The Movie Scene That Explains My Approach to Everything

Back in 2000, I went to a Microsoft conference with my dad. It was promoting the new Office 2000 that had just come out. I was 14 years old and worked doing IT for my dad’s CPA firm. There was a Microsoft employee there dressed in a giant Clippy outfit. It was a different time.

At the conference, they played this clip from the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

This scene has become the most influential movie scene in my life. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of my favorite films. It was one of the only non-English films ever to be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards. While this is common in these days of Hollywood’s collapse, it was very rare in 2000. It lost to Gladiator.

In the movie, a young woman (Jen Yu) steals the magic sword, Green Destiny. She is a journeyman-level sword fighter, and in the above scene, she fights a master sword fighter (Yu Shu Lien).

The movie isn’t about the sword but about Jen Yu’s soul. Can she forsake the evil in her heart, or will it master her?

In the fight scene, Jen Yu keeps winning, not because she is the better fighter, but because her sword keeps breaking all the weapons Yu Shu Lien uses. Eventually, Yu Shu Lien wins anyway with a broken sword, and Jen Yu cheats, breaks the code of honor, and runs away.

Yu Shu Lien doesn’t need a magic sword to be good. Why? Because she put in the hard work to become good with all of the weapons in the dojo. As each weapon fails, she switches to the next weapon and uses it masterfully.

Eventually, at the end of the movie, Sword Master Li Mu Bai (the rightful owner of the Green Destiny) defeats Jen Yu with just a blade of straw.

I remember wanting to be like Yu Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai. I wanted to master all the weapons and not rely on shortcuts and cheap tricks. This encouraged me to pursue curiosity and fueled my hunger to learn.

We are tempted to be like Jen Yu when learning something new. We want a magic shortcut that will give us the power of a master sword fighter without having to sacrifice or humble ourselves or work hard. Once we find a way that works, we stop learning and start looking for other ways that might work better.

For many authors, once they taste success, they become unteachable. They stop attending conferences, reading books, and paying for courses. But not all. I’ve had the opportunity to get to know many of the top authors in this business, and one of the things they all have in common is that they are all like Yu Shu Lien. They are still hungry to learn and willing to learn from anyone who has something to teach them.

This is part of the reason I’ve been forcing myself to really study AI. I’m building all these tools to help authors. But I’m also using those tools to force myself to master this new technology.

Yu Shu Lien explains my approach to the 5 Year Plan. In that course, @James L. Rubart and I teach both writing by the seat of your pants and writing from an outline. We teach both indie and traditional publishing. We encourage our students to write short stories in genres they will never publish in. The goal is to create true masters like Yu Shu Lien, not shortcut users like Jen Yu.

This is why I think all authors should write at least one mystery early in their careers. It’s why I will have people on my podcasts from schools of thought that disagree with each other. It’s why I have an episode called How to Market a Book Series and an episode called Stop Writing Book Series. It’s why I often approach things in terms of pros and cons.

While developing the Novel Marketing Method, I’m realizing it is more of a philosophy than a step-by-step approach. Following a rigid set of steps is relying on Green Destiny. Mastering all the weapons means understanding the why behind the steps so you can determine if they work for you and if they will work right now.

This is why I encourage you to Find Your Own Timothy, so you can filter general advice past your specific target reader. This is also why I spend so much time talking about marketing psychology.

Once you learn a way to do something, stay curious. Stay teachable. If you keep learning, you may find even better ways to do that same thing. Or the one way may stop working.

For example. Launch Rewards have done in and out of fashion two or three times over the last 15 years. For people who understand the philosophy behind a good launch reward, it can be a very powerful technique. But for the shortcut chasters, it’s a magic sword in a beginner's hand. They don’t know why it’s not working for them, so they claim the tactic won’t work for anyone.

Once you fully understand what you are doing, you can win with a single blade of straw.