Blog #522: Why Does the Restructuring of a Power Rangers Villain Reflect on the Recent Restructuring of Going the Distance?

...

A few days ago, I was watching a "History of Power Rangers" episode hosted by Linkara on YouTube and the episode I watched was part 2 of the segment about Season 3 of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers." Now, like a lot of kids in the 1990's, I did watch Power Rangers and eventually outgrew them as an adult, but there was something mentioned towards the end of the video that struck a chord with me and something that is a reflection of the restructuring that has been happening at Going the Distance.

...

I'm of course talking about Lord Zedd, who was one of the main antagonists during Season 2 and 3 and as a supporting antagonists during Seasons 4 and 6 ("Zeo" and "In Space," respectively). Now, when Zedd first came into existence, he was a very scary villain in terms of looks and personalities. However, he started to fall into the same category as his underling and later wife, Rita Repulsa, in terms of successes against the Power Rangers.

When I was watching the video, Linkara mentioned that Zedd was starting to suck at his job as the main villain, having more failures than successes. Truth be told, he hit the nail right on the head as the only real success Lord Zedd had was destroying the Green Ranger Powers that were held by Tommy Oliver (Jason David Frank).

It wasn't until he married Rita later in Season 2 did the writers make the right move that gave Lord Zedd the most successes against the Power Rangers ranging from destroying the original Dinosaur powers at the beginning of season 3 in the 4 part premiere "Ninja Quest", destroying the Ninja Power Coins in the episode, "Climb Every Fountain, and culminating in destroying the command center in the 2 part season finale, "Hogday Afternoon."

Now, may I ask you, was the decision for Zedd to marry his underling the right restructuring or was it not? After looking at Linkara's video series, I do have to agree with him on that. I also think that the transformation of Zedd's character from being scary evil to an almost Desi Arnaz style character while still being menacing was more than just a character change:

It was a restructuring.

...

I bring this up because Lord Zedd's restructuring mirrors the restructuring that I have been doing as founder of Going the Distance. During my restructuring, I had to take a good look at what was working and what wasn't working. A prime example would be as a co-founder of Boca School for Autism. I attended a few open houses and also for a short time, oversaw a social group called Star Squad that featured several developmentally different individuals.

While I did make my mark in co-founding the school and supporting it as well as co-running this social group, I had to recently ask myself, "What am I getting out of this as a self-advocate and public speaker in terms of a business standpoint?"

I co-founded a school and briefly ran a social group. Okay, fair enough.

But there were a lot of factors that came into this decision. For one thing, I can't be everywhere at once because its financially draining as well as mentally draining (especially recently with what is going on in the aviation industry).

All I did was go down to Boca Raton, see people I know at the school, attend an event there and that was it, not getting paid and just pissing money out of my hands. In reality, my involvement at the school was going absolutely nowhere and I got to the point where me and my folks were asking ourselves, "What good are we getting out of this?"

Then there was the matter of attending and speaking at comic conventions. Now, it's important to remember that I got my start as a member of the Brony fandom, attending My Little Pony conventions across the country that served as the foundation for my public speaking career.

Much like with the school, I wasn't really getting a lot out of it because I had to fight for my audience against celebrity guest stars and other activities that people might be interested in. Sure, volunteering at a comic con might do some good in terms of putting it on a resume for a potential job, but who wants to be in an overstimulating environment around large crowds of people cosplaying or not having the common courtesy to shower before attending the event.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that I needed to step back from the school and comic conventions and focus on the areas that I work best at. Will it ruffle a few feathers? Maybe so, but it's a reflection of not just maturity at Going the Distance, but my own maturity as a business owner and public speaker.

...

To me, this is also a reflection of Lord Zedd's character when he was working solo. His lone success of destroying the Green Ranger powers mirrors that of the lone success in Boca Raton of co-founding the school. I tried to get more involved, but the energy I had in focusing on the school was gone.

Now that I am getting more involved in four other organizations (Flutie in Massachusetts, Els in Florida, Autism Tree in California and Attleboro Enterprises also in Massachusetts) that I am close with, I am starting to mirror Zedd's marriage to Rita in terms of finding his greatest successes.

A few examples of these are:

A. Recently, I went out to Autism Tree's Neurodiversity Conference in La Jolla and was actually recognized for my continued services to the organization as a core team leader with a personally written certificate from the co-founder/executive director as well as the director of operations.

B. Continuing my overall growth as a Flutie Fellow at the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism with recently emceeing the annual Flutie 5K road race in Natick.

C. Continuing to make my mark at Els for Autism as a member of their advisory board while also recently attending the UCan employ employer's summit back on Friday October 10th on the Els for Autism campus in Jupiter.

...

Again, these examples of success that I have shared are a similarity of when Zedd married Rita, whereas he became more difficult for the rangers to defeat that ultimately led to their victory over the rangers at the end of Season 3.

Now, I'm not the one to say that Lord Zedd's character was ruined, but that a restructuring is a good thing because that's how we learn and grow as real people running real businesses. Going the Distance has to learn and grow and there are definitely some growing pains that I've personally had to deal with recently. But nevertheless, Lord Zedd is a living example of what happens when we need to restructure ourselves in order to be more appealing and successful not just in business, but in life as a whole.

...

Catch you all later!!