“ALL OUR DREAMS CAN COME TRUE — IF WE HAVE THE COURAGE TO PURSUE THEM.” —WALT DISNEY
1. Do What You Love The first thing that we can learn from Disney as an entrepreneur is his love for drawing. He loves to draw so much that he draws in his spare time and he even draws while working as an artist. He devoted most of his life to his art that he was even willing to work other jobs just to fund his passion. Just imagine how fun it would be for him to wake up everyday to go to his studio and do what he loves to do. That scenario is a lot more enticing compared to waking up everyday and going to a job that drains the life out of you. Disney went through a series of odd jobs and even became an ambulance driver in the army during World War I along with his friend Ray Kroc (the man who made McDonalds what it is today); and throughout this journey, Disney found his love for drawing. 2. Take What You Do Seriously Whenever Walt Disney made his cartoons he always did so with the focus of a lion stalking his prey. He always paid attention to every detail and dealt with things with the utmost care. He never took his art and talent for granted. Never would you find Walt Disney in his studio just slacking off and procrastinating on his projects; he always took the lead when it came to doing what he loves and he would never put his passion on the back burner. 3. Do It For Others Whenever Walt Disney created animated shorts back then he never did it just for himself; he never hid his creations from the world, but instead he would always find ways in which he could share his work with others. He had a lot of comics back in the day and he would always find ways to share it with the public. He joined his school’s publications as a comic artist, and he even took a job in a local newspaper as none other than a comic artist. Walt Disney’s works teach us a lot of things, such as the value of love for friends and family, hope for the good and his most important lesson: good will always triumph over evil. 4. Never Just Settle With Your First Success One thing that you would definitely notice about Walt Disney is that after one accomplishment he would immediately start on another project. After finishing his legendary film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, Disney immediately went to work on other feature films such as “Bambi”, “Fantasia” and many others. After creating Mickey Mouse, Disney didn’t stop at just him. Instead he went on and created Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto and many other iconic characters even for today’s generation. He was never content with what he had done because he always wanted to achieve more and grow with his dreams. He also didn’t stop with just one Mickey Mouse design, he kept redesigning his creation so that it would be better every time. 5. Don’t Let Obstacles Stop You When Walt Disney first started to work on Snow White, his wife and own brother did all they could to convince him to stop. The Snow White project was even termed as “Disney’s Folly”, and halfway across production he ran out of money to continue the work. Most people in this situation would just quit and get whatever they can out of what’s left, but for Disney he persevered. He decided to travel around and show clips of the raw film to producers in hopes of them funding his project; in the end this attempt was what saved his studio and allowed him to finish the classic Snow White film. When Snow White was finally featured it received nothing short of a standing ovation. The success of the film put Disney in the Golden Age of Animation, and allowed him to start on all of his other feature films. He could have cashed in and went his separate ways from the animation world, but his hopes and his dreams where too strong to fold. Walt’s decision to ‘full steam ahead’ is really what allowed him to define a generation with his iconic creations. There are a lot of other things that you can learn from other successful people, but most likely those things are either the same or at least, they are related. Here are only 5 things that you can learn from Walt Disney. His success has definitely served as an inspiration to a lot of people and even after his death, his legacy still carries on.