Walt Disney
Have imagination of a child
Walter Elias Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. As a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award. He earned more than 950 honors. But those honors came from difficult challenges even failure and hard times.
" When I was nine, my brother Roy and I were already businessmen. We had a newspaper route... delivering papers in a residence area every morning and evening of the year, rain, shine, or snow. We got up at 4:30 a.m., worked until the school bell rang and did the same thing again from four o'clock in the afternoon until supper time. Often I dozed at my deck and my report card told the story."
At ten, Walt opened a stand selling soda one summer with a neighbor boy, but " drank up all the profit."
While in France he earned money drawing cartoons and caricatures for the men he served with, and drew and submitted cartoons to humor magazines , though all were rejection. Upon returning to United States he landed a job as an apprentice at a commercial art studio, but the job lasted less than a month before he was laid off. He began working on samples and went into business for himself, founding a company called Iwerks-Disney with Ub iwerks, a colleague who had also been laid off. Shortly after, he left for a job as an animator for kansas City Film Ad Company, which produced short advertisements for movie theaters.
He continued to learn and experiment late at night after work and began to make his first films. He named Laugh-O-grams. He continued working at night while working his day job. Eventually he saved enough to buy a camera and rent a studio, he produced several longer films but was unable to keep the company afloat. Laugh-O-gram Films went bankrupt in 1923 and at 21, Disney left for Southern California with $40 in his pocket.
I failed... I think it's important to have a good hard failure when you're young... I learned a lot out of that.
Unable to find the work he wanted as a director, he soon founded Disney Bros Studio in Hollywood along with his brother Roy. After some success, Disney started working again with Ub Iwerks. They developed the character of Micky Mouse and began producing the first Mickey cartoons.
But he had bigger plans for newly renamed and expanded Walt Disney Studio. He began work on a full length animated feature film.
Snow White launched what would be known as Disney's "Golden Age" winning him a full size Oscar and seven miniature ones, and allowed him to build a new studio in Burbank California. in the late 1940s Disney began working on ideas for a children's theme park, an idea he would spend the next five years developing. When funding proved difficult to find, he found new ways of fundraising broadcasting a show called Disneyland on a new network called ABC in return for help financing the park. In 1955, he finally opened Disneyland and dedicated the park on live television saying:
To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past... and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America ... with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.
Do a good job. You don't have to worry about the money: it will take care of itself just do your best work-then try to trump it.
Adversity:
"All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me ... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."
Set goals:
"A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive."
Read books:
"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates'loot on treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main.... and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."
Be curious:
"Around here.. we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious... and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
Dream big:
"To youngsters of today, I say believe in the future, the world is getting better; there still is plenty of opportunity. Why, would you believe it. when I was a kid I thought it was already too late for me to make good at anything."
Walt Disney's life and his work show the value of imagination and dreaming big. He also showed that big dreams are not enough, hard work and persistence were the key to overcoming the obstacles in life.
It's a kind of fun to do the impossible.
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