Want to know the magic formula that makes one thing a hit and another a miss? For example, what made the original Jaws movie the biggest grossing film of all time on its release?
Before we go there, know this. If anyone could figure this out, it would be worth ALL the money in the world (which ironically, would make it worthless).
Yet Jaws had that magic formula (its director, Steven Spielberg has earned a reported $10bn as a director, nearly twice that of his nearest competitor).
So what is this magic formula?
It involves four ingredients:
1. Story
2. Timing
3. Audience
4. Relevance
If the Story is no good, no amount of great acting, directing, or production will help.
If the timing is wrong (and I really mean zeitgeist here – the spirit of the time) it won’t hit the mark.
If the audience doesn’t care, THE END.
And if it’s not relevant, well, I added that just to make a good sounding acronym.
Zeitgeist is tops though. What is the spirit of the time? That’s rarely known until the time has gone.You need to know it in advance, and that means the ability to read the future, and since the future cannot be known (for very logical reasons), you now have proof that it’s all a matter of luck.
Does that mean you shouldn’t go for your goal? Of course not. It just means it’s a level playing field. All you have to do is be the one that does it, whatever it is that you have the desire to do, and do it to the best of your ability for the rest of your life.
PS. Moran Cerf sums up why these problems are unsolvable: “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.”. Or, to paraphrase: “no wonder it’s so damn hard to understand anything anyway”.
You only have one choice if you want to make it big, and that’s to go for it. Whatever it takes. Just do it (read the founder of Nike’s story if you want to see what that’s like – is luck random, and what is luck anyway?).
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