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It's a movie about a traveling sales man lost in his own thoughts, and wandering an in a different world of cultural paradoxes looking for answers. 2016: A Hologram for the King – based on Dave Eggers's Novel loosely references the analogies to Samuel Beckett’s "Waiting for Godot" & Nicole Mones' "Lost in Translation"– Tom Hanks plays a failed businessman who travels to Saudi Arabia in order to close a major technology deal with the local aristocracy. Here's few notes,
- Always travel light on your "emotional" baggage.
- Its impossible to navigate a business in a culture you can't control.
- Selling illusions in the mirage-filled desert? -> Ref. selling ice to the Eskimos.
- Work hard, play harder!
- Showtime! Expect the unexpected.
- Like any illusion, reality will eventually blow it up too.
- Let us do something, while we have the chance!
- Go-getters need to accept despair and hope, anxiety and optimism.
- Every salesman struggles painfully against the tide.
- Everyone struggles for equilibrium between optimism and angst.
- Every "breakthrough" begins with a "breakdown".
- Can a fish learn to breathe "air". Learn to live off your comfort zones.
- A man's shoes says a lot about him. (Ref. Forrest Grump)
- Paradoxes everywhere!
- Rebuild your life.
- Refuse to give up.
- Don't surrender your can-do attitude!
- The real failure to see the big picture.
- There is competition, everywhere!
- You don't need to salvage your future by submission.
- Biggest sales lesson - Be relentless in your pursuit. Don't take NO for an answer.
Emptying your shoes, selling holograms in a mirage-laden dessert, a metaphorical bump on the back, a paradox culture-shift, all just points – Life's really nothing! We create what we project. Accept that honest truth, and live every moment.