Look, I know this will ruffle some feathers, but there is an important lesson in here and one worth putting up with some discomfort to understand.
During a history class in high school, they were studying World War II his history teacher asked my friend for his opinion on Hitler. His response was “he’s a very good orator, an extremely effective politician and he has done more to shape the 20th century than most other leaders.”
To be fair – you could say all of those things about Hitler, he used all of those things to achieve ends considered evil. My friend was told his opinion was “wrong.” The teacher was looking for some sort of moral judgment against Hitler. In touchy cases separating facts from emotion are is very hard.
I will add that Hitler was so DUMB that he tried to invade Russia in the winter just like Napoleon did 100 and some years before. (Doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result)
I personally find the taking of life for any reason morally wrong (extending all the way to animals – if you can’t kill it, you shouldn’t eat it). But all are entitled to their opinions no matter how wrong I think they are.
That is a long way to go but we are headed to where this gets interesting. I was reading an article about marketing and Mien Kamph and before we go getting all upset again, this guy has sold $50 million in mail order/ direct response marketing and probably done it in mostly chunks between $40 and $297. So his ideas are worth listening to.
So he’d done a whole lot of analysis of Mien Kamph as a sales letter for Nazism. And it’s actually very effective one at that (proving this copywriting stuff is merely a tool – it’s up to you to do ‘good’ with it). It puts forward a philosophy. It reasons out why that philosophy is the best way to make the world a better place. And it articulates how to bring that philosophy into reality.
Hitler wrote that book in jail – where he and the space to think and write. Interestingly Jordan Belfort would have probably remained footnote in Wall St history, if not for sharing a cell with Tommy Chong (Cheech and Chong) who told him “he gotta write this down.” Belfort actually learned to write in prison. He wrote the book after his serving his time.
Hitler afforded the time to think, actually wrote Mien Kumph in prison.
He actually says in the pre-face if he was never incarcerated he would never have had the time and space to think before he could ever put pen to paper.
There is real value in sitting down and figuring out ‘where next’ The most valuable time you could spend is getting clear of the day-to-day distractions. Turn off go outside and just think for a few days. It might be the most valuable time this year.
Go on get outta here.