Don’t Be Like Inigo Montoya

There was a time when that guy with the beard could have beaten The Dread Pirate Roberts, Fencik, the Six Fingered Man, Vizzini and Inigo Montoya with his eyes closed and his left hand. Hell, the only reason he wouldn’t use his right is because it is far too powerful and the battle would be over before it started. What kind of fun would that be.

Smarter men than him fell and women swooned not because he was so very talented or skilled but because he had the stunning combination of confidence, focus and fortitude.

He didn’t worry about succeeding because he knew that if he focused upon the challenges he would face he would come up with a way to overcome them. He also understood that some of them might take a little bit of time and that was ok. He was well versed in siege strategies and tactics. Shock and awe were also acceptable to him.

Neither one was in and of itself superior to the other. All he required was a brief moment to study the situation and apply the correct tactic for that particular situation.

The Trap

The bearded man couldn’t tell you when he fell into the trap or how it happened. All he could do was nod his head and admit that he had turned into Inigo Montoya. No, he didn’t become a Spaniard overnight because that doesn’t happen to anyone.

No sir, he lost his perspective and narrowed his focus. Damn if he didn’t start to mistake the forest for the trees. Instead of marking how far he had come he got caught up in what he hadn’t accomplished.

Think about it. Inigo Montoya watched the Six Fingered man murder his father. Instead of allowing that to crush him he became a master swordsman who had few if any peers.

Determined to avenge his father he searched all over for the Six Fingered man. Somewhere along the way he began to lose hope and the idea that he would actually catch the Six Fingered man turned into a dream. It was a fantasy that he didn’t really believe in. His confidence was shattered and he stopped being the capable man he had been and slipped into something less.

Failure Leads To Accomplishment

What Inigo and the bearded man lost sight of was that although failure may not be pleasant it can be the precursor to success both in the movies and real life. It doesn’t have to be the thing that crushes you and if you find a way to clear the fog and regain perspective you’ll often find that your skills are still there.

You may have lost a battle and fallen down. But neither one of those things means that the skills that you used to get where you once were can’t get you back and beyond.

Instead of getting lost in the clamor and clanging of defeat you can lose yourself in the echoes of the future. It took getting beaten for it to happen to Inigo, but it happened. He recovered and he found the Six Fingered man and we all know how that worked out.