Be Like Batman: Develop Principles

How defining your principles like Batman will help you achieve any goal.

Welcome to EFFIGIES, a weekly newsletter offering actionable insights from my journey through reading and writing comics, designed to inspire you towards building a better life. To become our best selves, we must burn away who we are today.

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What’s Inside:

• What we can learn about the power of principles from Batman Begins.

• What Ray Dalio, one of the most successful people ever, thinks about principles.

• 5 questions you can ask yourself to define your own principles.

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Recently, I rewatched Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and I’ve been thinking about one scene ever since. In the climactic sequence, Christian Bale’s Batman has the following exchange with Katie Holmes’ character, Rachel Dawes:

Bruce tells Rachel, the love of his life, that it’s “…what [he] does that defines [him].” And before Rachel even has time to put two and two together, he’s already jumped down the impossible drop, driving the point home. The scene, masterfully written by Nolan and David S. Goyer, boils down to a single driving principle that defines their take on Batman: to be the hero, Batman must sacrifice Bruce Wayne.

What we do defines us.

There’s power in that idea of principles. Power enough to change our lives and help us achieve our goals, I think.

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Ray Dalio and Principles.

A few years ago, I encountered Ray Dalio’s excellent book Principles: Life and Work. Equal parts memoir-of-an-insanely-successful-person and blueprint for a better existence, the book revolves around the singular idea of being principled. Here’s how Dalio defines principles:

"Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals."

For Dalio, achieving a goal, any goal, is the result of applying a set of rules (principles) continuously. And it’s hard to argue with a man who co-founded the world’s largest hedge fund and has a net worth of $15.4 billion about how to be successful.

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Batman’s Principles.

In simplest terms, Batman Begins explores themes of identity and becoming. It’s the story of Bruce moving from self-centered (Bruce Wayne) to selfless (Batman) and learning what it takes to achieve his goal — to rid Gotham City of crime.

Over the course of the movie, through trial and error, the core principle is revealed: to save the day, Batman must sacrifice Bruce Wayne (his public image, his romantic interests, etc.).

Principles are nothing new for Batman, though. If you look to the comics, there are handful of principles that have determined how Batman operates for most of his history. Perhaps the most famous of the Caped Crusader’s principles is captured perfectly in 1991’s Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #1 (Denny O’Neil, Jim Aparo) — Batman doesn’t kill:

There are others, too, and they are, collectively, the algorithms of Batman, the If/Then statements that define his actions and allow him to achieve his vision of success:

1. Batman Does Not Kill: If Batman encounters a situation where he could end a criminal's life, then he chooses non-lethal means to subdue them.

2. Justice > Vengeance: If Batman feels a personal desire for revenge, then he channels that emotion into securing justice.

3. Mysteries Must Be Solved: If Batman needs to solve a problem or face a challenge, then he relies on his own skills, intellect, and resources

When leveraged, principles, like these, can be powerful tools for achieving our goals. But they don’t just happen. Defining your principles is a process…

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Questions.

Another key take away from Dalio’s book, and one I’ve already written about a couple of times, is the importance of great questions:

“Look for people who have lots of great questions. Smart people are the ones who ask the most thoughtful questions, as opposed to thinking they have all the answers. Great questions are a much better indicator of future success than great answers.”

So what are the questions you need to ask to define your principles?

Question 1: What is my goal?

The first, and most obvious, question you need to ask yourself is what do you want? In your vision of success, what have you achieved?

In Batman Begins, Batman’s goal is clear: he wants to rid Gotham City of crime.

What is the end-result you want to realize from your actions? Do you want to grow your wealth? Do you want to get in better shape? No matter what your goal is, you can’t plan your journey without knowing your destination.

Question 2: What action will help me achieve the goal?

Once you know the goal, you need to ask yourself about the actions that will help you achieve the goal. What’s the experiment you can run to see if the result is success?

For much of Batman Begins, Bruce believes that he can be Bruce Wayne and Batman and so acts accordingly. He fights crime while pursuing a life with Rachel, but quickly starts to encounter obstacles.

Chances are, the actions you take on your first try will fail. Probably on the second and third tries, too. Michael Caine’s Alfred understands this and, when Bruce fails yet again, he delivers the perfect pearl of wisdom:

“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

Question 3: What did I learn from taking the action?

When you inevitably fail, the next question you need to ask is what you learned from the experience. Knowing what not to do is just as valuable as know what to do.

After failing to balance his personal life and crimefighting aspirations over and over, Bruce realizes that he can’t have it both ways. If he wants to save the city, then he has to let go of Bruce Wayne and embrace Batman entirely.

What did you learn from failing? What approach(s) didn’t work? Understanding what not to do narrows the field of options for what might actually work.

Question 4: What action ultimately achieved the goal?

After failing again and again, what options are left? Based on what you know now, what is the next action you can try to achieve the goal?

As discussed above, in the climax of Batman Begins, Batman sacrifices the Bruce Wayne persona. After failing repeatedly to balance life as Bruce Wayne and Batman, he learns that, to rid Gotham City of crime, he must commit fully to being Batman. As a result, he saves the city.

After many attempts at solving the problem, you will learn what doesn’t work and, eventually, find the approach the achieves the goal. When you do, the tactic becomes the principle, the repeatable algorithm for achieving the goal.

If I do X, then I will achieve Y.

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Principles Framework.

Working backward from the questions we explored above, we can distill a simple 5-step framework for defining principles.

Here are the steps:

1. Define Your Goals

2. Experiment and Fail

3. Learn Tactics

4. Refine Tactics

5. Define Principles

Being principled isn’t just for superheroes. Principles are a pathway that anyone can leverage to achieve their goals. Maybe you and I can’t be Batman, but we can definitely be like Batman. So, what are you trying to achieve?

- Frank

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I’m Frank Gogol, writer of comics such as Dead End Kids, No Heroine, Unborn, Power Rangers, and more. If this newsletter was interesting / helpful / entertaining…

You can also check out some back issues of the newsletter:

• If I can put on pants, I can do anything.

• Be like Cyborg: Balancing life and tech.

• Kill your clone? Nah, light it on fire.

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After Credits Scene.

Now that four issues of EFFIGIES have hit your inboxes, I finally feel like I’m hitting a groove. But there’s always room for improvement.

Unlike most other newsletter platforms, Substack has built-in comments, which are an awesome way to let me know what you’re liking, what’s not working, and what you might want to see in the future.

So go ahead and drop a comment and let me know how I can make EFFIGIES the best kind of newsletter for you!