Movies have the power to challenge our limits, push our understandings, and invoke powerful emotions. In short: I think movies can help you become a better entrepreneur!
Entrepreneurship is one of the more budding industries, but also so, many people leave the wagon quickly. There are many rough patches along the way and many just want to give up when it gets too tough. But I believe that perseverance does pay off in the long run. All you need is a change in perspective and a desire to achieve what you want to achieve. And a great way to get into that motivated mindset is with a motivational movie! You are going to need daily motivation to help you overcome all of the obstacles you will face in this line of work. And sometimes, it just gets so hard to even finish off a single day. That’s when you need inspiration. Movies have been, and still are, a source of inspiration for many. Movies have the power to challenge our limits, push our understandings, and invoke powerful emotions. In short: I think movies can help you become a better entrepreneur!
1. Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
Pirates of Silicon Valley is another well-crafted movie covering the successes of Bill Gates’s Microsoft and Steve Jobs’s Apple.
Both were no doubt “great pirates” and this movie does a great job of detailing that. The movie is a take on the rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates from the very early days.
Noah Wyle did a great job of portraying young Steve Jobs in this made-for-television movie.
2. Forrest Gump (1994)
Forrest Gump (starring Tom Hanks in the title role) covers the gamut of human issues, from love to war, from success to failure, from life to death. Watching it will give you a new lens through which to view culturally accepted norms. Forrest is – in his words – a “simple man” with good intentions; he just happens to become phenomenally successful simply by saying yes to new opportunities. Over the course of the story, he is given medals by the military, wins a college football championship, becomes an international ping-pong player, runs across the United States (twice), builds a shrimp company and inspires people nationwide. Forrest Gump will inspire you to overcome the odds, maintain an optimistic outlook no matter your circumstances, treat others with the respect they deserve, and prioritize what matter in your life. And maybe, just maybe, you can become a professional ping-pong player too.
3. Moneyball (2011)
This movie is about the Oakland Athletics and its general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). The team is an underdog and is losing a lot of money. All of their star players have been picked up by bigger teams. Now, Billy needs to look at how to create a winning team without the kind of talent that money can buy.
This movie shows how entrepreneurs can take an innovative approach to an existing way of doing business, and beat out the competition with little to no money.
4. Wall Street (1987)
This a movie about business and greed. The story is about an ambitious young stockbroker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen). He has and does everything in his power to succeed, even if that means a little insider trading. Insider trading is a highly reprehensible and punishable crime, and yet, he has no fear. He meets with Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) and starts doing business with the motto “greed is good”. You don’t have to succumb to greed to draw inspiration from this movie.
5. Jerry McGuire (1996)
This is a classic movie (based on a true story) that shows just what it takes to stay at the top. The protagonist (Tom Cruise) is faced with rejection and people keep turning their backs on him while he takes big leaps of faith. Slowly, he identifies the best road for him to follow, and ultimately ends up being successful in both business and life.
Jerry shows that, against all the odds, success can be driven by values and virtue. With only two people on his side, we see how the little guy can succeed when his abilities are put to the test. In Jerry Maguire, the title character, played by Tom Cruise, has everything a man could want: a beautiful fiancé, a budding career, and great friends. But one day, he realizes that sports agents should not be all about just getting money; instead, they should be genuinely caring for their clients. His epiphany leads him to write a heartfelt memo and send it out to the whole company – which results in him getting fired. Like Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happyness, Jerry loses everything. Instead of giving up, he embarks on a new journey towards success. Jerry Maguire is an inspirational story of loyalty, principle and success that will cause you to redefine success for yourself and to take a stand for what you believe in. As a bonus, it has a mushy love story as a subplot.
6. The Founder 2016
This movie tells the story of two brothers, Richard and Maurice McDonald, who started a burger stand that eventually became the McDonald's fast-food chain that dots almost every highway in the United States. But it didn't grow that big by chance -- it grew because Ray Kroc partnered with the brothers to open franchises, grew unsatisfied with his contract, and eventually bought out the McDonald brothers to grow the business and become a multi-millionaire. While this movie doesn't leave you exactly rooting for its main character, it tells the story of how a simple idea for a product sold at a fair price can explode with popularity. (It also teaches a good lesson about contract negotiating with any partners you go into business with.)
7. The Aviator 2004
Howard Hughes was the famous director, aviator, and inventor from the 1920s through the mid-1940s. In The Aviator, Leonardo DiCaprio fully portrays Hughes’ delusion, inventiveness, self-confidence, narcissism, and courage. Many movies on entrepreneurs barely depict the lows in favor of showing all of the highs; The Aviator takes a long, lasting look at the private struggles behind even the most famous, successful entrepreneurs. Defiant to the very last, Hughes stood by his entrepreneurial pursuits. When his life’s work, the Hercules airplane, looked as if it might not work, he said, “If the Hercules does not fly, I will leave America and never come back again.”
8. The Company Men (2010)
Company Men begins with a focus on Bobby Walker (played by Ben Affleck), who is a young hotshot executive at a company named General Transportation Systems. Then the Great Recession hits, and Bobby is laid off. The layoffs also hit his colleagues, Phil (played by Chris Cooper) and Gene (played by Tommy Lee Jones). All three struggle with their promising careers coming to a sudden conclusion. They are forced to redefine the values behind how they live their lives as they try to find work in a post-career world. One of the great lessons from this movie is that adaptability – especially in the current career climate – is vital for sustained career success. Without it, you are one round of layoffs away from the unemployment line. If your promising corporate career did not turn out how you thought it would, then this is the movie for you.
9. The Billionaire (2011)
Age 16, TOP gained 400,000 Baht monthly from playing online games. Age 17, He was willing to fail school and instead earned money from selling chestnuts for 2,000 baht. Age 18, His family went bankrupt and remained 40 million Baht in debt. Age 19, He released Tao Kae Noi seaweed to more than 3,000 branches at 7-Eleven. At this present, Top is a 26-year-old businessman, the owner of the bestselling seaweed in Thailand. He owns 85 percent of the market share which is equivalent to 800 million Baht a year, and has 2,000 employees in his company. The Billionaire will let you get to know Top Ittipat in details about how he turned himself from an online game addict whom always got disparaged by teachers, to a famous young billionaire. How did he raise himself up to this position? Surely, everyone desires to get rich, yet not everyone dares to succeed like him. Find the answers that have made Top become a billionaire, while you still can.
10. Adidas Vs. Puma: The Brother's Feud (2016)
In the 1920s the two brothers Adolf and Rudolf Dassler start manufacturing sport shoes. Adolf is a talented craftsman and his dream is that one day all the best sportsmen in the world will wear his shoes. Rudolf on the other hand is the economical brain of their business, handling sales and marketing. After World War II, they continue producing shoes but the relationship between the two brothers starts to deteriorate. Both of them claim the company to be theirs, leading to an ever growing rivalry. A rivalry still existing today, represented by two of the most popular sports brands.
11. Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
In 1961, P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books, is persuaded to travel to Hollywood to meet with Walt Disney to discuss leasing him the rights to the books for a planned film adaptation. Travers deplores the idea but does so out of financial necessity. Once in America, she abhors the culture around her and dismisses Disney’s efforts to charm her. In the meetings with screenwriter Don DaGradi and the Sherman Brothers who will write the songs, she disapproves of just about every aspect of the proposed film. This leaves Disney and the rest of the team tearing their hair out in frustration. Through the process, Mrs Travers remembers back to her own childhood growing up in Australia and the difficult relationship she had with her father and his problems with alcohol.
12. Jobs (2013)
Ashton Kutcher is Steve Jobs, the iconic Apple innovator, and groundbreaking entrepreneur, in this epic story of how one person blazed a trail that changed technology - and the world - forever.
13. Billions (Tv serial)
What happens when two voracious power players at the top of their fields go head to head? Brilliant hedge fund titan Bobby "Axe" Axelrod and brash U.S. District Attorney Chuck Rhoades play a dangerous, winner-take-all game of cat and mouse where the stakes run into ten figures. Both are ultimately forced to answer the question: what is a power worth?
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