The movie trailer for Iron Man 3 (it’s worth watching!) opens with our fearless hero saying, “I build neat stuff, I’ve got a great girl, and occasionally save the world. So why can’t I sleep?”
This line, the setup of the movie, the plot and the arc of the story, all point to THE central question every Influential Writer must answer for his or her readers.
Almost every man who walks the earth asks that question: “I build neat stuff, I’ve got a great, girl, and occasionally save the world. So why can’t I _______?”
The blank can be almost anything. Pretty much every business exists to fill in the blank:
“You can’t sleep cuz too many Monster energy drinks. You must go on a raw food diet for 30 days.”
“You can’t get your great girl to like you for very long because you have manhood issues. Come over here and we’ll fix them.”
“You build great stuff but it never sees the light of day because you don’t know how to sell anything. It’s time for you to learn how.”
ALL of those are valid as far as it goes, but there’s no longevity built into these answers. There’s no lasting influence in answering those questions.
Why?
The answer comes later in the Iron Man 3 trailer, when the villain forebodingly asks Iron Man:
“Do you want an empty life, or a meaningful death?”
The Pretenders wrote a haunting song, “Bring on the Revolution.” It goes like this:
Bring on the revolution,
I want to die for something.
Bring on the revolution,
Don’t wanna die for nothing.
For every freedom fighter,
I want to hold on tighter.
To the hope and will you gave
You were the brave, you were the brave.
This song speaks the deep truth and within this truth lies the secret to your long-ranging influence as a writer, speaker, thought leader, business leader, world leader.
At my Influential Writing Retreat I’m going to do something very out-of-normal for me: I’m going to show you a series of movie clips and movie trailers that get to the root of this question.
Why does Lord of the Rings speak to you at such a deep level?
What do the great songwriters and novelists and fiction writers understand about human nature that business people and copywriters don’t?
Your endurance as an influencer hinges on this question.
Perry Marshall
May 7-9 in Chicago
http://www.perrymarshall.com/
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.