Essence of an Alpha #1

So I just finished a rewatch of the fast and furious movies. (That is, except that atrocity between 8 and 10. We don’t talk about that one.) It’s true that I just plain love those movies, but I wanted to watch them with a purpose. I was on a mission to study the character of Dominic Toretto (that’s Vin Diesel)and to find out whether or not the whole “family” thing was just one big meme, or if there was something real underneath. Something that we can rip off of the big screen and bring into our everyday lives. I wanted to know exactly what the essence of an alpha really is. 

And let me start by acknowledging a few things. First of all, I know it’s just a movie. Some things don’t really line up really nicely. I know that people don’t act in all the same ways, and that things aren’t as clean-cut and smooth as they are on screen. I know that’s not how real life works. 

On top of that, I know that the Fast and Furious franchise goes ham. Sure, the first few are still pretty normal, but I need to use the later movies to prove my point. I’d be a bit of a dummy to not admit that things are hilariously overblown. I get that. But I think there’s something deep down that makes this character, and this franchise, work. Something that makes the character an inspiration to us all. 

What I really want to try to do is to tie the movie and real life together, like the laces on your shoes. I want to take the things that really move me about these movies and try to blend them with real-world applications. Like any artist, I just want to bring my inspiration, my fantasies and dreams, all to life. So without further adieu, I bring you:

The essence of an Alpha. 

Power

Let’s build this character from the ground up. At the base, we have power. Control. Now, you don’t necessarily need to be the toughest dog in the yard, but you do have to be able to control a room. That room has to be yours. When Dom and his team roll up to an event, everything stops. Everyone’s heads turn and people are either scared, or excited. 

But why does the room belong to Dom as soon as he walks in? The early movies might suggest that it’s his resources. Early on, Dominic Toretto is the ringleader of the racing underground. One phone call from him can get someone like Brian O’Connor fired from his new job at the parts store. Everyone gets nervous when Dom has a problem because he has the power to do something about it. 

But later movies suggest something different. Something that I think gets at something far deeper than that: resourcefulness. Sure, it’s cool to be able to order people around or make someone eat at a different sandwich shop. But the ability to wield that power well, to make all the right moves to keep people loyal or scared, that’s true power. 

And that kind of power can get you the resources. It can get you the muscle, the cash, and anything else you’re trying to get. That’s what’s really what it means to be in charge. You might have someone out-muscle you or out-gun you, but if you can handle the situation well, you can keep your throne, and your title as king of the hill.

Then as your empire grows, you will have something else to help your claim to fame: your name. People will look at you and say “isn’t that Chris, the guy who totally wrestled a fifty-foot rottweiler?” Your reputation will precede you, and you will hold people’s undivided attention before you even need to speak a word. 

Alright, all this sounds cool, but how does this translate into real life? I mean, we don’t all run dangerous, and possibly illegal, underground racing empires and make millions in questionable ways. What good are these ideas for us normies? Can we all become more than we actually are, or is this all just a fantasy? 

There are two components to resourcefulness: what do you have and what can you do with it? What you have can include everything from your talents to the tools around you. Consider everything when it comes to your resources. Then start to think about all the things you can do with what you have. The key to good, clever resourcefulness is to be able to see beyond the obvious answers. A coffee mug might be able to hold your favorite drink, but it’s also worth a few bucks to the right buyer. It could also be thrown at someone’s head as a distraction. Resourcefulness is all about taking stuff and doing new things with it to get what you want. 

The end goal is to have what Dom has: a family. A group of people that are tight, loyal, there when you need them for the bad times. And as shallow as it sounds, that all starts with someone who is useful. I mean, can you think of anyone who’s nothing but dead weight that you willingly keep around? You could try to argue that a kid or something is like that, but a kid makes you happy and gives you some stability in a way. No, step one of being the king is to be an asset to others. 

People might think that it’s selfish to want something from others. I say that’s just smart surviving. After all, we rely on others to get our food into grocery stores, to help us pay for our stuff, and other little things like that. What separates a good guy from a bad guy is how we return the favor. It’s not wrong to ask for help, but what we do with the helper after we get the help makes us loyal or scum. I’m going to talk more about loyalty later, so I’ll stop at that for now. 

It all boils down to getting out there and doing stuff. Learn stuff, meet people, climb to new heights, get moving! Hang out with people who are better at stuff than you and learn from them. Notice the bozos and the mistakes they make and why. That’s how you get good at everything-by being out there in the thick of life.

One of the biggest types of power is to learn how to understand people. Being above somebody else isn’t just about being good at everything, it’s about knowing what mistakes other people might make. When Dom meets Letty’s drag-race opponent in Furious 7, he doesn’t remind her of the mistakes she tends to make and how to correct them. He knows that she’s up against a hot head who will probably push his car too hard and burn out early. It’s a part of resourcefulness that is worth learning about. This is a big topic that I can’t fully do justice to in a few pages. After all, this is just a big-picture map of what to grow in, not the detailed route to getting there. 

Another aspect of power is knowing stuff. It’s a big deal to be able to act on what you know, and don’t, but it sure helps to know a lot. Can you imagine another version of the story where Dom actually doesn’t really know much about cars? If he came out with a line like “I can just feel the car. She speaks to me and I speak to her. Everything else is just a blur.” 

Dang, maybe I should be writing their scripts. 

The thing about knowing stuff is that while you can get away with not, it only helps you out if you have the knowledge. Let me steer away from cars and into music for a sec. A lot of rock stars talk like this about music. Some guys don’t learn theory because they say it’s useless to them. Others can’t seem to figure it all out. But the best of the best have always had a bunch of training in classical stuff. It makes them better without fail. And that’s true in a lot of areas of life. The world won’t just fall into your lap if you know a lot about something, but when you start going places, knowing stuff will help out a lot. 

So power is a big deal. But not just having power, but having the power to get power. To be able to go from nowhere to somewhere consistently. And the more and bigger somewhere’s you can get to, the more of an alpha you will become.

Loyalty

Having highly coveted resources will get you people’s attention, but to create a family, you need something more. You need to bring in people that will stick around for a little more than their own benefit. It’s true that everyone has to keep themselves afloat, but some people are more than happy to let others sink if it means getting a little more for themselves. Others, on the other hand, might play fair on a team. The trick is to be able to separate the two, holding one close and the other at arm’s length. I believe this is the defining factor that helps build a good social empire. 

But what is loyalty, anyway? Well, if we were to ask Dom, I think he would say 

“It’s never turning your back on family, even when they turn their back on you.”

But that leaves us with the question: who is family? Was Brian still family when he turned out to be an undercover cop? I’m tempted to say no. The trust and respect he had built was broken because he turned out to be a liar. The foundations of his relationships had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Only then could he become family. 

So it seems like there are qualifications to get into the family. But you don’t get into the family just because you’re the best of the best at what you do. It’s being able to do what you do in a way that makes sure that the people you’re doing it with become as well off as you. It’s doing life while watching everyone else’s backs. 

Alright! That sounds like an idea we can run with. Where do we start? I think the answer comes from Fast X. Take a look at this quote

You know what I can’t figure out? How someone so rich can choose the poorest path in life. You got no honor. And without honor, you got no family. And without family, you got nothing.

Wow, what a quote! Let’s unpack that, shall we? Integrity. That’s where it all starts. Are you a good dude when no one else is watching, or are you just out to impress people? Are you Galinda from Wicked, putting on an act of kindness so that everyone thinks you’re a gift from heaven to this poor, evil world? Or do you have a code of right and wrong that you stick to because living any other way wouldn’t really be living? I think you know what the right answer is. 

Weird thing is, that quote is coming from a criminal. How can the guy who steals from truck drivers, robs banks and probably kills people, be called honorable? Is this the part where we say “well, it’s just a movie, it can’t be perfectly realistic?” Hmm, this is where things get mighty tricky. We are basically opening up the age-old question of whether or not the anti-hero is, in fact, still worth celebrating. Is Robin Hood really a good guy for doing bad things to bad people, or is he actually just a bad guy, picking on worse guys?

I don’t know if the ends always justify the means. That’s a tricky thing to deal with. But can you imagine an alternate version of Dom that wouldn’t get his hands dirty for the sake of his tribe? A man who sees one of his own in trouble and says “meh, I’d have to do something illegal to help, and I couldn’t do that!” Does the idea of such a man sit well with you? Yeah, me neither. 

But that’s not to say that all the other stuff is actually good now. I have always been of the opinion that the lesser of two evils is still evil. We don’t choose between being good or bad, we choose being bad or worse. So we go back to the question: what is honor and how do we get it? Honor is having a few values that you live by. Ones that you take seriously, that you value more than life itself. And more importantly: they’re values that you hold for yourself. Not because you might get in trouble if you value something else, not because of the stuff it will get you, but because you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if you made the wrong choice. Because it’s not the type of person that you want to be. 

As far as how to get it, you need to start asking the question: how do I feel about this decision? If no one were watching, if I could get everything I wanted whether I did this or not, how would I see myself? Does this keep me on the path of who I want to be, or am I straying from who I know I should become? The name of the game is conscience. Does this decision sit well with me or not? It might be tricky at first, but if you keep asking yourself that question and taking the time to chew on it, you will eventually become the leader of your pack. 

Like attracts like

Once you have a good understanding of yourself, it’s time to start building your empire. As  you start developing the character you would like to see in yourself, the next thing to do is to find it in other people. Watch the scene from the first movie, where Dom and Brian get back from the first race. This is a pivotal moment for Dom, because he realizes who his team really is. He sees that his crew wouldn’t actually help him out of a bind and he’s disappointed. It’s in this moment that he realizes that he needs a different kind of people around him. He needs more loyalty in his following. 

It’s an ironic thing, given the way the first movie unfolds, but it works as an example of the kind of life you build for yourself. And to note that you can build something on shaky morals. The thing is that you don’t want to have your precious loyalty go to waste. One of my own biggest challenges to loyalty is not to try to figure out how to be loyal, but to whom to be loyal. It feels like there’s no one worth being loyal to anymore. Because of that, it can feel like we just shouldn’t be loyal anymore. I think we just need to be better judges of who we give the precious gift of our loyalty to. We need to be shrewd about our allegiances. 

But that’s not to say that everyone has to be perfect to be in your squad. Everyone is going to disappoint from time to time. The difference is that some see the value of your steadfastness and others don’t. The ones you want to keep are the ones that see the value of your willingness to watch their backs, and are inspired enough by it to try to be the same person for you. That’s family.

There’s a lot to be said for this topic and these categories. I’m sure I’ll wind up doing another of these, but for now I think that’s a good road map. Get something that people want, do stuff with others, and watch everyone’s backs while you do it. It sounds simple, but it can sometimes be a bit tricky to make happen. It can take time as well, so figure out what you can offer people and get moving! Life’s not a spectator’s sport, so don’t watch your life go by without you. 

Until Next Time

May Peace be your Guide.