3 Timeless Wisdoms From The Greatest Showman
Lessons learned from the best original musical perfomance
👋🏾Hi, I’m Chris, I share thought-provoking insights on personal development, healthy living, travel tales, parenting, life lessons and technology trends.
The first time I watched the movie The Greatest Showman I thought, “Wow! Wolverine can really sing!”
This was over 5 years ago. Since then the movie and especially the music have become a household in our family. So much so that 2 years ago (the pandemic year) the soundtrack album and all of its songs were number 1 on our Spotify Wrapup! It’s no wonder really, we had been playing the whole album on Alexa in rotation almost in daily basis.
Our children knew all the songs forward and back, even though they had not seen the movie, yet. I didn’t let them watch it because of the adult theme (and I was too lazy to have it explained to them).
Last weekend we decided to watch it again, and this time the children joined us.
They loved it of course! Mainly because finally they could match the songs they had been listening and singing along to, with what happened in the movie.
A Passion Project Years in the Making
The story behind the making of The Greatest Showman was almost as inspiring as the movie itself.
It took Hugh Jackman 7 years to bring the story of P.T. Barnum to life.
One of the most famous stories from the making of the movie is the workshop performance to convince studio executives to green-light the film.
Hugh Jackman had just undergone surgery for skin cancer and was advised not to sing and was replaced by Jeremy Jordan who was reportedly ill and on short notice took the trip to sing Jackman’s part.
But during the climactic song, From Now On, he couldn’t resist and joined in, bringing the room to tears and applause. That moment helped secure the film's funding.
From Now On is to me the best song of all from the movie, and if you watch this clip you can feel the energy the cast gave away.
The Greatest Showman is not just great for sing-along though, it is a movie full with life wisdom and lessons we could learn from.
Embrace who you are and celebrate uniqueness
The theme of self-acceptance and embracing individuality is the central premise of this movie.
The characters, especially the circus performers, learnt to take pride in who they were despite the constant rejection from people around them, which culminated in a disaster.
And we have the perfect song for this.
Dream Big - Take Risks - Fall Down - Get Up Again
Other life wisdoms that the movie portrays are these:
Everyone can and should dream big.
But only those who are persistent and willing to take a risk will succeed.
Failures are not setbacks, but lessons in disguise. Each one is a stepping stone toward a better future.
A Million Dreams is the second-best song for me. The song along with the scene plays in the background is just a perfect soundtrack for this.
Family and Relationships Matter
Barnum initially gets lost in his pursuit of success and almost loses sight of his family. The movie reminds us that wealth and recognition mean little without the people whom we love and who care about us.
As someone who has a family myself, this timeless wisdom resonates with me the most. To the point that many times when I am too busy doing my personal things and manage to forget my family, immediately some scenes from the movie pop into my mind.
As a bonus, I can relate to the love story between the characters played by Zac and Zendaya. My wife and I came from different continents, languages and traditions. Acceptance was hard to gain initially but we overcame it.
We rewrote the stars.
Truly The Greatest Showman
I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t seen this movie, but on the off-chance that you haven’t I recommend watching it.
The performance is great, the music is amazing, and it’s full of life wisdom we could learn from.
I leave you with this captivating energetic opening piece.
Hi there! Thank you for reading so far. If you enjoy this writing please consider to subscribe and share. It would be much appreciated.