Thirty years from now, when you’re sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your lap and he asks you, “What did you do in the great World War II?”, you won’t have to say, “Well… I shoveled shit in Louisiana.” “.
Morning,
Man, I love this movie. Like Star Wars and Fight Club, I can quote these movies all day, every day.
Sometimes when I sit back and enjoy a good movie I discover a great subtle nugget or two and when I watched Patton for a moment, there was one that EVERY entrepreneur needs to hear.
Patton movie. General Patton makes good use of his enormous preparation to take on Rommel and the Afrikan Corps. The situation is terribly bleak because Patton has to take over a unit of muskrats and turn them into a meager fighting machine and he only has a short time to do it.
And to add fuel to the fire, Patton faces a seasoned and cracked general. A general who, according to the best historians, is the greatest general of all time, the Desert Fox himself, Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel.
Everyone is tense. Patton is under orders to beat Rommel or they will lose Afrika.
The Army’s Second Tank Corps is filled with undisciplined officers and lazy soldiers who are no longer motivated to fight and win.
Y
The Second Tank Corp took a huge beating leaving them battered, beaten and shaken from their confidence.
Yes. Things are not rosy in the desert and Patton has to build the unit in ten days to fight Rommel at El Guettar.
So Patton goes into raging bull mode and starts kicking the butt off of his officers and men to get them in shape. And I HATE him for it.
The day to finally tick off the clock and meet Rommel’s tank division on the battlefield and Patton (the underdog) beats him!
As Rommel leaves the battlefield, Patton yells, I’m reading your book Rommel.
Why did Patton win? How did he win? What were his keys to victory on the battlefield?
Mass preparation!
Patton did not go into battle without knowing who his enemy was. Sun Tzu said that he knew this better than anyone.
“If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the outcome of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory you gain you will also suffer defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
But before the war began, Patton took another step to prepare for war.
When he was promoted and always being the man to never be complacent and to be “basic”, he got his pilot’s license, flew over his tanks and found ways to mobilize his tank division faster and more efficiently.
Preparation is KEY.
Preparation is key to negotiating, closing sales, and even WRITING COPY.
Go fourth and be magnificent.