Believe in the Magic of Your Dreams

 

The World of Disney

You have probably thought at one point in your life about taking your family to Disney Land to see the magic created by Walt Disney.

Disney movies are knows all over the world by children, teenagers and parents.

All of this magic was created by a man named Walt Disney.

Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century.

He and his staff created some of the world’s most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice.

Walt Disney did not succeed at first. It was through his failure that he learned how to succeed and develop one of the most successful businesses in the world.

 

Once Upon a Time

Walt Disney was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago to Irish-Canadian father Elias Disney and German-American mother Flora Call Disney.

In 1906, when Walt Disney was four, his father and his family moved to a farm in Missouri, where family had recently purchased farmland.

In Missouri, Disney developed his love for drawing with one of the family’s neighbors, a retired doctor named “Doc” Sherwood, paying him to draw pictures of Sherwood’s horse, Rupert.

The Disney’s remained in Missouri for four years, before moving to Kansas City in 1911 where Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School.

At school he met Walter Pfeiffer who came from a family of theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of motion pictures.

Before long Walt Disney was spending more time at the Pfeiffers’ than at home.

As well as attending Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute, Walt Disney often took his sister Ruth to Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home, which Disney would later acknowledge as a major influence of his design of Disneyland.

In 1919, Walt Disney worked for a newspaper as a cartoonist, and was fired by a newspaper editor because the editor felt that he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.

This is when Walt decided that he would try to prove others wrong.

Failure usually affects people in one of two ways:

• It serves as a challenge to greater effort

• It subdues and discourages a person from trying again.

How a person reacts to circumstances reveals both the brilliance and intensity of their drive or the lack thereof.

Walt Disney’s of course found this failure as a challenge to do greater accomplishments.

This led to the highly successful Disney movies that every child watches, and Disney Land that every child wants to visit.

 

Happily Ever After

The Walt Disney Company and has annual revenues of approximately $35 billion.

Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design.

During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won twenty-two Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history.

Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Paris, and Disneyland Hong Kong.

The year after his December 15, 1966 death from lung cancer in Burbank, California, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.

Disney’s story shows how he turned his failure into a success.

If people just had the same drive that Walt Disney had after his failure, than they can achieve anything.

You just have to overlook the failure, and see it as a lesson of what not to do to succeed, just do it differently. You can do it too!