Top 4 Life Lessons from Cobra Kai

Thumbnail Image Credit: Icon Vs. Icon

On New Year’s Day, like any self-respecting child of the 80s who loved The Karate Kid, I binge watched season 3 of Cobra Kai. Happy New Year to me!

If you haven’t jumped on the Cobra Kai bandwagon, you should know that it’s like watching a cheesy afterschool special that is action packed, nostalgic, and full of easy-to-understand life lessons.

As a professional coach, my radar for metaphors and those easy-to-understand life lessons is always on. It helps me support my clients more powerfully, but man, not being able to fully turn that off can be exhausting. Surprisingly, though, watching nearly 6 straight hours Cobra Kai did the opposite.

It gave me so much joy, sparked juicy discussions with my martial arts-loving husband, and had me gleefully taking copious notes throughout my binge watching, that I couldn’t resist sharing four of my favorite life lessons from Cobra Kai.

Here we go!

Warning: This contains some spoilers. If you haven’t watched yet and don’t want to know what happens, hold off on reading.

Lesson #1: Own Who You Are

Cobra Kai serves up campy, afterschool vibes. But here is what’s great: they know it and they do it exquisitely, with no apologies. Cobra Kai does not try to be something it’s not. The team of writers, producers, and directors fully stand in and own their core essence. This keeps the audience hooked and coming back for more.

The takeaway? Know thy self. Know who you are, what lane you want to be in, and own it. Lean all the way in unapologetically and shine. There is someone out there (someone you may or may not know) who sees you as a light for their journey. When you don’t own your light, your brilliance, or the core of who you are, you not only do a disservice to yourself, but you are robbing the world of the very brilliance that only you possess.

Lesson #2: Be in the Energy of the What

There’s a scene where John Kreese directs the new and current Cobra Kai recruits to knock a bonsai, that is perched high atop a pole in the middle of the dojo, to the floor. He doesn’t tell them HOW to do it; he just commands them to do it.

One recruit after the other falls flat on their back straining themselves with wild high kicks to deliver on Kreese’s ask (while simultaneously blowing their chance at gaining respect from Sensei Kreese). Then we get to Hawk.

He simply kicks the post, bringing the bonsai crashing to the ground, making quick work of Kreese’s directive. Hawk, who has a penchant for rigid, angry thinking and acting out, was quite agile and flexible in his approach. He focused on the end result and achieved said result with ease.

The takeaway? There are many different ways to achieve your goals or dreams, but chances are you often get caught up in the “how” of it all. When you focus too heavily on the hurdles and not the destination, it destroys your creativity, paths of possibility, and might even kill opportunities that are right in front of you.

Alternatively, when you put your energy into the destination and embody the “what” you are trying to achieve, that makes space for creativity, possibility, excitement, confidence, and new ideas. Also, it allows the steps for “how” to achieve your goal to be revealed.

Lesson #3: Don’t overcorrect

Thanks to the karate brawl at the end of season 2, the city council moved to cancel the All Valley Karate Tournament where Daniel, Johnny, and John Kreese were all going to have their students fight it out in an official capacity. At the end of the day, the melee in question was really brought on by a misunderstanding and some bruised egos.

Was cancelling the tournament to punish a few bad apples necessary? Absolutely not.

It was an overcorrection for something that could have been addressed directly with the three karate schools, or at least the guilty parties from those schools, who had a hand in the fight (but if they did that we wouldn’t have a show, now would we? But I digress.). Instead, they set out to punish all the budding martial artists.

The takeaway? If you have a mishap or things don’t entirely go your way, do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Instead, take a step back to check in with yourself and assess the situation. What are you really upset about? What went wrong? How much of what went wrong was actually in your control? What worked? What could you do differently the next time? Who can help you?

It is important to know how to take a hit, get back up, and stay in the fight—if it’s the right fight.

If you are continuing to do something because you feel like it’s what you should do or it is what you think other people want you to do (but it sucks your soul dry to do it), then it might be time to go in another direction. Whatever you do, do not suffer in silence.

Lesson #4: Do not let fear win

Daniel’s daughter, who is still deeply traumatized from yet another karate fracas, makes the emotional decision to quit karate. The streets got a little too real for this Valley girl, so she opted to hang up her gi.

As a show of fatherly support and solidarity, Daniel tells Sam about a time where he almost let fear win.

When fighting in the All Valley Tournament, he had been beaten up so badly by his opponent that he wanted to run away and give up. When Mr. Miyagi coached him to get back in, Daniel screamed about how scared he was. Mr. Miyagi told him that it is okay to lose to an opponent, but he MUST NOT lose to fear.

He quickly helped Daniel refocus and call upon the “best karate” that was still inside of him. Ultimately, Daniel ended up winning, but not before almost letting fear take over instead. He knows that would have been the most crushing defeat of all, and is now trying to prevent his daughter from meeting that fate.

The takeaway? Make your dreams bigger than and more important than your fears. At the end of the day, you are the only one who can take action. You are the only one who can decide if you are going to let fear be the reason you don’t go for what you want.

If you have given your all but circumstances outside of your control have hindered your progress, then that’s a worthy opponent. But, if you’re not willing to try because you are scared of failing, making a mistake, or what people are going to say about you, then you’ve lost. You let fear be bigger and more important than you and the vision you have for your life. Can you live with that?

As my dad told me once, if you’re gonna go down, go down swinging.

Hope you saw something here that was helpful or motivating for you. Cheers!