The 4 main life lessons from our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles analysis

The Daily Drip

Now that we've covered all the personality profiles of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I want to highlight some main takeaways from their interactions as a team.

1. Teamwork requires the diverse skills/talents/input of everyone.

You don't all have to agree on what to do as a team, but you do have to align on what you're going to do. Just look at the fractured United States and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a great example. We don't all have to agree on the protocol, but we do need to align with one and start acting like a team.

2. Make strategic allies.

It's tempting to want to do everything yourself and there's a small, small chance that maybe you could--but a more feasible approach is to put people around you who supplement your weaknesses. The turtles, living in the sewer for many years, had no platform to speak out against crime or to show the world that they were the good guys. By creating allegiances with characters like Casey Jones and April O'Neill at Channel 4 News, they afforded themselves the ability to have influence and get new information to which they might not have had access.

3. Have mentors.

We haven't talked much about Master Splinter. A mentor is someone who has experience in the domain you're in and can help guide you strategically and tactically. A coach serves a different purpose. A coach asks good questions and can help you work through problems, but they might not have domain expertise. Get a mentor. Get a coach.

4. Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince was the voice of Shredder.

Yeah, I'm not sure there's a really great lesson to be learned but I felt it was worth noting how ridiculous this fact is. James Avery, the actor who played Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air also played the voice of Shredder on the original 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.