Learning from Lawrence.

Last week saw the passing of Peter O’Toole, the audacious British actor perhaps best known for playing another audacious Brit, T. E. Lawrence — better known as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence led several hundred Bedouin tribesman to a victorious attack on the port town of Aqaba, where his small force killed or captured well over a thousand Turkish soldiers, losing only two men in the process. How? They came at Aqaba from the east, across hundreds of miles of desert deemed so inhospitable that the approach from that direction was left completely unguarded. How can you do this? What obstacle to serving customers in your industry is so unassailable that everyone assumes it can’t be overcome. What are you willing to do to prove them wrong? There’s an enormous victory in the answer.