The new movie about Julia Child’s life and a 30-something woman trying to cook her way through her entire cookbook in 365 days (while blogging about it) has not received great reviews from “real” movie reviewers. However, as a movie about what it takes to succeed in business, it was refreshing.

I left the movie feeling charged up and grateful to be doing what I love for a living while making a good living at it. Here are some of the reminders about business that you can learn when you see Meryl Streep’s and Amy Adams’ fine performances:  

One: Never forget the joy and passion that initially caused you to start your business. Amy Adams’ character Julie is unfulfilled in her job, and takes on her cooking/blogging project as a way to build on the two things she knows she loves (cooking and writing). Julia Child is an unemployed diplomat’s wife in France, and tries hat making and bridge lessons to no avail before discovering that cooking (and eating) is the thing she loves more than any other activity. This joy and this passion keep both going. 

Two: Success is never, ever guaranteed, but if you keep moving forward, you build up momentum until you are more likely to reach a tipping point. Early on, Julie writes in her blog that she wonders if anyone is reading it, and her mother posts a comment that she is probably the only person in the world who will ever read her blog. A reporter for The Christian Science Monitor promises to interview Julie along with a famous food personality, and they cancel at the last minute. It is only with around 15 days left in her project that a New York Times writer does a story on Julie that causes huge media attention and an eventual book/movie deal. 

Meanwhile, Julia Child faces ridicule from the President of Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, spends eight years of her life writing a cookbook only to have to rewrite it for an interested publisher (who rejects it a second time), and constantly worries that her passion will have been nothing but “something to do.” It is only through a few kind and supportive friends, her persistence, and her incredibly positive attitude that she finally gets published – and then the rest is history. But it almost never was! 

Three: It is very difficult to separate your business and your personal life. Julie has some big fights with her husband over her obsession with her project, and they nearly break up. Julia Child has a love affair with her husband throughout her life, and yet must deal with his frequent relocations (she has to type her book out on carbon paper and mail copies to her two collaborators after moving out of Paris). 

Four: Have courage. Julia frequently tells her audience to have courage. You have to have the courage to stab a lobster between the eyes, to point your knife at the duck you want to bone as if challenging it, and to have conviction when flipping a pan full of food in order to assure a successful flip. Julie also learns courage during the movie – the courage to finish something for once in her life, and the courage to live up to her full potential. You can’t succeed in business without courage. Too many things go wrong. Too much is uncertain, even if we calculate risk like the best Wall Street trader. You must persist, even when your Bœuf bourguignon burns only a few hours before a major food reporter is coming to see you. 

Julia Child was always in awe of the book The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer. I like that book title, The Joy of Cooking. Millions of businesspeople around the world get to experience a different, but not unrelated kind of joy, one that we could call the Joy of Business. I feel privileged every day to be part of our wonderful community of passionate, courageous, and persistent entrepreneurs, and to live in country where we can still practice our passion in relative peace and freedom. 

Keep it up, and go see the movie if you need a little inspiration while you teeter on the edge of breakthrough success.