5 lessons from failure to success of Walt Disney
Walt Disney is known to the world as the "father" of the famous animation studio, but few people know that he also encountered many difficulties and failures.
In 1964, when the movie Mary Poppins was released, Walt Disney had reached the peak of his career. One year after his death, 240 million people watched Disney movies, more than 100 million people watched Disney TV shows each week, 80 million people read Disney books, another 80 million bought Disney merchandise, and About 7 million people visited the Disneyland theme park in 1966 alone.
But the biggest legacy that Disney left behind is pioneering the animation industry, changing the US entertainment industry with the Disneyland theme park, bringing movies to television and building a "multimedia corporation". modern" first. All told, no one has shaped American pop culture as much as Walt Disney.
To this day, he still holds the record for the number of individual Oscars with a total of 22 steps on the podium. Disney has created many iconic cartoon characters for childhood for generations, such as Mickey Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Cinderella, and Bambi the deer.
But long before success came to Disney, he lived a life of poverty, hardship, and failure. When he was 9 years old, Disney had to deliver newspapers for his father seven days a week. The boy has to wake up at 3:30 a.m. every day, deliver newspapers before going to school and continue working after school. In winter, he often sleeps next to a newspaper to keep warm. However, the boy never received any wages because his father, Elias took all the money earned. For the next six years, Disney continued this hard work.
While other normal kids spend their free time playing sports and socializing with friends, Disney's free time is just playing with toys he sees at the newspaper delivery.
The worst part is that Disney's relationship with his father is not good. Elias Disney was a tough, cold man who never drank or swore, always prided himself on imposing his power as head of the household. In particular, Elias is very short-tempered. When Elias continued to fail in business, Disney became a place to vent his father's anger, even being beaten.
Disney's childhood was so haunting that 40 years later, he often wakes up in the middle of the night from nightmares. Disney's relationship with his father was so bad that he later refused to shorten his business trip to attend Elias' funeral.
Despite a difficult childhood, Disney continued to cherish the dream of building an animation company.
Walt Disney at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California. Photo: Gannett News Service .
In early 1921, Disney founded its first company, Laugh-O-Gram Studio, and won a contract for six animated films. But soon after, the business struggled to make enough money to operate. Disney tried to save the company by producing the Alice in Wonderland cartoon .
Every day, Disney slept on the floor at the office, showered at the train station, and ate canned cold beans. Despite those efforts, in 1923, Laugh-O-Gram went bankrupt and Disney returned to a life of poverty.
Disney is disappointed and heartbroken. He vowed to do it all over again and went to Hollywood with the ambition of becoming a film director. But after several months of job hunting, Disney once again had to admit defeat.
The curse of his father's failed life seemed to be repeating itself to the boy. However, he continued to get up, contacting distributors to recommend the movie Alice in Wonderland . For the third time, luck smiled. Margaret Winkler, a film distributor in New York, offered $1,500 for six episodes. The animated film was well received and Winkler ordered more films.
Not long after, Disney and his brother Roy founded Disney Brothers Studio, which later became Walt Disney. The rest are history-making successes.
Disney's story is an example of how one grew up in difficult circumstances, faced many adversities and failures, but did not give up. Disney's life has left many people with lessons in attitude to life, as well as how to overcome failure.
The first lesson is to follow your heart's call . The journey to success is always full of ups and downs, but it gets even harder if you're on a path that you don't really love and feel fit in.
People often try to pursue a goal that deep down inside they feel is not really suitable. That makes people very quickly lose motivation and give up in the face of adversity.
Unlike many others at the time, Disney did not choose to follow in his father's footsteps but pursue his passion for animation, even though this was a new industry and not as profitable as it is today.
Disney's father was critical and said that he could not succeed. However, this did not discourage Disney. He continued to pursue his dream and did not give up, despite facing many difficulties and failures afterwards.
Be thankful for failures and keep moving forward is the second lesson from the Disney story.
People often try to avoid failure in life and work. However, after every success there are always many failures. Instead of running away, Disney rose from the failure and turned it into a driving force.
He forgave his mistakes, learned from his failures, and turned them into a solid foundation for success.
"All the adversity in my life, all the difficulties and obstacles, have given me strength. You may not realize it when it happens, but something bad can turn out to be. the best thing in the world for you," Walt Disney once said.
Third, dare to bet it all . In poker, when a player bets all, that means they accept all risks, even empty-handed. So is Disney. He took risks and gambled his life to follow his dreams.
"A person should set a goal for himself as soon as possible and devote all his energy and talent to achieve it. With enough effort, he can achieve it. Or he has could find something even more valuable. But in the end, whatever the outcome, he knows he's still alive," Disney once said in an interview.
The fourth lesson is to invest in knowledge . Disney used to be a study maniac and used to spend his evenings after work watching and studying cartoons. As he read more books and learned from his failures, his confidence increased and his failures decreased.
That's not a coincidence. Confidence and knowledge go hand in hand.
Finally, embrace the illusion of yourself . Sometimes successful people are labeled "delusional". But once their crazy dreams come true, they are quickly called "successful".
Illusion and extraordinary success are like two sides of the same coin. To achieve something that has never been done, you have to believe in it.
Disney was also delusional. He still believes that his crazy dreams will come true, even when reality suggests otherwise. However, the world today is enjoying the fruits of that illusion, with the legacy left by Disney.
The takeaway from the story is that if you feel like you're the only one who believes in your crazy dreams, you might be on the right track. Because if others believed it too, it could have been done.
"When you believe in something, believe it completely, silently and without doubt," Disney said.