The 300 Model

"Surrender, we are many, you are few. We won't lay down our weapons, you want them? Come get them! The Persians arrows will blot out the sun. Better this way, we will fight in the shadow."

The movie ‘300’ is like a big punch in the stomach and you have no time to fall. In '300', you see a comic book story that meets the entrepreneurship that meets the world history about the legendary battle of Thermopylae during the year of 480 BC where only 300 Spartans fought against millions of Persians for the future of Greece. Nobody knows exactly how many were really involved in the war; but everyone agreed: It was few against many!

Based on Frank Miller's graphic novel, the movie in its first week generated USD 70 millions in USA alone, with no Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or a big-shot Hollywood star; instead the major roles were 'unkowns''; a Scottish called Gerard Butler as King Leonidas and a Brazilian called Rodrigo Santoro as King Xerxes.

Some might say that people go to see this movie because it shows sexy appealing scenes, rock music, violence and amazing special effects. That's a lie!

This movie captures the audience because it is about the eternal battle between the strong and the weak, between heroes and villains, between common people and powerful kings. This movie attracts people because every single one wants to know how to defeat a much powerful competitor when we have only too few resources; how to conquer the market when we have few people; how to make more out of few.

‘300’ is a bloody battle between a little small company carried on the shoulders of very talented warriors committed by the honor and a huge corporation machine maintained by millions of regular employees who, some of them, do not even know what are they doing in the company or why they are doing that.

This movie offers much more insights for your professional life than many MBA courses around there. Save yourself USD 500 and watch the movie for a few dollars.

You will learn :

• a lesson about the leader who inspired others (even to admire him until his last breath),
  
• you will learn about how to start a company where everyone wants to work on 24x7 (until their last moments),
  
• How to create a brand, a history, a legend (that will overcome the death).
  
• When the captain decides to punish the soldier, Leonidas - the Spartan King - teaches the manager the value of respect towards the lower ranks.
• When in doubt of his own convictions, Leonidas asks his partner’s opinion, wife, and Queen - who always is treated equally as any other man - about how to deal with the business.
  
• When busy, just a few days before facing millions and certain death, he finds himself quality time to spend with his little son and teach him the secrets of the business world that he knows so well.
  
• When ready for battle, tie, computer and mobile, everything he does is to KEEP FOCUS ON THE REASON to make the best for the business and his employees.
• When King Xerxes, try to seduce Leonidas with the benefits of a possible merge & acquisition of the little Spartan company by the mega-corporation Persia will bring to the shareholders, for him (by becoming CEO of Greece, palaces, women, higher salaries) and for his employees (who will set themselves free from slavery), Leonidas reminds Xerxes that the true slavery of the human being it is not the economical slavery or social, but is to lose the Spartan life style, their culture, their philosophy and the right to take decisions freely without need to justify to nobody.
  

In every scene you can learn something about you!

Forget the popcorn and the soft drinks, concentrate on the dialogues.

When the Spartan board of directors decides to surrender to Xerxes by not supporting Leonidas, they take the army command out from Leonidas, and tell him to kneel and behold the invisible; Leonidas instead, he does a spin-off in the army, creates himself his own company, he gathers 300 of his best soldiers and go to war against Xerxes' millions.

When he is asked about how he will defeat millions with just 300 soldiers he says he will use his brain when Xerxes uses his ego. He moves towards Thermopylae, a narrow passage where it will neutralize the enemy superiority in numbers.

When an incapable and mediocre Spartan asks him to join the army, Leonidas tells him to go home; in the other hand, Xerxes is sending his mediocre to the front to die first. In Leonidas' small company, only the best, the braves and the brilliants are accepted. He left out the weak, the average, and the non-team players.

Interesting, he brings all the married men with at least one son, meaning these are the most committed people when compared against young and singles. He does not want anybody to slow down his bests and show weakness to the enemy. He can not afford it.

During a very important moment of the battle, Leonidas meets Xerxes, the God-King asks: "How do you envision defeating me? I would kill anyone of my own men just to have you killed"; "I would die for anyone of my own men" Leonidas says.

When Leonidas notices that he will not be able anymore to defeat Xerxes' army, he decides to build a brand!!! He sends just one of your soldiers back home with a mission to make sure everyone knows about of what happened there and the history and glory of those 300 Spartans will live forever. 2.500 years later in the other side of the planet here we are talking about those 300 warriors. "The whole world will know that a handful of free men fought to their death against the tyranny, the whole world will know that few stand against many."

The marketing started by Leonidas worked. This viral inspired millions of Spartans, and produced the necessary proud to unite the Greek world who later ended the Persian invasion and Greece was never defeated by them in this war. And because of that, a new regime was being born, the Democracy.

The Spartan society left nothing behind except the stories of their battles. No art, no music, no dance, no knowledge, no invention, no technology to enlighten the path...they left the unconditional dedication and the strong discipline of his people to become the best warriors ever seen in this world as legacy. Sparta did not produced an Einstein, a Michelangelo, or a Leonardo da Vinci, but they gave birth to the expression "Spartan Life" that is today related to the lifestyle where a person give up privileges and personal benefits to embrace (with body, mind and soul) and surrender his life to a higher cause.