Stay Optimistic: Lesson from Walt Disney #1
I recently read a biography about Walt Disney and learned two important lessons. Here’s the first one (will write about the second one in an upcoming post):
Stay optimistic during the setbacks. You may find your greatest breakthrough when times seem the toughest.
This lesson comes from the story about how Walt Disney conceived of Mickey Mouse.
For most the 1920s, Disney was a struggling animator. His studio was barely surviving, and Disney himself was living hand-to-mouth. At one point, he had to give up his room in a boardinghouse because he couldn’t pay his rent. He slept on the floor of the studio office, showered at the train station, and ate cold beans from a can.
In 1928, Disney caught his first big break. He created a memorable character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who would later inspire the character of Bugs Bunny. Disney’s Oswald series debuted in theaters and became a mainstream hit, and Disney could see his fortune starting to turn around.
However, Disney’s studio was still losing money, so he traveled from LA to New York to ask his film distributor for some more financing. The distributor, Charles Mintz, told Disney that not only would he not provide him with additional funding, but that he (Mintz) owned the copyright for Oswald, not Disney. Thus, Disney could no longer use Oswald for films made by his studio. Instead, Mintz wanted Disney to shut down his studio and come work for Mintz as an animator. Disney angrily refused.
Walt returned back from New York to LA by train, but before he departed, he sent a telegram to his brother Roy: “Arrive home Sunday. Don’t worry. Everything OK.” But things were far from OK. Disney lost his source of funding for his studio, and more importantly, he lost his rights to use the Oswald character. He felt like his creation and just been stolen from him — and it was. Without Oswald, Disney no longer had any way to generate income, but he still had expenses and debts to pay for his studio.
Instead of wallowing in sadness or despair, Disney remained optimistic and did something about it. On the train ride home, he sketched dozens and dozens of possible cartoon characters to replace Oswald. There on the train, after he had just suffered a tremendous setback by losing Oswald, he conceived of a mouse that he named Mortimer. His new wife Lilly saw the character when he returned. She liked the mouse but not the name. “I think he should be called Mickey Mouse,” she said. And Mickey Mouse was born.
What was amazing to me about this story is that Disney refused to let the setback of losing Oswald the Rabbit get him down. He remained upbeat and then took active steps to reverse his situation — by brainstorming new characters, which ultimately led to one of the most iconic characters in human history, Mickey Mouse. Thus, even in the depths of a major setback, Disney kept moving forward, and achieved his arguably greatest breakthrough. As the author Napoleon Hill once wrote:
“Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”
There’s a lesson to be learned here for us all about the value of staying optimistic, and pushing forward through setbacks and failures. With faith and persistence, we may just find our greatest success around the corner.
