Tips to Grow Your Business from Walt Disney
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of reference to the quote:
“Keep it private until it’s done.”
Sure, I see the safety in that quote, and to be honest that’s been my go-to mindset in the past when I’ve had a dream or goal I want to acomplish - but it’s mainly been out of fear. Afterall, what if I don’t hit my goal, or what if my dream doesn’t come to life, or worse - what if naysayers shake my confidence with their negativity and I quit partway through?
But that wasn’t Walt Disney’s mindset when he committed to building Disneyland. Yes, he had many people openly oppose his crazy idea, he had many more people bet on his failure rather than his success, and he was for sure going to have to face some copycats.
But Walt never operated in fear - he was always fueled by inspiration and the drive to see his ideas come to life not matter what it took.
Not only did he openly discuss his plans to build the world’s first theme park, but he shared the entire process with America on his weekly television broadcast “The Disneyland Show”.
Walt didn’t know for sure if his park would be a sucess (even though he hoped it would be), but he did know that in order to make it a success, he needed as many people as possible to know about it, to get excited about it, and to buy into his vision.
And that’s exactly what the TV show did. It warmed up his audience for an entire year before the park even opened. And to top it off, Walt organised for the opening day to be broadcast live across the nation - without even knowing if a single soul would even show up. Now that’s betting on yourself!
As history tells us, Disneyland was indeed a success in 1955 and still is to this very day. But Walt didn’t know that at the time. His sharing of the process (the good, the bad and the ugly) took courage and conviction. After all, if he didn’t believe in his idea, why would anyone else?
If he’d kept it private the entire time, of course it would have been a failure. The public wouldn’t have had the opportunity to hear Walt’s heart behind the project, or hear his amazing vision and how his theme park was going to be different from the dirty amusement parks of the day. Instead, they heard the passion in his voice, they saw the hard work going on behind the scenes, and they became emotionally invested.
“Mickey and I have had a lot of our dreams come true. Now we want to share with you our latest and greatest dream…Disneyland.
Next year, our television show will be coming from this Disneyland. But this year, we want you to see and share with us the experience of building this dream into a reality.”
Walt Disney, “The Disneyland Show”
Season 1, Episode 1 (Oct 1954, 1 year before opening day)
If you’ve got a dream or goal you’d like to achieve this year, share it. Talk about. Document the process. Believe in yourself with the same courage and conviction that Walt had.
Depending on your business and your personality type, that might look like:
documenting on YouTube the opening of your dream cafe
writing monthly blog updates on your new book, with photos of your creative process
sharing behind-the-scenes photos and video on social media of the new product you’re designing
sharing goals with a business-buddy, coach or mentoring group
talking about your ideas with people you meet at networking groups
By sharing your idea and your process, you may actually be creating a community with the people that have the resources to help you achieve your goal. And you’ll no doubt be inspiring others to pursue their dreams as well.
