Take Back Your Personal Power With Five Little Words

"I don't think about you."

Gary Cooper, The Fountainhead

In the 1949 film “The Fountainhead,” Gary Cooper plays an architect, Howard Roark, and Robert Douglas plays Cooper’s nemesis, Ellsworth Toohey, a critic for The Banner newspaper. Toohey works hard to destroy Roark’s reputation as an architect, writing scathing columns about Roark’s progressive and excessively expensive architectural ideas. Before long, no one in town will hire Roark to design a building for them.

One afternoon, when it seems as if Toohey has successfully destroyed Roark’s career, the two men cross paths. Toohey stops Roark on a street corner by a new construction site and the two men exchange words. Toohey asks Roark what he thinks of him. “Go ahead,” says Toohey with a smirk of inflated self-importance. “You can tell me what you really think about me.” Roark looks down for a moment. Then he looks back up at Toohey and with total honesty says “I don’t think about you.” Roark turns and walks away while a noticeably stunned Toohey is left standing alone with his chin on the ground.

It’s classic Gary Cooper to nail someone with one simple line, and we could all learn a lesson from the wisdom of this one simple line: “I don’t think about you.”

Unfortunately, many of us spend an extraordinary amount of time thinking about people who are thorns in our sides. We replay hurtful words they’ve said to us over and again in our heads. We replay mental images of them doing hateful things to us, and we plot our vindication endlessly. Day in and out, we exhaust ourselves by giving our mental and emotional power away to these people when often times they mean no more to us than Ellsworth Toohey meant to Howard Roark.

Sure, Toohey was a problem for Roark, but Roark didn’t stew over his nemesis. He licked his wounds and moved forward. Instead of wasting time ruminating over Toohey, Roark planned and work hard for future success. Instead of giving his power away to Toohey, Roark held on to his power and used it to build a successful career in the end, despite Toohey. And, by saying that simple line of “I don’t think about you” to Toohey, he took away from Toohey any imagined power that Toohey thought he had over Roark.

The seemingly insurmountable power of dozens of Toohey’s negative newspaper articles went up in flames with Roark’s five little words.

Take a moment to think about how many people you give your power away to everyday when you could be using that same time to be productive. Take your power and your productivity back from those people with the same five little words Gary Cooper used in “The Fountainhead” —“I don’t think about you”—and allow your soul to shine!