The Movie Star Entrepreneur

Today, I’m testing out a multi-camera shot, editing in Adobe Premiere CS5.5, here in San Diego.

Here is the end result:

Another test around Petco Park

There is a great ad campaign put together by Louis Vuitton where Bono is in Africa.

It creates a feel of a world traveler who goes to exotic places to make a difference.

The photo was shot by legendary photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

Since I’m often trying to brand myself, in my business, as a person with the freedom to travel, I have wanted to recreate this ad.

For my purposes, however, I have to do it creatively, within my budget (I can’t fly to Africa with a legendary photographer, on a whim…yet), so I digitally create images with a similar feel to the ad I enjoy.

I went with a mountain theme.

I simply did this by purchasing the image of the helicopter in the mountains, and then purchased a photo of a model carrying what looks like a Louis Vuitton bag.

I then took this photo of myself:

I simply cut the model out of the image, along with the surrounding background from that image, and inserted myself into the image.

I then color corrected it all to match.

It’s true.  Internet entrepreneurs do have groupies.

Let me explain…

I make a lot of fun photos that recreate ads I see in GQ or Esquire, or things that recreate scenes I enjoy from movies.

More and more, I get people who email or Facebook me to show me photos they created for themselves based on photos I’ve done.

The other night, I had some college girls looking through my photos and playfully recreating a couple.

This one, for instance…

…became this:

Then this photo….

…turned into this:

Okay, so it was possibly a bit more mocking, than emulation…

However, it gave me an idea.

I truly believe that every entrepreneur should learn Photoshop at a reasonable level.

When I think of an idea for an image that will brand me in a certain way, I can create it within the hour.

I don’t need to hire a photographer, photo editor, or anything else.

Everything I do are things anyone could easily do.

The other day, I had posted this photo:

I had taken a headshot and merged my head onto the body that I desire.

It caused other people to want to do the same thing, since it works perfectly as a vision board photo.

You can see all the comments on the photo by Clicking Here.

I had one person who took initiative and make his own vision photo (or whatever you want to call them).

His name is Daiyaan Ghani, and he put himself on the cover of Men’s Health:

I think it’s great.

If any of you create photos based on photos I’ve done, message them to me on Facebook.

I’ll post them here to the blog, and link to you.

I’m a big fan of visualizing who I intend to be.

Over the years, I’ve refined my approach to such a degree, that I often have a delusional belief that I have already achieved what I intend to achieve, before I’ve achieved it.

So be it.

I started this back in high school when my goal was to be a state track & field champion back in Wisconsin.

I simply wrote the times down that I knew would help me achieve that goal, as well as putting images of other people who had achieved that goal on the board.

Mostly though, I trained in the way that I knew people before me had trained to achieve that goal.

Visualization without the effort is simply mental masturbation.

It feels good, but you’re not getting laid.

I ended up achieving that goal of being a state champion…two times, in fact.

In 1995 I was the Wisconsin State Track & Field Champion in the Mile & 2 Mile.

My Mile (actually 1600m) personal best was 4:19.

The Two Mile (actually 3200m) personal best was 9:33.

[Editors Note:  A mile is actually 1609 meters and two mile is 3218 meters.  In high school we generally shorten that to 1600 meters and 3200 meters since the track is 400 meters.  Four laps for 1600 meters, and 8 laps for 3200 meters.]

Here is the state mile.  It took 4:22 to win on that day.  Championship races are generally strategic, rather than all out efforts for the best time.  It’s about winning at all costs, no matter what the end time.

I start out in the first lane in purple and white (Chetek Bulldogs), since I was the #1 seed coming into the race:

Moments like that, when you learn that you can win at a high level, propel you forward.

Since that moment, and the following day when I won the 2 mile, I’ve never second guessed my abilities.

I’ve now gone on to be trained by a world record holder, two Olympians, and a Navy SEAL (the same guy who trained several of the guys on SEAL Team Six, who killed Bin Laden…if you want to see a chat between he and I, directly following the death of Bin Laden, you may Click Here.)

Now I break my big goals into many smaller goals.

For body composition and fitness I generally find the type of body I want, cut the person’s head out of it, and put mine in.

Then I add some wording to fit the goal I desire, and word it as if it already happened.

Here, again, is my recent vision photo that I posted to Facebook:

I simply found a photo of a guy on the beach as you see, except with his head on his body. I then took about 10 photos of my head to get the right angle that would fit well on his body. I then cut his head out, put mine on with some adjustments, then shaded everything so our skin tones matched.

Of course, it helps if you’re reasonably close to the body composition of the model.

Otherwise your face may be fat on a tiny body…although the liquify tool can easily take some pounds off your cheeks and chin.

It’s done for movie stars all the time, and since I’m all about being the movie star of the entrepreneurial world, a “Movie Star Entrepreneur”, I welcome any techniques that the movie stars use to look better in order to gain a bigger following.

However, I didn’t do any of that for this photo.

Plus it’s easier for your mind to believe, when it’s not a drastic change.

Incremental steps word wonders…baby steps.

In the movie, “The Secret”, John Assaraf” had used a vision board to achieve his goals.

Here he is on Larry King Live, explaining his vision board:

I just finished up creating his launch videos for a new product he’s launching, so I felt it was appropriate to share my concept of a vision board with my Facebook friends, and now on here.

I enjoy the concept of a vision board.  I just take the concept a step further.

Instead of just finding pictures of a nice house, cars, idea spouse, etc., I insert myself into them in a realistic manner.

The photo above of what I want my body to look like, is seamless.

Even for me, it’s impossible for my mind to tell that my body doesn’t look exactly like that…until I look in the mirror.  I’ve got some fat to lose, but it’s well within a reasonable range to do with my body type within six month…plus I’ve been there before in my running days, so I don’t have to wonder what I could look like.

I know.

“The guys who made this video should work for ex-lax, because this video scared the sh&t out of me.”

That comment I wrote a few days ago on a Washington Post article, helped me realize the strategy I’m posting about here.

Facebook is beginning to integrate more and more services into it’s social platform.

The music service Spotify has been a great integration that allows us to see what friends are listening to, and then click play to listen to the songs they are listening to.  It’s a serendipitous discovery of music.

I’ve also enjoyed seeing what news articles my friends are reading.

What I’ve discovered is that by commenting on those articles, with a unique perspective, allows other people to discover who you are.

For instance, I commented on a Mashable article in The Washington Post reader about the viral phenomenon, “Lollipop”.

You can Click Here to read about it.

I commented the following:

As of this writing it’s had 56 likes, as you can see below, along with one comment from a Harvard girl, who I am trying to assure that the video will not be as scary as described.

Also, you’ll see that people can subscribe to me, or go to my fan page where it says, “MARS at The Movie Star Entrepreneur“.

Since my fan page has a catchy name, it causes people to want to click.

These articles get a lot of viewers, significant numbers of people can discover who you are.

Try it.

Comment at The Movie Star Entrepreneur fan page with your results.