The Zen of Presentations, Part 32: If it bleeds...

You have a big presentation coming up, and you need something to help get yourself in the right mental zone. Something to bring up your “Grrrrrrr!” factor.

Buy or rent Predator.

The movie has a track record of making people achieve.

Case study #1. Two of the film’s stars have gone on to govern American states. Schwarzenegger in California, Ventura in Minnesota.

Case study #2. In 2000, the Essendon Bombers had the sort of year that sports teams dream about. They went an entire season all but undefeated, losing only one game and taking home the premiership. In 2001, they were having another fantastic start to their season and were widely tipped to go all the way to a second premiership.

Then, half-way through the season, they played the Brisbane Lions. The Bombers lost that game, the rest of the season was weakened, and they lost to the Lions again in the Grand Final. The advice coach Leigh Matthews gave to his players before the crucial first meeting?

He showed his team Predator and told them, “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”



Case study #3. In the back of the role-playing game supplement by Way of the Crab by author Rob Vaux wrote, “This book would never have been finished without the last 20 minutes of Predator.”

That’s one advantage of using a full laptop instead of a netbook: DVD drive so you can watch that last reel of Predator in the break before your talk.