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everybody welcome to another episode of
impact books today we are talking about
none other than Disney by Neil Gabler
this book has totally captured my
imagination it is very long however so
I've had to break this up into two parts
to try and do this book justice in one
part I think would just be a total waste
of time and in all honesty I haven't
finished the book so I can only
truthfully go into the first half all
right so here we go without further ado
the thing that I find utterly
captivating and anybody out there that
is an entrepreneur this book is an
absolute must read and the reason is to
see a tale where a guy goes from small
town kid nobody knows who you are you're
living in nowhere middle America
to becoming one of the most famous and
well recognized people truly having a
massive impact on all of certainly
American culture and I think that his
reach was far wider than that to see it
happen to watch him go from dreaming
small quite frankly to then dreaming a
little bit bigger to not knowing
anything about business to being very
good at business to having huge dreams
and really executing at the absolute
highest level into a built an empire
that has lasted long decades and decades
and decades past his death is just
absolutely incredible and I think for
all of you you're gonna see a lot of
yourselves in him to see somebody that
didn't really start out as the person
that anybody would put their finger on
and say this guy is gonna go on to do
something and I know certainly I see
myself in that and was just incredibly
incredibly inspired to hear this tale of
transformation and Neil Gabler does an
incredible incredible job of really
capturing that emotional journey I think
he does a good job of not painting him
as some perfect character I think he
does a really good job of being
even-handed and walking you through the
journey that he went on and this really
is such a powerful journey and one of
the things that I love about biographies
is when they get the scope right when
they don't go into too much detail
because some of them definitely do but
they give you the context
of their life and they start early
enough that you can really understand
the person that they become that's
incredible and you guys know me my
obsession is going from a fixed mindset
to a growth mindset and all of the
personality traits and things that go
along with that and you see that journey
in spades with Walt Disney all right so
the most important thing I think to
really understand is how big of a gap
this story traverses and Walt his family
was a little unsettled in the early
years in his life and they moved around
and his father and his uncle really were
always looking for a way to make their
fortunes they weren't the typical person
that just got a normal 9 to 5 job and
you know worked until retirement that
that wasn't to them and there was just
enough entrepreneurial spirit just
enough sort of crazy wild-eyed not
gambler in the traditional sense but
gambling on winning big in you know
going off to find your fortunes in the
gold rush or I don't I don't think they
actually did the gold rush but it was
stuff like that it was like the huge
opportunities the big moonshot swings of
their day but always done with a little
bit of carelessness so they would
routinely lose their fortunes and they
would move around a little bit and there
was really one period in Walt's life
where they settled in a small town and
it becomes really the foundation of a
lot of his aesthetic and when you think
about the original Main Street USA in
Disneyland that you can see him trying
to really create this universe that
harkens back to what he would say were
the most beautiful times in his life and
and having a driving ethos is something
that I think is really important and if
you guys understand my obsession and the
whole reason that I'm reading about
Disney is I'm literally with impact
Theory asking myself the question what
would Disney look like if it were
founded today and I believed him before
I picked up the book that one of the
things that really made Disney so
special was there was an ethos behind
the scenes that was driving everything
and he had a vision of what the world
should be the way that people should act
and he just adhered to that and tried to
create this universe both in the stories
that he was telling in the way that his
characters
were and then on through the theme parks
and what the brand Disney stood for and
why it was always family-friendly these
were all things that were important to
this vision that he had in his head and
those are important things to have ethos
if you're trying to build a brand to
have a vision in your head and be able
to execute and that was one of the
things that I found really fascinating
about the early life of Disney is how he
cultivated it in himself what they
referred to in the book is a
constitutional unflappability meaning
that just his very disposition seemed to
make him impervious to things going
wrong and one of the most important
things that I think anybody can take out
of this tale and one of the most
important things that I think anybody
should be building in themselves is how
do you react to failure how does it
impact your enthusiasm and that may be
one of the most important things to note
any great leader worth their salt one of
the things that they're able to do is
and there's a great quote I forget who
it's by forgive me but the that real
success is going from failure to failure
to failure without a loss of enthusiasm
and Walt Disney had that in spades and
when you read the book knowing how it
ends up you know that he ends up
building this legendary company that he
has this massive impact on culture that
he builds just an absolutely gigantic
juggernaut of a business literally
coming out of the depression I mean it's
the timing of it is incredible
understanding that that's where he ends
up and then looking back at the the
things that he cultivated in himself
like this unflappability you begin to
realize how powerful it is and so that
was one of the the real key takeaways
from the first half of the book is
having in yourself the emotional
fortitude to face relentless and at
times seemingly divinely placed
difficulties I mean there are times it
literally seems like the world is coming
after this guy like it is intentionally
trying to break him and it is the fact
that he pushes through that that allows
him to become Disney and he does that by
cultivating this unflappability by
having this incredibly sharp vision
knowing what he's trying to accomplish
him being hell-bent to do it now
this is fastly I'm gonna put my phone
down because I really want to get into
this let me tell you right
now the thing that just stopped me dead
in my tracks and gave me the absolute
chills when things were going wrong and
if you remember nothing else from this
book review remember this when things
were going wrong for Disney he returned
to one thing over and over and over and
that was making the product
extraordinary and Walt really became
known for his obsession with making his
animations which by the way people told
him were a total joke
why are you doing this it's such a small
market it's never gonna be anything it's
totally childish its moment has passed
but he really believed that he could
make it better than it had ever been
done and he didn't want to be the
greatest animator he wanted to be the
king of animation really stop and think
about that for a second he didn't want
to be the greatest animator he wanted to
be the king of animation to me that is
the choice you're gonna have to make in
your life do you want to be the best at
a position or do you want to define the
art form itself and it doesn't have to
be art whatever your business is being a
parent building a local theater building
a business solving a problem being the
greatest marketer in your company
whatever the thing is you're trying to
do what scale are you playing on and for
Disney in the end because he did not
start there but in the end when things
were going difficult when he was being
assailed when people were trapping him
with bad contracts when nobody would buy
his animation when people rejected him
when they told him that his cartoon was
terrible whatever every time that he hit
some setback and guys
this guy had insane amounts of setbacks
going bankrupt having his car
repossessed being evicted and these
things happened to him multiple times
but
every time he returned to making his
product so good it couldn't be ignored
making his product so good that it
defined the industry making his product
so good that it captured the imagination
of a generation and that was his
obsession that's what he would go back
to every time every time he would come
back to but if we make the product good
enough if it literally startles people
with its quality if other people doing
the same thing turn to us as the gold
standard we will win and he just kept
betting on himself and betting on
himself and betting on himself and
despite making countless mistakes
including pissing off his staff so much
that they betrayed him that he let
business harden him too much and that he
goes from being sort of this doe-eyed
youth to being just this hard-as-nails
guy that was pissing everybody off and
then he had to retrograde when his staff
betrayed him and he had to find a way to
not let that happen again but still hold
everyone to a standard of excellence
sometimes making them reanimate things
like nine times is not a made-up number
that was a number in the book he would
make them reanimate something nine times
and even though he pressed people and
pushed them and drove them hard people
wanted to follow him because he had a
crystal clear vision of what he was
trying to create and he just wanted it
to be great and one of his longtime
animators said once you understand
Walt doesn't care about making money
that's not what he's doing once you
understand he does not care about making
money he wants to make something that
he's proud of and he wants to have fun
doing it I just got the chills once you
understand that about him then you'll
understand Walt you'll understand why
he's been able to do what no one else
has been able to do because he was
always coming back to the product to
make it better to push his own skills to
recognize he's not yet good enough to
recognize that not only he but the rest
of his staff have to get better that's
what made him great it's not about the
flash and this is one of those things
that I'm items
so terrified because people can only see
the content that we publish they can't
see the hustle behind the scenes but
when you look at any great company and
Disney is the perfect example of this
when you look at that the thing that
drove them is an obsession with quality
it's an obsession with doing something
great it's an obsession with giving
birth to something that nobody else
could do because they're not willing to
push themselves they're not willing to
make the demands of themselves to create
something of that standard they're not
willing to scrap something and start
over they're not willing to look inward
and say I'm not yet good enough I can't
produce it I'm not capable but I can
become capable and that's what Walt had
that's what made him great that's why
ultimately they were able to craft
something that would endure and one
other thing Walt understood he was good
at some things and not good at others
and so we partnered with his brother and
his brother understood Walt's the
visionary Walt is the guy that's pushing
the animation forward and my job is to
take care of the operations my job is to
create that space for him and that
dynamic that dynamic has been repeated
so many times and in film certainly but
in business in general and literally I'm
thinking of my wife and how we have to
divide roles and we don't try to do the
same things we split the universe and we
do what we're good at and we find ways
to tap into what we love and doing that
finding somebody that complements your
skillset finding somebody that doesn't
want to fight you for what you're doing
but they want to do something else that
they want to contribute in a massive and
meaningful way that's how you begin to
scale this and I don't think Roy
Disney's contributions could ever be
overestimated what he was able to do to
facilitate Walt is is critical and comes
across very clearly in the book and was
one of the things that I found so
compelling is to see the dynamic to see
how important it is to real
have the fundamentals of business to be
able to get the loans and the capital
that you need to stay afloat to
negotiate contracts and at the same time
you need somebody that can rally people
around an idea that's pushing themselves
and other people to get better that has
just an unyielding sense of what the art
form can become and they're willing to
put in the work for themselves and those
around them to get better that
recognizes when they push people too
hard and that ultimately the betrayal
was on them and that they have to figure
that out and that they have to adapt and
get better alright I will leave you with
that that is part one I have but skimmed
the surface but this book is compelling
in a way that very few books are it is
an extraordinary biography of a person
who started small dreaming small
believing that they were only capable of
something small and everyday believing a
little bit more and every day even
though the world is telling them that
they can't do it that it doesn't make
sense that it's beyond them has this
blinding belief in themselves the
arrogance of belief to know in their gut
that they could figure it out that given
enough time they were going to win they
given enough focus relentlessly I'm
making the product great that they could
accomplish something that had never been
done before and my friends if you put
that at the heart of your existence you
will be able to have the same kind of
victory but you've got to cultivate that
belief you've got to get that
constitutional unflappability that is so
well documented in this book I'm telling
you pick this one up dive in it is long
it is worth every single minute that you
will spend on it I give it absolutely my
highest recommendation all right
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and until next time my friends be
legendary
take care