Last night Dan and I saw the movie “Dunkirk.”
Intense!
It’s a war movie directed by Christopher Nolan — same director who brought us Momento, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and The Prestige.
Based on a true story, the film recounts how Germany invaded France.
For the troops in the story, shit just got worse and worse as every second passed by!
The ominous “enemy” was constantly present.
It’s the ultimate tale of “Never quit… never give up.”
I won’t give away any spoilers…but if you ever think you’re having a bad day, go watch Dunkirk. It will vaporize all your trifling complaints with life instantly!
The film has grossed over $392 million, above and beyond the $100 million production budget.
“Nolan wrote the script, told from three perspectives – land, sea, and air – with little dialogue and intended to create suspense through visuals and music,” says Wikipedia.
It worked. The film brought to life that intense period known as World War II!
I was telling Dan how Nazi Germany was my always favorite period in history to study. As a high school and college student, I was intrigued by how millions of people allowed themselves to be hypnotized into complacency.
Atrocities were “normalized” every single day.
Actions that made zero sense were glorified and looked upon as “right.”
It was perhaps the biggest overt mass display of humans acting like “sheep” in the history of our existence.
Today, the same thing happens but in more subtle (covert) ways.
I’ve observed certain industries doing the same exact thing — taking part in crimes against humanity — by selling toxic products. Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Chemical are the top three worst offenders. They’ve built up armies of apologists who say, “It’s not that bad.”
Once again, shit that doesn’t make any sense gets normalized and glorified.
Those who speak out are ridiculed and sometimes silenced.
But you know who the biggest “enemy” is? It’s the internal voice in each of us that rationalizes why it’s OK to quit.
Back in 2011, two brothers — Ryan Richardson and David Richardson — actually challenged the status quo.
Or at least, they started to… until they gave up.
They launched a Kickstarter to fund their documentary-in-production, titled “One More Girl.” The film would expose how the pharmaceutical giant Merck pushed its toxic HPV vaccine (Gardasil) onto teenage girls…resulting in tens of thousands of injuries and even deaths.
Merck’s marketing campaign was called “One Less Girl,” and it promised to eradicate cervical cancer, if only girls injected themselves with the HPV vaccine. Ridiculous.
Aiming to expose how this product was injuring and killing girls who’d taken it, the Richardson brothers raised $42K to fund their documentary.
…But their project never got finished.
They created some damn good trailers, and got high-quality whistleblower type interviews!
Six years later, in 2017, there’s no trace of the Richardson brothers. They gave up… vanished… they stopped giving their Kickstarter backers any updates.
It wasn’t even Big Pharma that stopped them. The aspiring documentary makers let the internal “enemy” win them over.
Sadly, that same voice of complacency threatens countless business owners today.
(It’s the voice that says things like, “Don’t build your email list… just post some inspirational bullshit on Facebook…”)
“Dunkirk” is an example of a massive project that successfully got finished. Filming began in May 2016 and ended in September that same year.
Post-production followed. The film was released less than a year later — July 2017. Gross earnings are almost four times what the project cost.
The project had a good leader, surrounded by people who were focused and got the job done. They refused to quit! They didn’t give up… they brought their vision to life.
Michelle
Anti-Marketing Manifesto
P.S. If you sell a HEALTHY, non-toxic product, now’s the time to anti-market the hell out of it!
Don’t wait!
Don’t let the “enemy” (from within) conquer you.
No one else will do your job for you.
If you died tomorrow, would you be satisfied with what you were able to achieve in your business?
Michelle Lopez Boggs is a copywriter, copywriting mentor, and author of "The Anti-Marketing Manifesto: How to Sell Without Being a Sellout." She's helped her clients sell millions of dollars' worth of products and services online by using the MEI(S) principle — motivate, educate, and inspire, and sell. 