Walt Disney went bankrupt. At just 20 years old, Walt’s first company, Laugh-O-Gram Studio, brought together some of the most talented animators in the world, laid the groundwork for the creation of Mickey Mouse – and was a financial disaster. Before the company went out of business just two short years later, cash was so tight that Walt lived in his office and survived on cold beans from a can and bathed at Union Station because he couldn’t afford hot water. He even resorted to catching mice in his office – one of which inspired Mickey Mouse.
After this devastating failure, Walt moved to Hollywood – with virtually no money, he founded Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio (which later became the Walt Disney Company). His fortune didn’t improve, and by the early 1930s, the company was $4 million in debt. Against this backdrop, Walt decided to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – production was so expensive that it nearly bankrupted the company again. Hollywood called it “Disney’s Folly.” The film’s $1.5 million budget was astronomical for 1937. Walt mortgaged his house, and animators worked unpaid overtime believing in his vision.
Snow White turned out to be a monumental success: Snow White earned $8 million during its initial release, an astronomical sum in 1937 dollars, making it the highest-grossing film of all time until Gone with the Wind. The rest is, as they say in the movies, history…
It takes a special person with strong convictions to endure so much hardship. And yet – nearly every success story, when you peel back the layers and look closely, resembles Walt’s nightmare fairy tale. Here’s what separates dreamers from builders: When Laugh-O-Gram collapsed, Walt had every reason to return to his father’s farm in Missouri. Instead, he borrowed $40 from his uncle and bought a one-way ticket to Hollywood. Ask yourself: Would you bet everything – your home, your reputation, your last dollar – on something everyone calls a folly? Walt did. Because when you truly believe in what you’re building, bankruptcy is just another problem to solve.
Like it or not – this is reality. It’s the reality that media (typically) doesn’t talk about. Doing something that matters requires, first and foremost, that it actually matters (to YOU) – without conviction that the thing you do is something worth fighting for, you don’t even have a shot at making it. When the going gets tough (and it will, trust me), you need to have a rock-solid foundation of belief – believe that what you do matters.
Build what matters – the rest is just problems waiting for solutions.