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Finding Motivation at the Movies

I am a dramatic movie lover. My favorite time of the year for movies is when all the dramatic big story movies hit the theaters. Unfortunately, there is not enough time to see them all. The best part of modern life is that I can get to see them at home at my leisure. For the past few weekends, I have been catching up on all that I missed in the theaters.

Why dramatic movies versus romantic comedies or action films? It is the depth of character and thought provoking plot that comes with these films. I find the stories inspirational and cannot help but see the value for workforce development in each of them. In workforce development land, we are always looking for stories to motivate people to pursue something bigger and better for themselves in life, the kind of stories that call people to keep on working towards their goals, even when the challenges are huge.

Now that I am all caught up, I wanted to share with you three movies you may have missed that offer great motivational stories.

Joy: The movie “Joy” was the story of the female entrepreneur and inventor Joy Mangano. The movie portrays the real life woman that not only invented multiple house hold products, but became a success at selling these products on the television channel QVC during the early days of the channel. The story also showcased her relationship with her family and the role they played in her early success and some failures along the way. This is great movie for any entrepreneur to show the amount of commitment that is necessary to get started in a business.

Concussion: Another movie based on real life, “Concussion” is the story of Dr. Bennett Omalu, an immigrant to the United States, and doctor that works as a forensic pathologist in Pittsburg, PA. This story portrayed a man passionate for his career and through his work discovered a link between brain trauma and playing professional football. His research ruffled feathers that lead to personal and professional challenges as he tried to educate the country and the National Football Association about the dangers of multiple concussions. 

Creed: This is a spin off story of a character from the Rocky film series that started in the 1970’s. “Creed” is the story of a young boxer that is the illegitimate son of Apollo Creed, a character from the original Rocky movies. This young boxer faces challenges of his own beyond boxing, including his personal background, that contribute to his desire to become a championship boxer. The rigid training schedule and the desire to continue on, even when things do not go your way is show cased. This movie also shows how networking can be a powerful tool and how important the people in your network are when looking for mentors for goal attainment.

Each of these movies represent people that may be similar to people seeking services of the workforce development system: working single mother and budding entrepreneur, the young man with a difficult early start, and the immigrant worker looking for success in America. Not only are these characters relatable to many, but the stories of hard work and perseverance in pursuit of a goal is front and center.

If anyone has seen any other movies lately that are inspirational stories, please feel free to share them. I welcome questions and comments. You can find me at kcirincione@gmail.com, on Linked in at www.LinkedIn.com/in/karenjcirincione, or on Twitter at @kcirincione. ~Karen Cirincione

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