Turns out I’m quite the movie buff. I found this out when going to a dvd shop and walked down the aisle saying ‘wow this one is like the best movie of 2007′, ‘nah that one’s rubbish’, ‘average’, ‘great’… Until I realised there were only about 10 I hadn’t watched and they were either hard core action movies or ‘Bring it on 7′

But The three that have really stuck out for me recently as far as making me realise that building a business is really no big deal and I totally shouldn’t stress are:

1. Amazing Grace

Seriously. You think you’re addicted to your cause (your business?), you think you’ve mad sacrifices, lost friends and battled against overwhelming odds. Toughen up. It’s brilliantly made, totally inspirational and really drums home the fact that amazing feats only happen overnight after 10 years of trying. And when you feel overworked, ignored and like you are banging your head against a brick wall, compare it to these guys who didn’t even plan to make any money in the end.

I reckon it was the best movie I’ve seen since The Life of David Gale for the amount it totally floored me and how much time I have spent since then pondering it and how I can change my life to live by their principles.

2. The great debaters

I have done a little debating in my time and think it was responsible for opening my mind up to the world - when you have to negate ‘that gay couples should be allowed to adopt’ and your first reaction is to be ‘ok, lets just let the other team win’, you have to start really thinking wider and wider about how the world works.

This movie is set in the 1930’s in Southern America and is about a black debate team that ended up taking on Harvard. While this in no way offers any business lessons, the courage and determination displayed against such an overwhelming opposition (and I don’t mean Harvard) and all the different ways that different characters did what they had to do to wake up the next morning and know they were changing their world was powerful. The debates clearly centered around what would become the civil rights movement and were fascinating (if somewhat cheesy on occasion) and left me feeling that growing a successful business is a relatively mundane and easily achievable goal - which is a perspective I lack on occasion :)

3. Once

I LOVED this movie for slightly different reasons. It’s basically a soundtrack to a story and a super awesome idea for a couple of singer songwriters to get their music out there. In this day and age when everyone and their mum has a Myspace profile and is desperately trying to get famous, these guys made a beautiful, charming movie that had you so enthralled you didn’t even know that subliminally they were selling you music, until you arrive at a CD store and HAD to buy the CD (It helps that the songs were really good too). What a super awesome and original approach to marketing! I think they even won an Oscar or something in the end.

So go and buy hire or steal them if you need a little boost and a lot of inspiration… And feel free to share the movies that changed your life in some way last year…