The Guv’nor

There is no better way to learn characteristics of Character Components and Talents than to look into extreme cases, where the character traits are magnified so intensely that is very clear to read them.

Meet Lenny McLean – The Hardest Man in Britain

One compelling case came under our radar after watching the movie about Lenny McLean, a street fighter from England, also known as “The Guv’nor.”

Lenny McLean has been referred to as the hardest man in Britain, known for his incredible fighting abilities, stamina, and very intense, confrontational character traits. He is also known for his role in a British cult movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which was his last public performance. He died a week after the film was released.

He was also participating in various criminal activities, mostly involving extortion and being a security guard for shady businesses.

Have a look at the movie trailer before we continue, a picture is definitely saying more than thousands of words.

Now let’s have a look at his Five Elements.

Lenny McLean was born as Yin Earth Master Element, a mighty one. If we look into his Five Elements, almost 80% of his Chart is Earth Element.

Water and Wood are squeezed out, Metal slightly damaged, and Fire just serves the Earth, making it a dominant force, or we could say, a “Gov’nor,” which was Lenny’s favorite expression, because it represents control.

All his life he was fighting the demons created by his father who abused him when he was a little. In our research, we noticed that this is an often case with dominant Master Elements, they are tortured and abused during the childhood, either by parents or by other people, bullies.

Now, you are probably asking yourself how come that he gets bullied if he is so strong? Many are confused about this contradiction, but the simplest explanation is that stronger we are, the stronger our ego is, more pressure the universe will throw on us to break the dominance of the element. We shouldn’t forget the fundamental principle, which is that universe always seeks for balance, so if we are a dominant Master Element, the universe will send extra pressure to even it out.

Also, when we are kids, we don’t have much understanding of power dynamic, so once he got older, he was able to use his force to confront his demons.

But probably the key reason is his powerful Competitor Talent, which made him extremely confrontational, so he was attracting aggressive behavior from people around him. Check his Talent Chart below to get a better picture:

The BODY Component is completely dominating his chart, with both, Competitor and Self-esteem Talents being powerful.

It shows us that Lenny McClean was extremely confrontational, and combining that with the stubbornness of the Earth Element, you get a basic frame of his personality.

Competitors strive on winning and being always the first, in the field of high importance for them, and for him that was boxing.

He had awful first 20 years, with abusing father, alcoholism, and constant street fights. During this period he was going through intense Wood period. Wood, in normal circumstances, controls Earth, but if Wood is unable to control the excessive Earth, it results in painful outcome for the person, filled with issues, confrontations, legal problems, addictions, etc.

Once he went into Water period, things got better, because suddenly the Earth element had something to do. Water brought him a stable relationship; wife helped him to get his life together, he stopped drinking and even started to perform in movies, thanks to his Creativity Component, represented by Metal element, which is also a highly beneficiary Element for him.

What also made his chart better is good cooperation between Fire, Metal, and Earth, so he wasn’t just brute force, he had certain creative qualities, which made him quite famous later in life.

One of the positive sides of Competitor Talent is the ability to gain followers, so he was highly popular, functioning as a role model for many middle and low-class people.

He died right at the end of his lucky Water period, his Chart was moving into Earth period, so his health rapidly got worse. His Chart was too unstable; it could only function if there is a substantial presence of Water and Metal to exhaust excessive Earth. Once he lost that support, things got worse for him again.