Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching 2012, a movie about a family that fights for it’s survival while the world is destroyed by Earth’s unusual behavior as a reaction to unexpected Solar Storms. Read the full review here.
I expected it to be something similar to “Day After Tomorrow”, where the world will be destroyed by nature and the human kind will still prevail. I was wrong.
You can’t really say that humans “won” in 2012, since they managed to save only a tiny fraction of the human kind, but there are a few positive sides to the “happy end”.
- Continent Africa wasn’t touched by the cataclysm, meaning the human kind will have a place where they can re-build the civilization from
- Among the survivors there were dozens of scientists which means that re-building process will be fast and efficient
- During the final scenes of the movie, Ronald Emmerich and Harald Kloser showed us the better side of humanity
When I finished watching the movie, I felt proud I’m a human being. I felt proud I possess the qualities Dr. Adrian Helmsley described when he convinced the board of ministers to open the ship gates and let those people in.
However this is not the lesson I wanted to blog about.
Profound Lesson #1:
2012 reminded me of one quality we, marketers and entrepreneurs , neglect most of the time-we have families and loved one we should be spending MORE time with then working on our businesses.
This mistake is being shown in the movie via Jackson Curtis, young author and father of two who’s wife left him because he was a workoholic.
Although Jackson published his book anyway, he only got a deal for 433 copies to be released, which for a writer-is a disaster!He failed twice, as a family man and as an author.
It was only when the world was falling apart, he understood what was really important-his family. He dropped everything to save his wife and kids along with his wife’s new boyfriend who he hated but knew his wife liked.
It doesn’t have to be like that for us. We don’t need an epic disaster to wake us up, do we? But for many of us it’s exactly what’s needed to make us understand.
Profound Lesson #2:
When it hit Jackson Curtis that something bad is about to happen, he completely altered his beliefs about what’s important.
For Jackson, World’s greatest tragedy turned out to be the happiest moment of his entire life, because it allowed him to re-unite with his family.
Son who hated him-was the one to help him release the cable that was preventing ship gates from closing and saved everyone on the ship. His wife had no choice but to admit she still loves him and come back to him (since Dr. Zilberman was dead anyway).
Profound lesson that I think we all can learn here is that every problem has 2 sides: the negative side we all see and react immediately and the subtle side of bringing an improvement to our lives.
Dr. Adrian Helmsley is another 2012 example to “problems=good things in the future” statement.
If it wasn’t for those pesky solar storms, Dr. Helmsley would have never become on the world’s most important men, didn’t get to meet the president of United States in person and (this could be said with 1000% certainty) would have never hooked up with President’s daughter.
When something goes wrong in your business, you shouldn’t assume that it’s bad, because, whether you believe it or not-something good will come out of it sooner or later.
I recall numerous times when this happened to me in my business.
Once, I had all the content on my blog disappear for no particular reason. At first I was pissed and blamed everyone and their brother for ruining my business. Later, when I’ve written dozens of new, better posts-I realized that someone had just did me a favor, because my writing skills were poor when I wrote those articles and they improved dearly since I had to re-write everything from scratch-which made me a better blogger as a result.
Another bad thing that turned out to be good was when I switched from GetResponse to Aweber and lost 1000 subscribers in the process. At first I thought it was a disaster, but later I realized that most of my list was dead, and that subscribers I managed to save were the ones worth fighting for.
As a result, now I have a new list with Aweber, which is 5 times more responsive then I used to have with GetResponse.
What Lesson Did You Learn?
What profound lessons about internet marketing did you learn watching 2012 (or any other movie)? Please share by commenting below.
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Hello Igor,
I really don’t watch Television.So I guess
what I have learned from my Blogging is
that I spend all my time at this Computer.
I really have no time for anything else.My
Family is all grown and on there own and I
only have this to do in my life.
When you get old and live alone , you do
what you have to , to stay busy and aware
that you are still alive and a person.I guess
being alone has made me aware of what I
need to do to stay Sane.That to me is right
here on this Computer.
Sure I miss my Family , but that’s life when
you get old..Life go’s On…
Happy Holidays to all,
Gary,
Hey Gary,
I am happy to hear that all your family
is grown up and doing OK.
I can’t quite argue with what you’re
saying, because I am only 21, but I don’t
think that’s what life is about.
I believe we need to experience more then just work,
because life is such a beautiful thing, you know?
Igor
Great to see somebody who enjoyed the movie since most of the reviews have been bad.
One thing I remember about this movie is the scene on the ship when Helmsley talks about Curtis. As far as Helmsley knows, Curtis is probably already dead, and Helmsley talks about how Curtis will live on through his book.
Not sure how this relates to Internet marketing, but a lot of the content that we put out on the Internet would live on after we die – at least for a while. It sorta makes everything worth the effort.
David Lim´s last blog ..The Keyword Crash Course
Wow, that’s another profound thing to learn
from already amazing movie. I really didn’t see
that one coming.
Thanks David,
Igor