The entrepreneurial journey of Walt Disney offers many valuable lessons. If you ask someone who’s studied his success why he was able to accomplish so much in his lifetime, they’d probably say:
- He took big risks that paid off;
- He developed a strong and lovable brand;
- He formed strategic partnerships;
- He cultivated a sense of community;
- He adapted to new technologies and mediums;
- He held his overarching vision(s) no matter what;
- All of the above.
While I agree that all of these factors and qualities contributed to Disney’s triumphs, I believe there’s more to it than that.
After several hours at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, I spent a great deal of time reflecting on my learnings, to make sense of it all, over dinner.
My initial reaction was “I didn’t really learn anything—it all makes sense to me.” But how’s a freedom-focused entrepreneur supposed to grow if they don’t dig deeper to see what’s below the surface?
One theme that came to mind was his relentless optimism. No matter what was going on in front of him, Walt started every new day with a clean state. He believed, 100%, that today was going to be the day when one of his ideas or creations would skyrocket to stardom. That belief never faltered, even when he was working in a jelly factory, or quitting that factory job to move in with his Uncle and starting his first animation company with no money, or later filing for bankruptcy. To Walt Disney, each day was still a new opportunity for enormous success, and that is one of the many lessons we can take from him.
Then, I thought about how hindsight is 20:20. I considered how Walt would have felt at the time, like when he moved from Kansas City to California after his first company failed. “Did he know he was preparing for something BIG?” I don’t think so. This brought me to the second theme I see: hidden momentum. While to an outsider, it seemed as though Walt had accomplished nothing in his life, i.e. no tangible measures of success were displayed, that simply wasn’t the case. Because when Walt did end up having a major breakthrough in his career (sketching a mouse on a train and calling it Mickey), everything he’d done prior to that moment propelled him forward at a million miles per hour—the people he knew, the skills he’d developed, the equipment he’d used, and so on.
My next reflective question was “Why, when he had that first major breakthrough, did he keep his foot on the gas, when most others in that situation would put their foot on the brake?” I realized that, due to his relentless optimism, Walt had been putting his foot on the gas every day up until this point, expecting to make waves in the film industry. That meant that when he finally did gain traction on an idea, he was 100% ready for it. It’s like the engine had been on but there wasn’t any gas in the vehicle. But as soon as that gas was poured in, OFF HE FRIGGIN’ WENT 🚗.
Then I asked myself “Why did Walt have this relentless optimism in the first place?” I hoped it wouldn’t be some BS reason like his family always encouraged him to follow his dreams 😅. After some contemplation, I landed on a third theme: Walt had a much bigger purpose underneath it all. He spent his entire life trying to create exceptional experiences for people that couldn’t be matched. He carried that purpose with him over many decades, right up until he died (holding onto a larger-than-life vision for EPCOT that never materialized because it was too freakin’ awesome for people to fully grasp, let alone fund and create). The character, Mickey Mouse was also based on Walt himself: he gave Mickey a voice, and Mickey gave Walt a new way to express himself and feel understood. It was a match made in heaven, and something that truly had legs.
“Mickey Mouse lives in a world in which space, time, and the laws of physics are null. His ingenuity is limitless.” – TIME Magazine, 1931
As I continued reflecting on the lessons that can be pulled from the life and career of Walt Disney, another theme emerged: organic growth. When Walt became a father, he drew a fairly distinct line between work and family life, but there was no doubt that parenthood shaped his career substantially. He would test out new stories on his kids at bedtime, making sure they had an emotive response to the characters he and his team had created. Not only that, parenthood instigated Walt’s desire to build his first theme park, Disneyland. While he sat on a bench eating peanuts, waiting for his kids to get off the merry-go-round, he decided there should be some kind of amusement enterprise where parents and children could have fun together. Needless to say, he was onto something!
But the absolute biggest and most prominent theme I saw when analyzing Walt Disney’s life story was the cultivation of a standard. No matter whether people could see it or not, or if they helped make his visions come to life, Walt knew that animation could be much better if workers consistently experimented with and leveraged new technologies and pushed boundaries. He just did it. He took action when no-one else was, even if people thought it was crazy or couldn’t be done. When an idea or prototype was rejected, Walt didn’t see it as a failure. He knew that the industry leaders just didn’t understand or appreciate what he had to offer (yet). This, in fact, was the primary reason he became an entrepreneur in the first place.
“Both of us (Walt and his brother) were unemployed. We solved the problem by going into business ourselves.” – Walt Disney, 1923
Let’s look at some examples of how Walt cultivated a new standard in his industry: animation. When there weren’t any schools good enough to train his team of animators properly, Walt started his own, bringing in countless live animals so that everyone could study and learn to capture their natural movement in great detail. When 2D characters didn’t have as much dimension as he would have liked, Walt pioneered use of a multiplane camera to create a sense of depth in Disney animations. When ‘Technicolour’ emerged as a revolutionary process that allowed animators to add colour to video, Walt abandoned a short film that was already partially produced and re-made it from scratch in full colour, negotiating a 2-year exclusive head start on all other animation companies. When multiple animators were struggling to stay consistent in how they recreated a Disney character, Walt had 3D models created so that artists could turn them in their hands and instantly see how the character would look from any angle. When people said no-one would ever sit through a feature-length animated video, Walt created ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ which was the first animated film ever to have a running time over an hour: a massive hit right from its launch date. When industry experts said it was impossible to add audio to a motion picture, Walt mortgaged his home and hired a 30-piece orchestra to “go all out on sound,” using a metronome to synchronize animated characters’ movement with accompanying music.
“They told me they didn’t think it possible to synchronize a cartoon. This was before they saw ours.” – Disney, 1928
All this to say: that train didn’t stop for anyone; not even Walt’s own projects that he’d already invested tons of time and resources into. He knew where the industry was heading because he was the captain of the friggin’ ship. It wasn’t up for debate. People were either on the band wagon or left behind. He was going to upgrade people’s viewing pleasure whether they liked it or not. And if they weren’t on board at that time, he knew they would be months or years later.
“Sound effects and talking pictures are more than a mere novelty. They are here to stay. The ones that get in on the ground floor will more likely profit by its future development.” – Walt Disney, 1928
And there wasn’t even time for Walt to have an “I told you so” attitude. He already had his next 1–3 big projects lined up and ready to go, as soon as the previous one had launched. His higher purpose kept a constant fire lit in his belly, and his drive to make everything bigger and better than before never subsided. When ‘Fantasia’ came out in 1940, newspapers didn’t know whether to send movie critics or music critics because Walt had raised the bar so much for all aspects of the film that they’d never experienced anything like it before. And when his team wasn’t able to grasp a vision he had for a new story or film, Walt did everything he could to get them up to speed ’cause failure was never an option for him.
“Walt had a large group over on the soundstage one evening and he told the story. And gee, I was just spellbound by it. He even acted out some of the stuff. He’d get up and do the stuff and have you all laughing at what he was talking about and you’d visualize what he was presenting to you. It was amazing.” – One of Walt’s animators
The same high standards were applied to potential investors, too. If one company wasn’t interested in one of his ideas or prototypes, another would be. Walt never compromised ’cause his purpose and visions were so strong that they overpowered any potential resistance or negative consequences that may have ensued. Taking action and moving towards his goals was the only way of life that seemed to make sense to Walt. In fact, there were many times when he walked away from people or opportunities because the only way he could work for them would mean giving up an idea that he really believed in. His strong sense of conviction in his ideas, even in opposition, and inclination to take action is indeed one of the many lessons we can draw from Walt Disney.
“My brother has to take a rendering of Disneyland with him to show the investors. Most financial types don’t have much imagination. Roy has to show them what we’re going to do.” – Walt Disney
I could go on all night about the lessons we can take from the story of Walt Disney and how I resonate with his way of thinking, but if there’s only one thing you take away from this article, let it be this: Entrepreneurship means believing in your potential for success and maintaining a high standard of operations, while staying grounded in your higher purpose. In other words, if you’re actively cultivating a new standard in your industry, you’re already writing your legacy, even if others can’t see it yet.
Sophie Ash, BSc (Hons) is a freedom-focused entrepreneur who travels the world helping science-lovers build 100% remote medical writing companies of their own, with Prospology‘s ‘Thriving & Free’ business coaching program.