Philip Anschutz, the American businessman with an estimated net worth of $7 billion, started in the oil business drilling his own wells. His first efforts in the 60s were unsuccessful, turning up one dry hole after another.

When he finally hit oil, everything looked great for a day... Then a crisis followed which he called “the most important single event” in his business career. One of his wells caught fire!

Anschutz heard that Universal Studios was making a movie starring John Wayne called Hellfighters about the legendary oil-field fire fighter, Red Adair (see picture right - Adair later put out the oil well fires in Kuwait during the Gulf War, 1991).

Anschutz persuaded Universal to pay $100,000 to film Adair putting out his well fire for their movie. The studio cut the check. Adair put the fire out. The footage is in the movie. Anschutz pocketed a profit and saved his business.

Now, why do you suppose Anschutz called it “the most important single event” in his business career? Here is more from him, “There’s always a point that if you go forward, you win — sometimes you win it all — and if you go back, you lose everything, and that was that point for me. ...You don’t learn that in school. You have to have the initiative, be able to be pragmatic and tenacious, seeing all of the opportunity that could exist.”

In my experience, this is exactly what separates people who play big from people who play small: Seeing all the opportunity that could exist. Like a well-executed Judo move, they take the force behind calamity and turn it to their advantage.