Lessons from the Movie "HIDDEN FIGURES"

I recently saw the movie Hidden Figures. I do not consider myself a movie buff but I thought to see this after I saw Taraji P. Henson's interview on Your View tv show.  It was indeed a good movie and a quality use of my time. It is a story of three black American women- Katherine Johnson and her colleagues, whose expertise in Mathematics and Physics provided NASA the support needed for the first successful space mission in 1959.

Considering that it was based on a true life story, I realized that there are so much life lessons in there and I thought to share what I learned with you.

1. Prepare for your opportunity: There will be no story to tell if Katherine and her colleagues were uneducated, uninformed, unavailable etc. There's the saying about opportunity meeting preparation and I consider that the case with these women. They got an education when they needed to and kept on working diligently until the opportunity for a more relevant posting within the organization showed up. 

2. Add value wherever you are: While outside of NASA at the time, there was huge segregation based on race and gender, these women broke boundaries within a national organization. The value they brought to the table brought about a change within their organization such that discrimination based on race and gender was nipped in the bud to get the work done. 

3. Surround yourself with positive people: It is important to have friends that push you to succeed. I remember a scene where one of the ladies was complaining that she couldn't get into an Engineering program because of the racial issues at that time. Her friends stood up to her and told her to quit complaining and take the matter to court. She did, won the case and got her Engineering degree. It is magical what an advice from a trusted friend can do. We all have times when we almost give up on ourselves or certain dreams, it is necessary to have around you those that urge you on even in those tough times.

4. Be courageous: Speak up when you need to. Sometimes it is hard to do and sometimes you just do not know if it is the right time but it is essential that you do not let yourself be silenced by everyday challenges. Do not lose your voice and do not lose the sense of right versus wrong. A wrong thing should not become so normal that you forget that it can be right. Katherine spoke up and was assertive about attending editorial meetings where no woman had ever gone. She stood up to her boss concerning having to travel miles just to use the bathroom (at that time bathrooms were separated based on race and gender). This forced a change within NASA.

5. Support others: The fact that you light another's candle doesn't translate to yours going off. It is important to learn to support people with information, advice, love, encouragement etc. From the movie, Dorothy Vaughan played by Octavia Spencer was instrumental to the other black American ladies on her team learning the computer programming language FORTRAN. This way she was able to help secure the jobs of many other ladies when the computers arrived to replace manual calculators.

Finally, I would say these women enjoyed a good career and personal life as depicted by the movie and somewhat by Wikipedia. Katherine wasn't just a mathematician, but also a wife, mother and a singer in church. Don't get me wrong - not everyone is going to end up married or have kids or sing in the choir, but try to have a life outside of work. Play a sport, make good friends, travel, volunteer, just do something outside your work. It helps keep you refreshed and whole.

I hope you will go check out the movie and let me know if you enjoy it as much as I did. Please let me know if you learned anything also from their experiences. 

Have a great week.

Picture credit: vox.com