Good guys don’t always win and bad guys don’t always lose. It isn’t a black and white world out there and if you think the decisions you make in your life or in your business will always be 100% right or 100% wrong, you’re going to have a hard time making decisions and taking actions to be successful!

Sometimes we need a little inspiration when we’re trying to tackle subjective terms like “success” and I for one, take my inspiration where I find it whether it’s on the movie screen, or on the back of the cereal box.

X-Men’s classic “bad guy” Magneto is a great example of learning a principle of success from a strange person in an unusual place. Sure, on the surface he generates and controls magnetic fields to manipulate metal and controls electromagnetic force fields, but did you ever wonder why he became a “bad” guy? At the core of the issue was his belief that action was the right response to dealing with obstacles (in his case, how mutants were treated).

Professor X, the classic “good guy” believed that pacifism and education was the best answer to dealing with conflict. Magneto’s choice shows us why it’s important to always stop and see why someone else chose a different path or reacts to situations differently than you do. If you can understand why they have chosen a course of action, you can take that into account in your response.

This gives you the edge.

Bad girl Mystique carries her own lesson that should be absorbed today. If you know anything about Mystique, you know she changes rapidly, shape shifting into different forms according to the needs of the moment.

How can you be like Mystique? Can you look at a situation and change your look, your words, your ideas just enough to blend in or stand out and get noticed? She’s smart and she’s fast. In today’s world opportunities come up quickly, you’ll need to be nimble on your feet and ready to change and adapt to take the best advantage of them. Long gone are the days of taking a week or more to think about your options and whether or not you might pursue an opportunity, by then someone else will have snapped it up.

Don’t worry; it isn’t all lessons learned from the “bad” guys in the X-Men world.

Cyclops, with his laser beam focus, is the X-Men team’s leader in the field. Like his eye, he focuses on what needs to be done, uses his laser focus and takes action to make things happen. One of the most common pitfalls people face today is being unfocused about where to put their energy. Multi-tasking takes over and then the force of decisions made and actions taken is diluted and people become ineffective.

We can also learn to be more like Beast, currently the Vice Principal at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning in the X-Men storyline. He has superhuman strength and stamina. He’s agile and he has super reflexes.

While we can’t get superhuman strength and stamina, we can experience more success by making the mind-body connection. Feed your body good nutrition, get regular exercise, get health goals to increase your physical fitness, but don’t forget to exercise your brain my being willing to continuously learn. Learning doesn’t start or end in a classroom or with a high school or college diploma. Whether you read books, join masterminds, listen to audio courses, take community education classes or go to school to learn a new skill, learning shouldn’t end and successful people do it for their whole life.

Then there’s Rogue.

Rogue absorbs powers, memories, and even people’s personalities through skin-to-skin contact. While we can’t do that and wouldn’t want all the trouble those powers have caused her, we can realize that we can learn from other people who have lived and been successful before us. It’s important to seek out stories from successful people in all different industries and learn from both their success and their mistakes. Why reinvent the wheel? By emulating and absorbing their memories, powers (what they’re great at) and even a little bit of the parts of their personality that helped them become successful, we can get there much faster than if we did it alone.

So, if you were paying attention, X-Men really can teach us a lot about success.

Magneto teaches us to understand that our “enemy” really might just have a different opinion, different life circumstances and a different outlook than our own. Mystique models how to adapt to any situation and be quick on your feet so you can be in the right place at the right time. Cyclops applies laser focus, leads and takes action to make things happen. Beast takes care of his mind and his body, committing to health and lifelong learning and Rogue demonstrates the power in absorbing memories, personalities and skills from those who have already learned these lessons and experienced success.

When you watch the next X-Men movie, maybe you’ll see everything a little bit differently next time. If you look, I’m sure you’ll find many more hidden lessons of success that you can apply to your own life. It’s better than reading the cereal box again, right?

Speaking of X-Men, checkout this guy who created Wolverine Claws in his own home garage! Pure Craziness!!!

Feature image originally appeared on: SciFiNow