Walter E. Disney was an average artist and a mediocre businessman.
He succeeded because he possessed 3 beliefs:
- Belief in hard work — Since his middle school days, Walt worked every odd job he could find. He was never not working, and brought that work ethic to bear when he ventured out on his own.
- Belief in tomorrow — Walt had an irrepressibly optimistic spirit, and always believed that whatever project he was working on would turn out … or that the next one would. He relentlessly threw himself at challenge after challenge because he genuinely believed he would succeed.
- Belief in quality — He was working in a crowded field when he started, and determined that the factor which would set his studio’s work apart from the others was quality. He was right.
He worked hard, he believed he would succeed, and he focused on quality. And he changed the face of animation and became a legend for generations of children.
All that without “talent.”
What do you believe in?
2 responses to “The 3 secret spices of Mr. Walter E. Disney”
I think too many of us focus on #2 alone (i.e. “I hope this will work” or “I hope I’ll get lucky.”) The key here is that the ingredients need to be used together. Great post.
Couldn’t agree more, great insight. There were lots of other things he did right, of course — surrounded himself with talented people, solved problems in creative ways, etc … but all of those were really just implementations of these three traits, as far as I can tell.