You can’t believe Walt Disney’s setbacks and his incredible success

By Jean Baptiste Ndabananiye

The late Walt Disney’s hardships prove that setbacks constitute your hidden gold which you didn’t know. Setbacks are difficulties that stand on your success path, so that they seem to perform every endeavor to stop you from attaining your success. They seem to do so, because their intention isn’t really to prevent you. Instead, they arise to strengthen you to eventually realize your dreams. But this requires a certain quality. It is this trait that has enabled the late Disney to defeat his horrendous adversities, to become an unimaginable success, as you will learn. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them,” the late Disney once said.

The late Disney is one of the greatest inspirations which have ever existed on our planet. In the meanwhile, different prominent figures recommend you to seek and maintain courage to pursue your dreams and realize them at any cost. You have to do so because every time a person carries a great ambition to fulfill, there are always certainly extreme difficulties which stand on the way to the attainment of the ambition. What are the hardships of the late Disney, and how has the courage allowed him to turn so wonderful that we should emulate the quality? Continuing to read this article, you will get the response through these segments:

1. Disney’s hardships
2. Disney’s success and
3. Conclusion

Even the dreams you have resolved to accomplish will go or are already going through some seemingly undefeatable difficulties to the extent that you will feel or are feeling compelled to abandon your dreams. Yet, you will certainly overcome them, if you nourish a courageous mindset to convert your dreams into reality regardless of any obstacles on your path.

It is universally agreed that most of the greatest achievers if not all of them have first experienced excessively harsh situations. But, these high achievers have been saved by the unending courage.

Disney’s hardships

Walt Disney is one of the most successful personalities, but also one of the most hit by intense adversities before climbing to his gigantic success. 

Biography constitutes the web site for the television show “Biography” viewed on the A&E Television Network. The latter one forms an American multinational broadcasting company being a 50–50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Walt Disney Company. The web site says “Despite being one of the most influential people of the 20th century, Disney endured many failures before creating ‘the Happiest Place on Earth.’

Disney‘s known as an extraordinarily successful creative whose visions as an animator, filmmaker and theme park developer changed entertainment in the 20th century and beyond. Yet, dig a little deeper into Disney’s background, and you’ll discover that his road to success was paved by an unhappy childhood along with countless business failures and setbacks.Disney had a nervous breakdown after creating Mickey Mouse.”

Disney’s humble and challenging childhood, including his troubled relationship with his father

Slash Film stands as a popular entertainment website and blog addressing a large range of topics pertaining to film, television, streaming, and pop culture. This channel points out “We can’t readily talk about the history of The Walt Disney Company without first talking about its namesake; Walter Elias Disney was a man who beat the odds. He came from humble beginnings, and was not particularly remarkable.”

Though he wasn’t generally wonderful both in his childhood and youth, Disney was fascinated by a certain talent but which had not even shown promising signs early yet. Slash Film says “He showed an interest and aptitude for illustration at an early age, and was known for a boyish playfulness, but he was not especially brilliant, creative, or enterprising. Young Walt just wanted to be a cartoonist — and avoid the life of misery and failure he witnessed in his father, Elias.”

Disney and his father loathed each other so much that Disney carried out an act he otherwise wouldn’t have done, as people don’t normally do such things intentionally.The Guardian in its article titled “The cruel reality of Disney’s world” reports “Disney’s father ended up resenting his son and their relationship fell apart. Disney refused to cut short a business trip when his father died and missed his funeral.”

While a person is experiencing a hardship, their first solace is their family members and closest acquaintances who intervene to comfort and motivate them. That’s what happened to the world’s wealthiest tycoon currently, Elon Musk, while he was still a child. While his schoolmates bullied him to the extent that they followed him from school to home, casting cans at him, his family constituted his refuge and inspiration.

Yahoo Finance says that Musk’s ex-wife Justine Wilson reportedly narrated in a Goalcast YouTube video that other kids used to throw soda cans at his head. Quoting Business Insider, Yahoo Finance says “Despite these hardships, Musk found solace and strength with his family. Wilson revealed that Musk’s family cultivated a ‘mental escape’ by ‘talking about themselves as a special family that could do anything.” For more on Musk, read this article.

The Disney History Institute is a resource known for its detailed research, historical insights, and archival work related to Disney’s life, the company’s development, and its impact on entertainment and culture. This institute also implies the hatred between Disney and his father. It says “The final father/son picture always seems to portray the relationship devoid of love and affection, while at the same time villainizing Elias as a disconnected father who never supported Walt or his dreams.”

Disney was born in Chicago in 1901 and brought up in Missouri. Disney, the fourth of five siblings, also fled from his father-a domineering and allegedly abusive figure who unsuccessfully attempted to sustain the family. “To escape from his stressful circumstances, Young Disney found solace in drawing. Still, he’d watch his older brothers, one by one, runoff from home to escape their father, and soon he’d follow suit by lying about his age to become an ambulance driver during World War I.”

Disney dismissed from the Kansas City Star

The Economic Times states that Disney was sacked from the Kansas City Star in 1919. “The reason for his firing according to his editor: “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Adding further details on Disney’s dismissal, Business Insider says “Walt Disney got fired from a local newspaper, Disney’s newspaper editor told the aspiring cartoonist he wasnt [wasn’t] creative enough.” However, it is his creative capability which has generated the success that he has registered.

Disney’s bankruptcy

Business Insider points out “Disney acquired Laugh-O-Gram, an animation studio he later drove into bankruptcy.” San Francisco Silent Film Festival [SFSFF] is an annual event committed to showcasing and celebrating silent cinema. “Disney’s Kansas City studio was in financial trouble from the start, and, thanks to predatory business deals and his own inexperience, he suffered bankruptcy before practically any of his cartoons were released,” says this festival initiated in 1995 and being conducted in San Francisco, California. The festival has changed into one of key events for silent film enthusiasts, historians, and cinephiles from across the world.

“He thought he had found a distributor for his Laugh-O-gram fairy tales in a fly-by-night company called the Pictorial Clubs of Tennessee, which promised $11,100 for six cartoons but never paid. Overworked and desperate, by the end of 1922, Disney’s crew was working without pay and several quit. So while the actual drawing and design of the Laugh-O-grams steadily improve as the crew gains experience, the animation itself tends to regress, growing simpler and more crudely timed,” adds SFSFF.

It adds that Disney accused Pictorial Clubs for contract violation and eventually won the case but obtained very little payment. It further states that Disney’s fledgling efforts were consigned to oblivion after the coming of sound.

Disney rejected over 300 times for his Disneyland concept

Various sources highlight that he was rejected over 300 times for his Disneyland concept that eventually became a success.

Biography, one of the sources, points out “After years of eating beans and driving up his debts, Disney finally brought Mickey Mouse to life on film starting in the late 1920s and earned his way back to the top of his industry. But it wasn’t easy. Bankers rejected the concept of his famous mouse over 300 times before one said yes.”

The phrase “After years of eating beans and driving up his debts” typically suggests that Disney lived in a financially constrained manner for an extended period. In other words, Disney took simple and inexpensive diet, but it didn’t prevent him from accumulating debt. Trying to make ends meet by eating cheap food can’t actually save you from struggling financially despite your efforts, since there certainly arise issues which cause you to incur unexpected expenses. It is in this context that Disney amassed debts, despite the austerity measures.

There are however some media which report the 300 times of rejection as a rumor, yet Biography and some platforms point it out as a truth. Even if the 300 times hadn’t been reached, Life In Humanity at least agrees that he suffered such a lot of rejections which actually sufficed for him to abandon the project. But, he didn’t succumb to the rejections. His perseverance finally yielded sweet fruits, because Mickey Mouse has always been the most liked character of Walt Disney’s animated cartoons. Mickey Mouse possibly constitutes one of the most enjoyed cartoon stars in the world.

Biography adds “Even with the success of Mickey Mouse, Disney still faced challenges in keeping his business afloat. Not only was he overworked, but tensions with his employer — who eventually stole his longtime and best animator from him — led to Disney having a nervous breakdown.”

According to NBC News, Disney in a TV biography recalled “I had a hell of a breakdown. I got to the point that I couldn’t talk on the telephone. I’d begin to cry.” NBC News specifies that he cracked under the pressure of leading Walt Disney Studio and managing a brand which was starting to register global recognition. Disney, according to NBC News, eventually overcame his stress by traveling with his wife, Lillian, and playing polo. 

As you are going to see it in the next section, intense hindrances are in fact your concealed gold or contain gold. This is even underlined by Tony Robbins, one of the most successful personalities who has defeated seemingly insuperable adversities. “We all have dreams. We all want to believe deep down in our souls that we have a special gift, that we can make a difference, that we can touch others in a special way, and that we can make the world a better place. At one time in our lives, we all had a vision for the quality of life that we desire and deserve. Yet, for many of us, those dreams have become so shrouded in the frustrations and routines of daily life that we no longer even make an effort to accomplish them,”  he says in his book ‘Awaken the Giant Within’

“For far too many, the dream has dissipated—and with it, so has the will to shape our destinies. Many have lost that sense of certainty that creates the winner’s edge. My life’s quest has been to restore the dream and to make it real, to get each of us to remember and use the unlimited power that lies sleeping within us all. All successful people learn that success is buried on the other side of frustration,” he adds. For more about Robbins click on this article. 

Disney’s success

Disney eventually adopted a decision to exploit the more money-spinning field, namely Hollywood. “He and his brother moved to California and started producing a successful cartoon series, says Business Insider. Walt Disney, originally from Chicago, and his brother Roy O. Disney relocated to California in the early 1920s. This move was driven by opportunities in Hollywood which was becoming a major hub for film production and animation. They initially faced challenges but eventually found success in the burgeoning field of animated films.

The Disney brothers created the Disney Brothers Studio which later became The Walt Disney Company. Their move to California and subsequent success began with the creation of the Alice Comedies, a series which combined live-action with animation. Even the creation and initial success of Mickey Mouse, having not started in Hollywood,   are closely tied to Hollywood. By the time Mickey Mouse was introduced, the Disney brothers were established in Hollywood which became the center of their animation operations.

Meanwhile, SFSFF says that salvation came in the form of four-year-old Virginia Davis and Disney’s latest brainstorm of placing a live girl among cartoon figures. It’s after observing promising signs that Disney convinced his crew to go to live in California. “True, he simply inverted the Fleischer formula of putting a cartoon character in a live-action scene. But the idea revitalized Disney, inspiring his most imaginative and versatile creation yet. Brimming with self-confidence, he persuaded most of his crew, including Iwerks, Harman, Ising, and even Virginia’s parents, to leave Kansas City for California where they could start over again. The adventure continued,” explains SFSFF.

In its 2 February 2023 article, Slash Film says “Welcome to 100 Years of Disney Magic, a series examining the history, achievements, and legacy of Disney Studios over the last century. The Walt Disney company is now a centenarian. First founded as the Disney Bros. Studios in October 1923 — a partnership between Walt and his older brother Roy — the animation company would go on to change the media landscape in ways that would have shocked even the forward-looking, ever-ambitious Uncle Walt himself.”

Slash Film highlights that the company was the first studio to possess two billion-dollar movies in one calendar year in 2010. It further says that Disney accumulated a total gross of $3 billion at the domestic box office in 2016. “After buying up Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, the company officially acquired the juggernaut 21st Century Fox.

How could it happen? How could one man produce so much entertainment that enthralled billions of human beings in every part of the world? That is the riddle of Walt Disney’s life.  It seems incredible that the unschooled cartoonist from Kansas City, a bankrupt in his first movie venture, could have produced works of unmatched imagination.”

According to Slash Film, uncle Walt- as he would come to be known- was more than just an artist or even a visionary. It contends that he became a true American icon, “a portrait of the American dream, realized. 

Neal Gabler describes this phenomenon in ‘Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.’ ‘An American Everyman,’ Walt Disney was the embodiment of 20th-century American ideals: an unassuming, salt-of-the-Earth family man and entrepreneur who clawed his way from poverty and anonymity to immense wealth and influence. So much of the Disney brand today is still tied to Walt’s journey from obscurity to exceptional. Optimistic to a fault, and distinctly American.”

The Economic Times says that he won 26 Oscars and created a business which raked in $48 billion in 2014. Winning 26 Oscars is an unparalleled feat. The record is held by Walt Disney, who amassed 26 Academy Awards throughout his career. His achievements in animation and film production set an extraordinarily high bar in the history of the Oscars. This record has remained unmatched, making Disney’s accomplishment unique in the realm of cinema.

In its 11 March 2024 article “Who has the most Oscars of all time?”, CBS News reports “It may come as a surprise, but the person with the most Oscar awards ever is not a movie star — it’s Walt Disney. He received 26 Oscars, of which 22 were competitive awards and four were honorary awards.

One of his special awards, granted in 1933, was for the creation of Mickey Mouse. In 1937, he received an honorary Academy Award for ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ — one full-size statuette and seven ‘dwarf’ statuettes.He was posthumously awarded his final win for ‘Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day’ in 1969. Disney is followed by Iain Neil, a renowned camera optical systems developer with 13 Oscar wins.”

Disney was killed by lung cancer in 1966. However, the business that started as a family-owned animated films studio has developed into a gigantic international conglomerate which represents one of the largest media corporations in the world. Statista clarifies it in these words “In 2023, the Walt Disney Company generated a total revenue of nearly 32.6 billion U.S. dollars with its parks, and experiences, an increase of around 16 percent from the year before.”

Statista states that the company’s biggest revenue origin was its entertainment segment, producing revenues of over 40 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. “However, this marked a growth three percent year-on-year. The total assets of the Walt Disney Company amounted to more than 205 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.”

This German online organ specializing in data gathering and visualization, considered a leading online statistics, data, and market research platform- Statista, adds “In 2023, the Walt Disney Company generated over 19 percent of its revenue through its sports segment which includes the ESPN properties. This revenue stream brought the company 17 billion U.S. dollars that year. The experiences segment was the second-largest revenue source, generating a total of 32.6 billion U.S. dollars. It is a very successful segment – Disney’s parks take the top spots in the ranking of the most visited amusement and theme parks worldwide.

The Magic Kingdom Park in Bay Lake, Florida, ranked first in 2022 with 17 million visitors. The largest revenue stream – with over 40 billion U.S. dollars – was the entertainment business. This segment includes linear networks, direct-to-consumer (DTC) business and content sales and licensing. The DTC operations comprise of the company’s streaming services such as Disney+, Disney+ Hotstar, and Hulu. This subsegment brought in more than five billion U.S. dollars in the last quarter of 2023.”

J.R.R. Tolkien’s quote underlines that it is inadvisable to judge a person from challenges that they are facing, as it is unwise to judge from appearance. “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost. The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” 

Hardships that Disney faced in childhood are they that have shaped his character. For example, he once stated “It is good to have a failure while you’re young because it teaches you so much. For one thing, it makes you aware that such a thing can happen to anybody, and once you’ve lived through the worst, you’re never quite as vulnerable afterward.”

His adversities and resilience besides his incredible achievements have prompted him to say “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. If you can dream it, you can do it. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable. The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.

Why worry? If you’ve done the very best you can, then worrying won’t make it any better. In bad times and in good, I’ve never lost my sense of zest for life.”

Conclusion

Walt Disney’s life is a testament to the power of resilience and an unyielding spirit in the face of adversity. Disney experienced hurdles that would have discouraged most people. However, his story is not just about overcoming obstacles but also about finding strength in those moments of despair and using them as stepping stones to greatness.

Disney’s journey reminds us that success rarely constitutes a straight path. His ability -to transform every hardship into a learning experience, continually innovate, and  believe in his dreams even when others doubted him- acts as an inspiration to all. It rationalizes one of his famous quotes “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”

Ultimately, Disney’s legacy is not just the empire which he erected, but the enduring lesson that with courage, imagination, and perseverance, we too can turn our dreams into reality. His life encourages us to see beyond our current circumstances, persist through our struggles, and keep moving forward with the belief that within every hardship lies the seed of our greatest potential.