An Ode to Fight Club, the Greatest Network Marketing Movie Ever
“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” – Tyler Durden, Fight Club (1999)
I believe that ‘Fight Club’ is actually one of the most influential movies of all time. In my life (granted, only 29 years so far), I’ve never seen a movie that had quite the effect that Fight Club had on the mass population. Fight Club was more than just a movie, it was a revolution in thinking, a change of perspective from the menial existence lived by 99% of the world, a realization that there is more in life than just putting on a suit and showing up to a bull-shit job – a notion that, if we can do nothing else about it – at least we can fight.
“Fuck off with your sofa units and string green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let… lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.” – Tyler Durden
While most of the time, movies are fun to watch, you go, get pumped, and go home dreaming of giant blue creatures from another world, Fight Club did something different entirely – thousands of real fight clubs broke out in every high school in North America, thousands of colleges around the world, it became a hidden secret that was whispered about in classrooms and hidden from bosses at work.
People would join these clubs, and after work they would meet up and kick the crap out of each other, and they loved it. (I know, a bit odd).
Fight Club, however, was more than just a violent movie, and it was more than just a message of inspirational dissatisfaction, and it did more than inspire teenagers to knock each other’s teeth out in search of enlightenment.
The underlying message of the Movie is that it is the SYSTEM itself that is causing the pain and mediocrity that we are forced to live in day by day, and that you can do something about it.
After a while in the movie, the first Fight Club turned into a chain that spread across North America, and the message changed from a secret society of people who liked to beat the crap out of each other, to the fight Clubs across the country forging another sect called ‘Project Mayhem’.
“Fight Club was the beginning, now it’s moved out of the basement, it’s called Project Mayhem.” Tyler Durden
Project Mayhem seemed to the skeptical eye to be a radical group of right wing terrorists (this movie probably wouldn’t be allowed to release in today’s environment – this was pre-9/11, pre-patriot act, etc). However, the ultimate goal of Project Mayhem wasn’t just to break things, cause havoc, and kill people – the goal was to speed up the downfall of a corrupt system of economics and re-set the system to begin again. (something that will have to happen anyways eventually, more on that later)
Awesome. Of course, I’m not advocating blowing up stuff as a superior method of getting things done to peaceful action, (it’s not), but the philosophy and idea of this was awesome.
They blew up the credit card buildings (not the cause of the problem, a symptom, more in a sec) and thus deleted the financial records of the modern economic complex.
Of course, the real problem is much bigger, but look at what’s happened since that movie – a real terrorist strike on the twin towers on 9/11, 2 wars that are both endless and pointless, the collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the federalization of Wall-Street, billions of dollars in bailouts, the Real Estate collapse both commercial and residential (Commercial has really just started), the printing of TRILLIONS of dollars, and an undertone of dissatisfaction that everyone feels and barely anyone knows why.
The Fight Club solution? Beat the crap out of each other and blow stuff up:
The ‘cool’ part about it was, their vandalism was non-violent, they evacuated the buildings before blowing them up, because their gripe was against the institution, not against any one person.
I started thinking about Fight Club the other day after reading a post by Mark Joyner about the Federal Reserve System, and I realized the inherent, real problem that is the root cause for our ‘financial’ inspirational dissatisfaction IS the system itself, I thought this video explained a concept that I always ‘sort of’ understood, but never really grasped entirely until I watched these two videos:
(Editor note: videos no longer available, sorry)
Video #1: How inflation is caused by our current system, and why it couldn’t be any other way, unless it was changed:
Video #2: The exact process wherein money is created in our current financial system, and why it is impossible to ever get out of debt unless the system is changed:
This was a huge revelation to me to discover, that not only is our government spending more money every year due to fiscal irresponsibility, but that it couldn’t be any other way under our current financial model. (Worth re-reading and re-watching the videos if you don’t understand why)
The solution? Well, I have a couple of thoughts (and then back to Fight Club)
1. Realize, that right now – it is what it is, and make as much money as possible. History favors those who adapt to change, and right now BECAUSE of this problem, there’s a tremendous opportunity to create and amass a ridiculous amount of wealth if you understand the game that must be played, and learn to play it well.
2. Re-set the system and start from scratch. This is where Fight Club comes in. (Re-watch video #1). Lol – now don’t go and blow up the Federal Reserve, it won’t work because a) You’ll either die or go to jail. b) You won’t succeed anyways for a lot of reasons and c) You’ll make all of the people who are attempting to peacefully resolve this look like right wing terrorists in the eyes of the masses, which would increase the size of Government, not reduce it.
HOWEVER, it’s worth a couple of special notes to praise the movie Fight Club for a few reasons:
1. There’s never been a movie that has started an actual movement like Fight Club did. Sure, the majority of the movement is dead 12 years later, but during it’s prime, I would guess there was at least 15,000 fight clubs in North America alone, completely inspired by this one movie. (There were five of them in my High School in a town with only 29,000 people)
2. That movie, as ‘slightly off‘ as the message may have been, highlighted something that has now caused the federalization and destruction of the pre 2008 financial markets, and also highlighted, though in a way that wouldn’t work, a solution – which is to re-set the system and start from scratch.
3. Fight Club is the greatest Network Marketing movie of all time. Tyler Durden started with one Fight Club that no one knew about, and started a movement that swept North America, an imagined movement that was partially reflected in the reality of the ACTUAL fight clubs that were created after it was made.
What if YOU could create, not just a business, but a movement to enact change across the world? THAT is what both Fight Club, and Network Marketing is all about – creating something who’s end result is greater than the sum total of it’s parts through synergy of the masses.
I challenge you to do something great – not just for the sake of living your dreams, but for the sake of creating something both new and fresh in the world, an inspiration to the masses that is reflected in an actual change in reality.
Thus is finished my ‘Ode to Fight Club’, the greatest Network Marketing movie in History. Watch this, and go out and kick some prospecting ass:
“It’s getting exciting now, two and one-half. Think of everything we’ve accomplished, man. Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium.” – Tyler Durden
Lol.
To the TOP,
David Wood
P.S. I’m in Vegas now and am probably going to have a few people over to my suite tonight to hang out and talk marketing strategy – nothing formal. If you want to come by, email me or give me a call.
Comments
Amy Findley, January 16, 2013
What an awesome blog David! Now I got to go and see Fight Club lol! I’ve never actually seen it!
Saqib Khan, January 17, 2013
Hey Dave, how you doing buddy? 🙂 I never really thought of the movie in that sense when I first watched it. Then again that was a few years ago so I don’t really blame myself LOL but still you raised some really valid points in this post especially about it being the “greatest network marketing movie ever”. Thanks for all you do brother and keep rocking!
Suha Sagban Abouzeid, January 18, 2013
Wow, loved this post. What a perspective. I gotta watch the movie again now. Your perspective is so interesting. Our great war is definitely a spiritual one. If we sit back and see how beautiful and connected we are – all 6,948,967,040 of us and how love is what matters. Begin with yourself. How awesome is it that there is just one of us, I mean imagine if we had 2 David Woods woohoooo.
Greg Greer, January 19, 2013
Good job on this post! Glad you shared this.
Michael Smith, January 20, 2013
David, this model sounds very interesting and promising. I’ve been struggling with online marketing strategies, and this seems like a great way to generate leads. Do you have any recommendations for getting started with finding local clients?
Linda Thompson, January 21, 2013
This is a fantastic idea! I’ve been looking for ways to help small businesses in my area, and this seems like a perfect solution. Can you share some tips on building and ranking local websites effectively?
John Adams, January 22, 2013
Great post, David! The detailed explanation of the pay per call business model is very helpful. What are some common challenges people face when implementing this model, and how can they overcome them?
Emily Davis, January 23, 2013
Interesting read, David. I love the simplicity of this model. Just curious, do you think this model can be scaled up to target multiple niches and cities simultaneously?
