I watched The Running Man, and heres what I’ve learned
We watched #TheRunningMen 2025 version as a family recently.
I didn’t walk away inspired. I walked away unsettled.
Not because of the violence or the chase — but because it felt uncomfortably close to the world we’re living in today. It made me ask a question I haven’t been able to shake.
This film isn’t really about survival or entertainment. It’s about how reality gets framed — who gets to tell the story, what emotions we’re invited to feel, and how easily people stop questioning once a narrative is set. What disturbed me most wasn’t what happened on screen. It was how normal it all felt.
I see echoes of this every day in my work. As an executive coach and founder mentor,I spend a lot of time with people who are smart, capable, and driven — leaders who are constantly making high-stakes decisions.
What many of them are reacting to right now isn’t lack of opportunity, but an overload of narratives.
- AI headlines.
- Market sentiment.
- “Overnight success” stories that compress years of struggle into a single slide.
Everything moves fast. And slowly, almost without noticing, thinking gets replaced by responding. Not because people are careless, but because the noise is relentless.
At some point, it becomes easier to let the world explain itself to us than to sit with the harder question: What do I actually believe?
What stayed with me most in the film was the main character’s clarity. He wasn’t driven by applause, fame, or even winning. He was anchored in something deeply personal: his family.That anchor mattered more than survival itself.And it made him difficult to manipulate.
Because when you know what you stand for, external narratives lose their grip.
I’m not against technology. I’m not against AI. And I’m certainly not against building successful companies or creating wealth. What worries me is something quieter. Too many capable, intelligent people are optimizing for speed and money without spending enough time clarifying meaning.
But money is an outcome.Not a compass.
If you haven’t thought deeply about what problem you’re here to solve, it doesn’t matter how fast you run — you’re still moving inside someone else’s story.
I don’t have a neat conclusion here. Just a growing conviction.
In a world that constantly tells us what to think-
Choosing to slow down, read deeply, and clarify what truly matters may be one of the most important responsibilities we have as leaders.