See if you can pick it out of this montage.
I’ve heard several savvy marketers, including Jay Abraham, mention it as the greatest scene in the Indiana Jones series.
Don’t peek at the answer. See if you can guess for yourself.
Hint: You can stop watching at the two minute mark. It takes place before that.
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The answer (don’t peek!)
It’s the scene where Indiana Jones is confronted in a crowded marketplace by a sword master who clearly wants to kill him. The sword master goes through a complicated routine demonstrating beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is ready, willing, and most importantly able to slice Indy to ribbons.
It looks bad.
There’s no obvious way out.
Indy has bare-handedly fought his way through the bazaar, but all of his opponents up to this point have been manageable. The one face him now clearly is not.
So what does he do?
He casually pulls out a revolver and shoots his would be attacker dead with one shot. Problem solved.
Simplicity of action
It’s a beautiful thing.
Yet due to some quirk of the human mind – and we all have it – it’s one of the hardest things to achieve.
Very often, our “intelligence” works against us. We come up for more and more complicated methods and schemes and scenarios and neglect the obvious and the powerful.
The cure for this “disease” is not hard
The cure comes in two parts:
1. Realize the natural tendency to complicate things. In fact, count on it always being in play.
2. Repeatedly ask yourself these questions: Is there a simpler way? Is there a more direct way? Is there a way that uses fewer resources?
99 times out of 100, there’s always a simpler – and more powerful – way to do things. You just have to be disciplined about looking for it.
By the way, there’s more to the story of this scene and I heard it straight from the director Steven Spielberg himself…on the radio. (What? Do you think I know the guy?)
Spielberg originally planned an elaborately choreographed scene where Indy and the sword master fight it out: sword vs. whip.
The shooting schedule planned three full days to get the scene down which Spielberg estimated was going to cost $100,000 a day. This was in 1981 dollars when $100,000 would buy a three bedroom co-op apartment on New York’s Upper East Side.
The day of the shoot Harrison Ford showed up on the set sick as a dog. He’d had some bad food the night before. No way was he going to be able to work all day.
“I think I have an hour in me.”
If you’ve never been involved in large scale film production, let me explain what that meant…
Imagine around 100 highly paid craftspeople including actors, camera operators, sound recordists, electricians, lighting technicians, make up artists and stylists, wardrobe people, caterers, and the list goes on and on sitting around all day with nothing to do.
Shooting a big budget film is a lot like fighting a battle. You can’t deliver a bunch of troops and equipment to the front and then say “Gee, I think this will work better one hundred miles from here. Let’s just move everybody.”
So what did Spielberg do?
He re-wrote the scene on the fly…Abbreviated it down to the version we’re all familiar with over twenty years later…shot it in one hour…then gave the order to “strike the set” and got a three day head start on the rest of the movie.
They don’t teach this kind of thing in film school…or business school…but it turns out to be one of the most important skills there is.
No one can teach it to you.
On the other hand, no one can stop you from training yourself to act on this insight once you realize its power.
P.S. Speaking of keeping it simple and making fast, smart decisions, over the next year you are likely to be bombarded with dozens, if not hundreds, of get rich quick Internet marketing schemes.
The formula will always be the same:
ONE genius guru has found THE way to make tons of money effortlessly on the Internet, no experience necessary. Heck. You don’t even have to DO anything (other than send him money.)
Here’s some reality for you who are serious about making money on the Internet:
1. The Internet really is the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to money making. In fact, it’s one of the few sectors of the economy that’s thriving right now.
2. But it takes focused work and real know-how. Making money on the Internet is a profession and it requires serious training. You should immediately disqualify anyone who tries to tell you there’s a short cut. There are smart ways of doing things. There are state-of-the-art methods. But there are no overnight riches.
3. No one person has all the answers. The age of the know-it-all guru is over.
It will take access to a TEAM of specialists to help you build and grow your successful Internet-based business.
This is why from the beginning we’ve always taken a team approach to teaching at the System Seminar.
For example, at this year’s System – System 2008 – we had over twenty-five faculty members, each a world class expert in their field.
Some names you know, but others experts that simply don’t appear at other seminars.
Why?
They like our simple, no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase approach to Internet marketing and they know it’s very hard to find anywhere else.
They trust that when they invest their time and their own hard-earned money to come to Chicago to our annual event, they’re going to come home with valuable, cutting-edge information that they can use in their own businesses.
This year, for the first time ever, I’m going to make the recordings of a System Seminar available to the world.
Right now, for a select group of smart buyers who recognize value and don’t need a lot of hype, I’m offering System 2008 at a special pre-publication price.
There’s more in this ONE package than in any twenty programs you’ll be offered elsewhere in the next twelve months.
Why not simplify your Internet marketing life and get ALL the information you need about Internet marketing from ONE, proven, reliable source?
Here’s what I’m offering.
This offer may be withdrawn at any time so if you’re at all interested, now’s the time to look into it:
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/2008/cds/
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.
If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.
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