An Academy Award Winner Stars in One of the Worst Movies Ever Made, Beethoven's Terrible Father, and An Olympic Marathoner Runs Slow: Why 'Expectation Escalation' is Rarely a Good Thing
The 3-Word Quote: “Expectations Aren’t Reality”
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1.
Award-winning actor Michael Caine has never seen the movie Jaws: The Revenge.
He isn't missing much.
The film is widely considered by critics to be a disaster.
The film has an approval rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, a website that reviews movies.
This means that of the 41 reviews on the site for Jaws: The Revenge, not one gave it a favorable rating.
Roger Ebert at the time said in his review, "The film is not simply a bad film, but also a stupid and incompetent one."
Jaws: The Revenge was nominated for multiple Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Screenplay, Worst Picture, and Worst Director.
This is not a good thing if you are a filmmaker, as the Golden Raspberry Awards are handed out annually to the year's worst movies.
It won the award for Worst Visual Effects.
The movie is not good.
Michael Caine has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is one of only five male actors nominated for an acting award in five different decades.
And he has been knighted - he is Sir Michael Caine.
So it may not surprise you that an actor of Michael Caine's status has never seen the movie.
The only surprise might be that he was actually in the movie - he acted in it.
But it might be strange that this decorated actor was in one of the worst films of all time.
Remember the score - a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Entertainment reporters expected him to be in better films. As Caine promoted the movie, they often asked him a version of the question: why did you participate in such a terrible film?
His answer was surprising and completely candid.
2.
By most accounts, famed composer Ludwig Van Beethoven's father was a nightmare.
Ludwig's father, Johann Van Beethoven, was an accomplished musician, composer, and pianist.
But he was also an alcoholic and possibly a child abuser.
These two issues often intersected and impacted how Johann treated his son.
The elder Beethoven was obsessed with making his son a musical prodigy and was particularly obsessed with making his son the next Mozart.
Johann pushed his son hard to play like Mozart.
Ludwig's obvious talent was recognized by all those surrounding him. By an early age, his father had him practicing all hours of the night and day.
His father's strict regime was relentless, trying to get his son's skills to match those of Mozart.
One night, Johann arrived home with some of his friends after drinking.
The inebriated father awakened young Ludwig and demanded he play for his friends as entertainment.
At the time, Ludwig was so small he had to stand on a stool to reach the keys of the pianoforte.
That night, he played for his father and his friends. And every time Ludwig missed a note, he was beaten by his father.
His father expected perfection.
Mozart didn't miss notes, apparently.
3.
Eliud Kipchoge is perhaps the best marathon runner who ever lived.
He has won 15 of 17 marathon races that he has entered and has two Olympic gold medals in the event.
When he set the world marathon record in Berlin in 2022, he ran an average of 4 minutes 37 seconds per mile - for 26.2 miles.
This averages to a speed of 21 kilometers an hour or close to 14 miles per hour for the 2-hour race.
The average runner would have difficulty running this pace on a high school track for a lap or two.
And if you have a treadmill at home, the top speed often doesn’t go above 12 miles per hour.
To say he is fast is obvious.
But many non-runners will watch him on a training run or during practice, and they sometimes are disappointed at what they see.
They wonder if he is injured, or they ask why he is running so slow.
They expect to see him ripping off 4-minute miles consistently.
They expect to see speed, but they don’t.
The Takeaway:
So what do an Oscar winner in a lousy movie, Beethoven's wreck of a father, and the world's best marathoner all have in common?
All are victims of 'expectation escalation.'
Expectation escalation was a term first coined by writer Todd Henry that describes how people's expectations of others always increase especially after a success.
Expectation escalation exists everywhere in life - in homes, in business, and certainly in sports.
A student scores 97 on a test, teachers expect the next score will be 98 or higher on the next test. Escalated expectations.
An athlete scores 25 points in a basketball game; fans expect the player to score 26 or more points in the next game. Escalated expectations.
A great project is completed at work; the director expects something more groundbreaking for the next project. Escalated expectations.
In other words, when people see success, they demand more of it - every time.
So when movie critics wondered why in the world Michael Caine agreed to be in Jaws: The Revenge, they expected Caine to act in exceptional films and always produce an award-winning performance.
After all, he had achieved greatness before.
But Caine had a perfect answer for being in the terrible movie.
Caine said, "I have never seen it (Jaws: The Revenge), but by all accounts, it is terrible. However, I have seen the house it built, and it is terrific."
In other words, he took the role for the money. And he built a house with it.
He was reportedly paid 1.5 million dollars for one week's work in the Caribbean.
He says of the film in his autobiography that, "it will go down in my memory as the time when I won an Oscar (for a different movie), paid for a house, and had a great holiday. Not bad for a flop movie."
Audiences and critics expected him to take a better role.
He took the role for his reasons.
However, critics judged Caine's role in the movie by their expectations.
Caine never expected every role he took to be award winning; most film reviewers, however, did.
A week's worth of work. Over a million dollars. All while in the Caribbean.
Most critics would have taken the role, too.
And Beethoven's father wanted his son to be Mozart.
But Ludwig never met his father's expectations, no matter how talented he became.
Johann's expectations certainly shaped Ludwig as a musician, but it changed him as a person.
And as Ludwig aged, he began to mirror some of his father's traits.
The younger Beethoven also abused alcohol, was often described as rude, and had issues in many of his relationships.
Ludwig was a great composer, and he knew it.
He told Prince Karl Lichnowsky: "Prince, you are what you are by accident of birth; while I am what I am through myself. There have been and still will be thousands of princes; there is only one Beethoven."
He was an exceptional musician, but he could never meet his father’s demands.
The constantly rising expectations might have driven him to greatness in music, but they almost certainly created a damaged person.
Turns out trauma is a good teacher.
And it is true Eliud Kipchoge, the marathoner, often runs slow - compared to his races and the average runner.
And some comment on this ‘slowness’ as they're disappointed in what they see.
They thought they would see a human running as fast as any human in history.
But 85% of Kipchoge's training miles are at a "controlled and comfortable" pace with "minimal high-intensity effort."
Others see him winning races at record paces and expect every run to be similar. But that differs from how he, or most elite runners, train.
Others' expectations that he should run faster or log more miles during training mean nothing to him.
A study of his training regime reveals that he only runs 7% of his training miles at high intensity.
7%.
Of all his training miles, peak performance occurs only 7% of the time.
Most of us are not actors, musicians, or athletes. We often can’t ignore others expectations; doing so has consequences.
Traditional jobs demand performance and accountability- and have expectations. This is normal.
Everyone has to perform in their roles, and professionals seek improvement.
But when the expectations constantly increase, when we expect ourselves or others to continually improve, when we are expected to always perform at perfection, it is a sure-fire recipe for disappointment and disillusionment.
And it's not sustainable or smart.
Every athletic performance won't be an all-star effort.
Every child's test score won't be Ivy League caliber.
Every work project won't be portfolio-worthy.
Hiccups happen; slip-ups occur; mistakes are made.
Unrealistic and escalating expectations can have harmful effects.
Raising the bar too high doesn’t create perfection; it often stunts growth.
3 things before you go:
Read: Sneha Revanur: Founder and President, Encode Justice, Time magazine: I mentioned her in the August 13th issue of the3mix; now she is on the cover of Time magazine as one of ‘The 100 Most Influential People in AI'; I’ll just copy what I wrote last month: the older generation need not worry when wickedly smart and passionate young adults get involved with today’s issues; concise feature profiling Sneha Revanur, founder of Encode Justice (and friend of my daughter)
Listen/watch: Soul Man performed by The Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live (air date 1978): nothing like a good blues song with lots of horns and harmonica; John Belushi attitude and few modern music stars can out dance Dan Aykroyd
Request: Know 3 friends who might enjoy the3mix? Please share.
Thanks for reading. See you in 10 days.
-Jeff