Critical Thinking Model

Forrest Gump

It is a funny and heartwarming story of a slow-witted but good-hearted man (Forest

Gump) somehow at the center of the pivotal events of the 20th century who savors the

most from his life and times. This story starts off in a small southern town, where Forrest

grows up. Next it takes us through three decades of Forrest's life, from the 1950's through

the 1980's. It shows Forrest, who happens to be a really fast runner, as a college football

player, a Vietnam soldier, a ping pong champion, a shrimp boat captain, a hippy and also

a man in love with his childhood friend Jenny.

The whole story is basically told about through the eyes of a child (Forrest Gump), the

world and whatever difficulties it is facing, really can seem magical if you just look at

things without the educated color that we see today. Even there are many challenges and

obstacles in our life, we should never give up ourselves and do not allow anything to kill

our enthusiasm, always take a positive attitude towards our life. We must think like a

winner, act like a winner and we will be a winner like Forrest.

As we noticed, Forrest has a very basic outlook on life; things are either good, or bad.

He has few worries because he only holds few things as important to him. Because of his

simple outlook on life, he is very trusting of those around him. Examples to prove my

point: While at Basic Training the Drill Sergeant says "Gump! Why did you put that

weapon together so quickly?" "You told me to, Drill Sergeant” Forrest

answered. While in Vietnam, when Bubba was wounded, he knew that Bubba was

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important to him and ran to find him. Disregarding the danger or his action because he

didn't perceive them. And so in business communication, the principle of “KISS” (Keep

It Simple and Short) should be practiced as simple words will convey our message more

clearly and fulfill our purpose in communicating besides saving time and cost. Also, the

use of complicated words or technical jargon may cause the unnecessary

misunderstanding and the message becoming distorted.

The following scenario can be best used to illustrate —— Simple is Power.

Google is the simplest and dullest website homepage in the world, there is only a small

horizontal blank in the middle with a bit of illustrated characters, and there is neither

amazing and attractive multimedia effect nor colorful and vivid advertisement banners.

However, it has posed a high threats to other world’s top-notch website such as

Microsoft, American on line, eBay, Amazon.com and etc, forcing them quickly acted to

seek the appropriate strategies to deal with it. All these are because Google has done the

right thing that to be simple and intensive for the ease of net users’ surfing as well as

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providing the best user experience possible with simple and clear interface and focused

exclusively on solving search problems.

Also, for those who were born in 60’s must have the same feeling as me that song with

beautiful lyrics or gorgeous melody does not necessarily make people get touched;

instead those everlasting songs were written in plain and simple words and tune. To be

proven, imagine lying quietly in the couch and listening to BEE GEES……………………

I know your eyes in the morning sun. I feel you touch me in the pouring rain. And the

moment that you wander far from me. I want to feel you in my arms again. ** And you come

to me on a summer breeze. Keep me warm in your love and you softly leave. * And it’s me you

need to show. How deep is your love. How deep is your love. I really mean to learn. Coz we’re

living in a world of fools. Breaking us down. When they all should let us be. We belong to you

and me. I believe in you. You know the door to my every soul. You’re the light in my deepest,

darkest hour. You’re my saviour when I fall. And you may not think that I care for you.

When you know down inside that I really do (*repeat) (**repeat) (*repeat)

(Lyric from How Deep Is Your Love)

Besides, he was sort of plain and thought about things much differently than most folks

do, and thus the world will never be the same once you have seen it through the eyes of

him. May be in certain extent we were disagreed with him, anyway, we can’t deny what

he was going with it, though that was not quite what we had normally in mind and even

sometimes we might get a chuckle out of it anyways, however, don’t you think Forrest

was very creative in a sense of thinking out many different and distinct point of

views? Creativity is the critical elements in determining the success of a marketing

attempt that to influence the way consumers behave. It is a fact that no matter how

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perfect the marketing strategy that combines the celebrity source, fear appeal or humor

appeal was; creativity must be present to be effective in attracting attention and changing

attitude. Also, it helps to increase the tendency of the targeted market to like the product

in terms of: -

• Change belief —involves shifting beliefs about the performance of the brand on one
or more attributes.
• Shift importance—to make its attribute more important than others to consumers.
• Add belief—to add new belief to the consumer’s belief structure
• Change ideal—to change the perceptions of the ideal brand or situation.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gump is also my favorite character in the story. She was such a great

and wisdom mother who contributed most to the success of Forrest. In the beginning, it

was revealed Forrest could not go to a normal public school because his IQ was a few

points low of the bare minimum. Because of that he would only be allowed to go into a

class for "special people" (until she slept with the principal) as she realized the

importance of education for making sure that her son would be treated just like everyone

else so that he could take care of himself once she was gone. Also, She was always there

whenever Forrest was down and quoted a lot of “magic words” to console and motivate

him. I am totally agreed with what she quoted, "Life is like a box of

chocolates that you never know what you are going to get.” and

“You have to do the best with what God gave you”. As we passed through

life, we met and touched hundreds of people in every possible setting and we learnt that

everyone in this world is special and they are here with specific mission since they are

very lucky to be chosen as the only one from million of spermatic that succeed to

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combine with the ovum before they were born, and we should be grateful that we have

grown into a physically and mentally healthy person; and indeed we have no right to

complain with comparison to those who suffer from innate disabled. Therefore, we

should have high regard for ourselves. “Believe in yourself” as everyone has

greatest potential, and we must always motivate our potential so that we can utilize our

potentials to capitalize our talent capabilities to the utmost.

As for the success of Forrest finding himself in the middle of major milestones in

American history, I am thinking of one of Malaysian’s finest entrepreneurs, Tan Sri Lim

Goh Thong, a man of true grit who took his greatest challenge by putting everything he

owned upfront to fulfill his dream.

At the age of 50 when everyone is thinking of retiring (synonymous with Forrest’s

educationally challenged and innate disability), he went ahead with the colossal task of

constructing the access road through the dense tropical jungle and rugged terrain to

transform a remote and desolate mountain into Malaysia’s premier holiday destination

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that is recognized by most Malaysian and even foreigners today to be synonymous with

the source of endless excitement and city of entertainment.

Imagine over 12,000 inaccessible acres of primeval forest, an arduous 25.2 km of access

road through impregnable mountainous terrain, a 1,800-metre high pinnacle of

exclusively taking six long years to complete, and millions invested before seeing any

return, if there is any. The task undoubtedly seemed impossible. An average man of

reason will simply be overawed by its sheer magnitude, but not for Tan Sri Lim, a

Herculean man who sees further and beyond, and had undergone endless obstacles and

overcame many setbacks to develop what Genting Highland is today, turning his dream

into an admirable reality and an unprecedented success in resort development. In my

opinion, both of them, Forrest and Tan Sri Lim have drawn great satisfaction in

accomplishing tasks that others consider impossible, confronting challenges and others

positively and deriving from them the essence of motivation.

A tribute to them!!

This story is useful for me because it has managed to include love, comedy, a little bit of

history, and a whole lot of heart and soul. Though Forrest was an educationally

challenged man from the time of his childhood until early middle age, he had great

passion and never gave up himself even he get a lot of challenges and obstacles during

his life. His miraculous ventures truly revive my faith in upgrading myself as well as

arousing a sense of urgency in me to look at my life seriously and wanted to improve

myself especially we are living in an era of radical change and even competitive. So

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resolute was I decided to take up any course with a simple purpose that to upgrade

myself. I mapped out the strategies needed to achieve my dream. Then, I started to read a

lot of motivational materials and English language books in order to set up the right

thoughts and attitude in my mind that it could succeed. All these self-examination and

preparations took me about one year before I took up the ADBIT (Advanced Diploma in

business and Information Technology) course provided by Informatics College in 2001.

Before I could manage to complete the course, I encountered many obstacles and

distractions on my road to success; they included my fear, disappointments, negative

attitude and lack of proper management of time. Nevertheless, my early preparations

brought its effects here; the embedded faith, persistence, and patience created a burning

desire motivating me to continue and tried again. Obstacles can stimulate the best out of

any person if we react with great determination. In my opinion, Forrest and I have also

found it to be true.