Never Waste a Good Crisis

Profiting from pain: what Tommy Shelby reveals about adversity and leverage

Over the Christmas break, which already feels like a distant memory, I started rewatching Peaky Blinders 🧥🔥 one of my favourite series of all time.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, Peaky Blinders is a fictional historical drama set in post–World War I Birmingham. It centres on the Shelby family, an Irish Romani Gypsy gang navigating crime, politics, and power in early 20th-century Britain. The story follows Thomas Shelby, the family’s leader, as he rises from a small-time gangster to a political operator and legitimate businessman (for the most part).

It speaks directly to my favourite genre: historical settings, intelligent characters, and psychologically complex storytelling. And with a Peaky Blinders movie announced by Netflix and expected soon, now feels like the perfect time to revisit it. Netflix, feel free to call me for the self-promotion plug 📞😄

Let me be clear from the start. Tommy Shelby is not a role model.
But he is an exceptional case study in how lived experience, even painful experience, can be converted into leverage.

War, Trauma, and the Making of Tommy Shelby

We’re told that before the war, Tommy was gentler. That changed in France.

Like many men of his generation, Tommy fought in a war that left him profoundly changed and largely unsupported afterward. He served as a First World War tunneller, one of the most dangerous and psychologically brutal roles on the battlefield. Tunnellers worked deep underground in near-total darkness, digging narrow passages beneath enemy lines, constantly at risk of collapse, suffocation, or sudden close-quarters combat.

The role demanded extreme mental discipline, emotional control under pressure, and the ability to operate calmly in silence and uncertainty.

Tommy returns home carrying what we would now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He struggles with insomnia, emotional detachment, and a constant awareness of how close he came to death. France never really leaves him.

Living with that proximity to death changes how he moves through the world. Fear no longer holds the same authority over his decisions. In a time when social mobility was incredibly difficult, Tommy stops playing by rules that were never designed for someone like him to win.

“…I Am Just An Extreme Example of What a Working Man Can Achieve”

There’s an iconic moment when someone accuses Tommy of betraying his class. In typical Tommy Shelby fashion, his response is cold and controlled:

“I’m not a traitor to my class… I am just an extreme example of what a working man can achieve.”

Tommy does not deny where he comes from. He rewrites the script he was given. Across the series, the lessons he learned in war repeatedly show up in how he builds power and businesses.

He understands leverage and positioning.
He plans past the point where others stop thinking.
He reads people well and uses information deliberately.
He keeps perspective when others lose control.

The war scars him emotionally, but the skills it forces him to develop become the foundation of his success.

Profiting From Pain Without Being Defined by It

Most of us will never experience war. But we will experience moments that quietly reshape us.

Loss.
Failure.
Rejection.
Periods of uncertainty.

These moments leave marks. They should be acknowledged and healed. But they also leave behind insight.

Pain has a way of stripping away what is unnecessary. It clarifies priorities, exposes false assumptions, and sharpens judgment. If you’re honest about it, adversity often teaches you more about yourself than comfort ever could.

A Biblical Parallel: Moses

This idea isn’t new.

Take Moses from the Bible. Born Hebrew, raised in Pharaoh’s household. Educated, trained, and shaped by the very system that oppressed his people.

After killing an Egyptian, he runs. Years later, he returns not as a prince, but as a deliverer.

The irony is hard to miss. The skills Moses developed in Pharaoh’s house, leadership, organisation, authority, were exactly what he needed to lead millions of people out of Egypt, under God’s direction.

The source of his pain became the instrument of his purpose.

Final Thoughts

You don’t choose every hardship you face.
But you do choose whether it shapes you blindly or sharpens you deliberately.

Pain does not automatically produce growth. Reflection does.
Ignoring hardship wastes it. Learning from it redeems it.

You can profit from pain not by glorifying it, but by extracting insight, building perspective, and moving forward with intention.

So never let a good crisis go unused.

Back in 2022, I shared a video breaking down business and life lessons from Tommy Shelby. They’re just as relevant now as they were then.

Next week, I’ll be revisiting and expanding on those ideas, and showing how they apply beyond fiction 🎥✨