I see success and failure as two sides of the same coin. Although some people may look at my life and think of it as one unbroken string of success, I know better. I’ve had my share of disappointment and failure. You have to learn how to deal and live with both dismal failure and spectacular success—and not be paralyzed by either. Along the way I’ve learned a few lessons.
1. Work hard.
The most important key to success, to me, is hard work. I have a very strong work ethic. I enjoy working. My work is intellectually stimulating. I’ve never had a chance in my career to sit back and enjoy my success. Maybe someday. But it’s not my style to sit around and think about the success of The Lion King, for example. I’m always engaged in the current project and looking ahead to the next challenge.
2. Learn from your failures.
Success is not an experience that does you much good. Failing is much more sobering and enlightening. But, when you fail, you must see failure as a step toward success—and then go back to work and try again. I’ve had some setbacks. You can’t succeed big unless you’ve experienced failure, especially creative failure, and learn from it—not make the same mistake twice. There’s nothing worse than middle ground. Mediocrity is the bane of existence. I’d rather have the most celebrated failures, along with the most celebrated successes, than a life of mediocrity.
3. Gain emotional intelligence.
I believe in the emotional and the psychological side of life. Most people who talk about achievement talk about the external drives. You don’t hear much about people suppressing their dark side and letting their light side come out. But, I manage a creative company. I understand creative people. Daily, I have to deal with people who have many distractions in their lives.
The ingredients that make for achievement are not necessarily gaining a Harvard education or winning an award. The high achiever may not be the studious sibling who gets all A’s in school, but the one who is watching, learning, and understanding of the drives and motives of people.
Personally, I think the best foundation for business is reading Shakespeare, rather than doing some MBA program. I’d rather have an English major than an economics major working for me, because this work requires people who have common sense. What brings people down, I find, are the human things—the lack of common sense, not the lack of knowing what exactly is the information highway, but the lack of understanding why somebody is unhappy.
Nobody is what they appear to be. People are very complex. Most of the things that people are, they don’t express. Through the dramatic process—theater, movies, television, books, poems, essays—we express our own understandings of people. And in doing that, we see that people are complex. They’re complex when they achieve, and when they fail.
4. Marriage and family.
My family—parents, spouse, and children—gives me an enclave in which I can succeed.
- Parents who deeply care about you and support you. Your parents don’t have to be rich. The genetic accident that you want is to be born of parents who care about you and support you, who are there for you, and give you the confidence and freedom to fail. I have met many people who come from inner city America or from foreign countries where they struggle beyond anything you can imagine and yet still manage to achieve, because they have at least one parent who stands behind them. As I listen to achievers talk about their lives, this seems to be a consistent theme—they receive support from one or both parents—not just a friend of the family, not the church, not the government, but a parent. More often than not it’s a father, which is interesting to me, but also a mother.
- A marriage partner who keeps you honest. I was extremely lucky in love because I met somebody right after I got out of college whom I married—somebody who was interested in what I was doing, but didn’t believe any of my baloney. In fact, she constantly said to me, “Don’t believe what people write about you.” She kept me level-headed, and she delivered for me three sons who became the center of my life. My wife and I are primarily interested in family. The one place I always felt that I could trust—maybe like E.T.—was my home. They are my toughest critics, and biggest supporters.
- A family that cares little about your professional success. Whenever the heady experience of achievement and reward is presented to me, I have three children who say, “Dad, can we go to the movies?” or “Dad, we’re going to do this.” They could care less about my job. My children don’t know about my success. They don’t care about it. One reason I enjoy working for company that’s a big advocate of the family (Disney) is because with family, you’re more likely to exhibit healthy social behavior. Unfortunately, many people have a dysfunctional family, and that’s why we work so hard to try to reduce that disadvantage. You have a better shot of achieving success when you have the strength of family behind you.
5. Make good use of your freedom.
I’m passionate about creating American intellectual products because the most successful export from the United States is the so-called American dream, as depicted in our literature, fine arts, architecture, movies, and television. And in the creative process, we don’t think about what the government thinks. Our system of government not only precludes tyranny, but also protects creativity; so, for me, the American experience gives me the right to express myself and the right to succeed. Of course, those rights must be protected. I know many people who have escaped oppression. Many of them are in the entertainment business, in Hollywood or New York. And, of course, they are more patriotic than anybody who was ever born here in North America, because they so highly value their freedom of expression.
6. Allow other people to fail.
I’m an advocate of not only allowing myself to fail, but allowing the people who work for me to fail, without fear that they will be fired because of failure. If they don’t fail, they will never succeed big. Sadly, American business promotes decisions made by temporary managers, who fail and then get fired, and then the next guy comes in and makes the same mistake. At Disney, we know that some projects will bomb—but we also know that out of that “failure” we will have the big success. So, I have a policy that I never fire anybody, until they succeed. If a person is simply incompetent, I may make an exception. But I don’t want anybody in my company to think that they are in jeopardy of losing a job because of failure. I try to work with that person until they succeed, and then make a change.
7. Be willing to take risks.
Research may tell me that people want more of what they saw yesterday, but I don’t believe it. Most people don’t know what they want. They want something new, and different, and unusual. So, risk-taking is a very important quality. When you’re trying to create new things, you have to be on the edge of risk—so often that makes all the difference between success and failure.
8. Learn to work well in teams.
I’ve always believed in teams; I love teams. I hated singles at tennis; I love doubles. I love team sports. I love being a cheerleader. I love surrounding myself with people who are better than I am. That’s the key. It makes you look good, not weak, to have strong people around you.
Excellence in Action: Learn how to deal and live with both dismal failure and spectacular success—and not be paralyzed by either. 
