"When he's in a dangerous situation, he never stands up there all full of bravado," Meuhlhausen says of Jones. "You get that he has this fear, yet he goes through with it anyway, which is very entrepreneurial. It's not that we don't see fear. It's that we understand that failure is part of being an entrepreneur. We have to take those risks. We can be fearful, but that's what we have to do as entrepreneurs. We have to go for it anyway."
Think Outside the Ark
If there's one thing about Indiana Jones that any business owner can relate to, it's the idea that, no matter how well you prepare, sometimes trouble just finds you. But the real lesson is in his unrivaled ability to get out of that trouble, often using the road less traveled.
"There's the old saying that the fastest way between two points is a straight line," Stevens says. "The knee-jerk reaction is to find that straight line to get out of it. But what the smart entrepreneur recognizes is that the straight line is not the solution. People expect you to take the straight line, so the people who are lined up to cause you problems anticipate the move you're going to make and have already planned out how to block you.
"The ability to do something someone doesn't expect you to do is extremely powerful. Do something your opponents don't expect, putting them back on their heels, and when you do so, you're able to achieve something that you could not achieve if you followed the tried and true."
Never Forget Your Hat
Even when it looks like some ancient booby trap is about to cost Indy his head, he never leaves without his hat. It's what we identify him with, the sort of trademark any business owner should strive to maintain.
Entrepreneur.com
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