The Wisdom of Walt: Leadership Lessons from the Happiest Place on Earth (Disneyland): Success Strategies for Everyone (from Walt Disney and Disneyland)

by Jeffrey A. Barnes

The stories told by Dr. Barnes in this book—of Walt, Disneyland, and his own personal stories—illustrate the fundamental truths of all dreamer-leaders, for all leaders must have vision for themselves to make it apparent to others.

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

been sitting somewhere, doing “nothing,” and suddenly, an idea comes to you? An idea “pops” into your head, and your imagination begins to run wild with possibilities. Suddenly, you, like Walt, have a dream. Walt Disney never stopped dreaming. If you are in the business of leadership and want to be successful, then you, like Walt, must never stop dreaming.

“Dreaming was the wellspring of Disney’s creativity.”

Take a Saturday and sit. Take a Sunday to think. Take a weekend to DREAM.

I believe every successful person needs a park bench—that personal place where we can plan, set goals, and allow our imaginations to run wild. Your park bench is any place where you can begin to envision a bigger and better tomorrow. The best gift a leader can give to his life, his family, and his organization is vision. Vision is an extension of the ability to dream. Walt himself said, “Money doesn’t excite me—my ideas excite me.”

upon a time, Walt Disney raised three wonderful children: Diane, Sharon, and Disneyland.” I love this imagery because it tells us something important about our dreams. You need to treat your dreams like you treat your children. Dreams, like children, don’t raise themselves. Like newborn babies, your dreams, your ideas, your goals, your ambitions, and your visions must be guarded and protected. You wouldn’t leave a young child to sit alone on a park bench and “figure life out” on its own, so why would you do the same with your dreams? You need a plan. A plan for ensuring that your dreams get fed and your goals get nurtured. With the right amount of parenting, any dream, even a dream as big as Disneyland, can mature into reality.

Your thoughts matter. Walt Disney changed his life, and our world, with an idea from a park bench. It was more than just a passing thought. He didn’t ignore his idea. He didn’t just stand up and walk away. He trusted his vision, and over time, he took decisive action.

“By virtue of both the extraordinary qualities that followers attribute to the leader and the latter’s mission, the charismatic leader is regarded by his or her followers with a mixture of reverence, unflinching dedication and awe.”

Our best leaders recognize that leadership has nothing to do with position or power. Your followers want to know where you are going to take them. Casting a compelling vision is critical to your success. Your followers need a reason to go where you are going. Leadership is not about managing things as they are today. Leadership is about transforming reality into your vision for a better tomorrow.

Ignorance as a leader isn’t the worst possible sin. Who knows? You may just be stupid enough to try something never before considered or attempted.

Find Your Park Bench—Most of this chapter focused on the importance of thinking. You value your thoughts by giving yourself time to think. Today, the Main Street Opera House, the first building ever constructed at Disneyland, houses the park bench where Walt first dreamed of Disneyland. The Opera House is also home to the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction. Abraham Lincoln once said, “You become what you think about.”

“Walt was the grand master of the vision.” — Imagineer Bob Gurr

Stephen Pressler in Do the Work!, “When an idea pops into our head and we think, ‘No, this is too crazy,’ that’s the idea we want. ‘When we think this notion is completely off the wall…should I take time to work on this?’ the answer is yes.”

“Walt was the greatest dreamer ever.” — How to Be Like Walt

Though Walt envisioned Walt Disney World in Florida, he died before it was built. On opening day in 1971, almost five years after his death, someone commented to Mike Vance, creative director of Walt Disney Studios, ‘Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this?’ ‘He did see it,’ Vance replied simply. ‘That’s why it’s here.’

“Most of my life I have done what I wanted to do. I have had fun on the job.”

Isn’t it funny how life works? Today, when you think of Walt Disney, you naturally associate him with the parks, lands, and worlds he created. Yet, Disneyland actually represents a relatively small percentage of his life and career.

Walt’s passion for building the perfect park was so great that it outlived his mortal body.

In order to reassure these students, I share this reality: up to 70 percent of all college students change their majors, many as often as three times before graduation. In truth, we are almost all “undeclared.” My incoming freshmen know it, but it takes several semesters, or the remainder of our lives, for the rest of us to figure this out. Clearly, Walt Disney lived his life undeclared. Was he an ambulance driver? An artist? An actor? A cartoonist? An animator? A bankrupt businessman? An entrepreneur? A voice-over artist? A full-length animated film producer? A studio movie mogul? A live-action film director? An amusement park operator? An urban planner? The answer is “Yes!” Walt was a man of passion. He pursued his dreams with persistence, and he trusted that the right results would follow. In turn, he lived an unimaginable life that is the envy of many.

As Steve Jobs, who attended college but never graduated, shared with the 2005 graduating class at Stanford University: …you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

In his book, The Art of Work, Jeff Goins, whose writing helped ignite my passion for writing this book, puts the following perspective on pursuing your passions: The experience of finding your calling [passion] is both mysterious and practical. It takes effort but also seems to happen to you at times. What I’ve come to understand is that finding your purpose is more of a path than a plan: it involves unexpected twists and turns that at times look like accidents but actually are a part of the process.

As a historian, I was ultimately empowered by the words of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “Stop whatever you’re doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won’t be able to do this anymore?” I did not want to die with my dream, my passion, my story still inside me. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” — Maya Angelou

“Walt was excited about…his theme park. When he was excited about something, his excitement fired up everyone around him. That’s how he sold his dreams.” — How to Be Like Walt

Put Your Passion in Perspective—Speaking of fear, what are you afraid of missing if you die? What would you do if money were no concern? What will others miss about you after you are gone? You don’t have to figure it all out today, but I do want you to get started—now. None of us has forever. Before you head to the next world, this world needs you, your dreams. your ideas, and your passion. “We are all born to be who we are. Walt Disney was a genetically unique individual who was born to be himself. His job, and ours as well, is to finish the job on earth that we were created for.” — Ray Bradbury

Once he purchased his 160 acres in Anaheim, he had to clear his canvas of its orange groves and walnut trees. He did, however, wish to save some trees. Trees destined to stay, he marked red. The ones he wanted cleared, he marked green. Then he promptly hired a color-blind bulldozer operator who couldn’t tell the difference; he cleared everything.

Finding your passion is a process. Passion isn’t unique this way. Everything in life is a process. No matter what your canvas might look like today, know that it has a purpose. Where you see red, others might see green. Where you see green, others might see purple. In the end, it doesn’t matter. You can still build on it. Be excited about your dreams, ideas, and future. Trust the process. Most importantly, trust your passion.

“The life and ventures of Mickey Mouse have been closely bound up with my own personal and professional life. It is understandable that I should have sentimental attachment for the little personage who played so big a part in the course of Disney Productions…. He still speaks for me and I still speak for him.”

Just as your ideas matter, so too does your instinct and your inner voice. Think about it. Leaders form teams via the transaction of trust. Trust is earned. By the same token, you cannot give what you do not have. If you do not trust yourself, your inner voice, or your “Walter ego,” then why should anyone trust you?

Too many people live their lives like they are still riding one of these original attractions. We keep looking for the lead character, a hero, not realizing that we are responsible for our own story. I want to encourage you to live a better story by challenging you to take the lead in your life. Be the hero that you, your family, and your business desperately need.

And once you take that action, you’ll be addicted to the power of story, as author Donald Miller confirms in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life: “And once you live a good story, you get a taste for a kind of meaning in life, and you can’t go back to being normal; you can’t go back to meaningless scenes stitched together by the forgettable thread of wasted time.”

“When you think in narrative the world becomes much more interesting and begins to make more sense.” — Mark Levy, The Accidental Genius

“Edit your life frequently and ruthlessly. It’s your masterpiece after all.” — Nathan W. Morris, author and filmmaker

“Great stories happen to those who tell them.” — Author Ira Glass

“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.”

Lillian Disney, Walt’s wife, once said, “Walt never thought he was beaten at anything—ever.” Believe in yourself, no matter what. Believe in your ideas, your abilities, your future. Will you lose sometimes? Absolutely! Will you let a loss beat you? Never!

In her excellent book, The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp identifies five reasons why people are too afraid to take the risk necessary for living their lives at the next level. In parentheses, I’ve added why these reasons are all false or illogical: People will laugh at me. (At least you will have a heads up about why they are laughing.) Someone has done it before. (We academics are very sensitive to plagiarism.) I have nothing to say. (You do.) I will upset someone I love. (Remember, Walt’s own wife and brother didn’t believe in his dreams for Snow White or Disneyland). Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind. (You won’t know whether that’s true until you execute it.)

“Fear is the boss you fight before taking your life to the next level.” — Author Stephen Guise

What is the lesson here? We are all going to fail. Sometimes, our failures might even be of the spectacular, E-ticket variety. If a success like Disneyland doesn’t get everything right, chances are you and I won’t either. And that’s okay. I have learned that you cannot protect yourself from fear. In fact, when you protect yourself from fear, the only thing you succeed in doing is protecting yourself from success.

“Fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life…the great stories go to those who don’t give in to fear.” — Donald Miller

https://www.ted.com/speakers/tim_brown.)

“The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much,but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.” — Benjamin E. Mays

“Somehow I can’t believe there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four Cs: Curiosity, Confidence, Courage and Constancy and the greatest of these is confidence.”

“Walt had this great curiosity. He was very excited about what he was doing. He lived and breathed it, and finally it rubbed off on you.”

Somewhere on the road from being a kid to being an adult, too many of us stop being curious. Perhaps we think we already know it all? Maybe you believe that your experiences and your worldview are all you need to know? Did you get criticized once for asking a “stupid” question, so you have been careful with questions ever since? Regardless of the reason, I want to give you permission, right now, to get curious again. Curiosity is how we learn. Walt understood that, as Williams and Denney illustrate in How to Be Like Walt: Walt had a childlike way about him…. A four-year old will stop and look at a blade of grass and think it’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen. Most adults lose that natural curiosity, but not Walt. He was always seeing possibilities and wonder in the simplest things. He never lost his childlike curiosity about life.

The key to curiosity is staying open and childlike. We need to keep ourselves open to new ideas. Open to new experiences. Open to new adventures.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we are curious—and curiosity keeps leading ...

“Walt lived the life of his own imagination. Most people are afraid to do that, but Walt was fearless that way.” — How to Be Like Walt

“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein

“All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” — Walt Disney