How To Be More Like James Bond

James Bond is at a bar, holding a drink (big surprise). On his hand is also a scorpion, ready to sting him. All eyes are on him. Slowly, he brings the glass to his mouth. The scorpion moves. He freezes. The crowd goes, “Uuuuuh.” Very gently, he brings his head down to the glass. With his eyes fixed on the creature, he starts drinking. The scorpion moves again. James is not disturbed. He finishes the drink, throws the scorpion from his hand, and immediately catches it in his now-empty glass.

The crowd cheers. Everyone is in awe. “Wow, that was cool. I wish that was me.” Is what everyone in that bar is thinking—and so am I.

Yeah, James Bond is a cool cat. But what makes him who he is?

What makes him the impressive, strong, sexy hero we all would like to be at times?

What attributes or skills make him so effective?

I’ve watched many James Bond movies and additionally many a clip on YouTube. Here is a list of some of the traits that I think play a huge role in James Bond being James Bond:

• He is extremely capable. He can dance, fight, drink, operate basically all motor vehicles, and play poker.

• He stays calm and composed under stress.

• He thinks very practically. If there is something to be done. He does it. If not, he isn’t caught up in what could be. He deals with the situation as it is.

• He is very strongly guided by his principles. He’ll risk people disagreeing with him, physical harm, and even death in order to not betray what he believes in.

“Awesome. Great. Very cool. Now show me how I can become those things!” You’ll say.

Agreed. That is important information. So, here are some ways in which you can become more effective yourself:

Being capable, being able to do lots of things: Practice. No real tricks or hacks here. One thing to note, however: You won’t be able to be amazing at a hundred things like James is. Skills take practice. We can become very good at a few or know the basics of a bunch. And even that will take time. So, choose wisely. What two or three skills do you care about most? Practice them regularly and resist the temptation to immediately quit once it becomes difficult.

Calm under stress: Also practice. Make it a habit of being in stressful situations and learn to deal with them. For when stressed, here is a cool study about ways to help you stay calm in stressful situations:

Lauria, M. J., Gallo, I. A., Rush, S., Brooks, J., Spiegel, R., & Weingart, S. D. (2017). Psychological Skills to Improve Emergency Care Providers’ Performance Under Stress. Annals of emergency medicine, 70(6), 884–890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed.2017.03.018

Not complaining or making excuses: This one wasn’t on the list, but it’s also something James doesn’t really do. And complaining is a habit. Just like not complaining is. If you want to train yourself to do it less, you can try the following approach from Ben Bergeron: Put a rubber band around your wrist. Every time you complain or make excuses, you will snap it. Then you’ll switch it to the other wrist. If you complain again, you snap it against your wrist again. Then you switch it again. The goal is to keep the band on one wrist for as long as possible.

Stick to your principles: The cool thing is, this is a choice. You might care a lot what other people think. You might be tempted to betray your values in order to impress someone. But what you ultimately end up doing is up to you. You get to choose your actions. That’s all it is. Taking the action in line with your values and principles. It doesn’t matter if it was difficult because you cared about the opinions of other people. All that matters is what you did. Not how you felt doing it.