the case for being a different kind of candidate. I love that she found a way to present herself creatively to make a case for her application. She wasn’t deterred nor discouraged.

She hands off the application to her best friend, Nadine, played by scene-stealer Poppy Liu from HBO’s Hacks, who has mad Canva (web-based graphic design software) skills to spruce up her application’s aesthetics.

Upon seeing Rex’s application, Nadine senses an immediate rejection and proceeds to falsify Rex’s credentials and experience to make her a better candidate, with the best intentions of not wanting Rex to get an immediate rejection. 

It turns out that Nadine’s skills go beyond Canva and she made Rex’s resume and application so impressive that Rex gets accepted to the Space Program. Much credit goes to Pam Proctor from NASA, played by Gabrielle Union for championing a different kind of NASA candidate. 

Rex is unaware of what Nadine did until she realises how out of depth she is during the Training courses and finally at an interview where she saw her spruced up fake resume. 

Rex proceeds in the trajectory of the classic movie underdog with a secret but a stronger desire to make it in the program. She studies hard under the guidance of her room mate whom she is physically training (good fair trade) and has built bridges with most of her cohort, making her very likable in the group. Her soft skills allowed her to shine in tense situations where she led the team out of hostile environments. 

With her yet to be uncovered technical skills and her remarkable people skills, Rex was one of the last candidates remaining whilst more candidates got weeded out. 

Break out star, Nadine, her best friend is owed much credit for maintaining her cover with a multitude of accents, sound effects whilst answering the reference checks from NASA.

In her own words, she truly was the Puppet Master of Rex’s destiny. 

Just when you thought Rex getting away with flying a plane by herself with fake flying credentials might be the highlight, you’ll be surprised.

The twist came in the form of an early expose.

She was found out, punished and banished from the NASA space program. 

Kudos to the screenwriter for exposing the lie earlier than expected and for turning the underdog into the savior.

The connecting of dots backwards was done well when you realise the presence of a less than secondary character in the earlier scenes. 

The redemption of Rex was only successful because of the skills and experience she had cultivated in the past. (hint: think gates and crocodiles)

The major problem that needed solving ended up being Rex’s forte and that earlier character became part of the solution. 

There are so many good learning points from the movie, Space Cadet. 

The movie shows that soft skills such as building rapport, being likable and having good team and leadership skills can get you far even without superior technical skills. 

It also demonstrates that what you think to be useless, silly skills from your past experiences might just be the thing you need to advance in the future. 

Finally, it pays to be kind to everyone.

Her space program roommate who was in on her secret not only helped Rex but kept her secret despite feeling sore about leaving the program. In a reciprocal act that was only fueled by necessity.

Rex brought her roommate back to help her in the rescue mission, thus fulfilling her room mate’s dreams of going to Space.