A lesson from Lawrence of Arabia
We all have favourite scenes from movies. Some choose the restaurant orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, others the closing segment of Casablanca, still others might opt for the “Make’Em Laugh” number from Singing in the Rain or the “horse’s head” episode in The Godfather. My favourite scene happens to come from my all time favourite movie, Lawrence of Arabia.
Set during the First World War, it focuses on the efforts of T. E. Lawrence , played by Peter O’Toole, to organize the Arabs in the Middle East in an insurrection against their Turkish rulers. In the film, a key stumbling block is the inability of the British to secure a port to land artillery for the Arabs – all of the ports are held by the Turks and heavily fortified for any attack from the sea.
Lawrence proposes an alternative course of action – attacking the port of Aqaba from the land, where there are no defences except the vast Nefud Desert, considered impassable even by locals.
Refusing to be discouraged, Lawrence sets out for the twenty day journey across the blazing desert with a group of Bedouin warriors led by Sherif Ali (played by Omar Sharif). There are long periods in which the blazing sun beats down on the intrepid travelers, out of water and barely able to stay on their camels. Just as they reach the other side and are starting to celebrate their successful crossing, they discover that one of the Bedouin warriors has fallen off his camel and been left behind, doomed to certain death.
Lawrence determines to return in search of the missing warrior – Omar Sharif is enraged, shouting that both Lawrence and the missing Arab will be lost and asserting that his colleague’s death “is written”.
Lawrence sets out regardless, finds the missing warrior and returns with him to the campsite. As they arrive to ecstatic cheers, Omar Sharif walks up to O’Toole with his canteen. Before taking his first sip of water, O’Toole looks at Sharif and utters the words “Nothing is written”. Over the campfire that night, Sharif turns to the Arab beside him and speaks the immortal line – ”Truly, for some men, all that is written is what they write themselves”.
In markets such as the ones we’ve seen of late, it’s easy for advisors to become discouraged by the unfairness of it all – and if we’re not careful we can slip into feeling sorry for ourselves and the “woe is me” mindset of victimhood.
There are many times when it would be easy to fall into this trap – when markets are in turmoil, when we lose a key client because his brother in law’s broker went to cash last fall, when what was supposed to be a safe investment craters or when a prospect we’ve been cultivating for years has his daughter marry a financial advisor at another firm and gives him the account that we’ve been banking on.
When we run into this kind of adversity, remember the line from Lawrence of Arabia: While all of us will suffer from occasional reverses and unkind markets, in the long run we truly are in control of our future – just as long as we, like Lawrence, believe that we are indeed masters of our destiny and ultimate success.
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