Latest / Yes And Land / Dream Chasing and the Magic of Disney Imagineering | Bob Weis on Building Impossible Dreams

Transcript

Dream Chasing and the Magic of Disney Imagineering | Bob Weis on Building Impossible Dreams · Yes And Land

• 0:00
  Oftentimes, you might walk into a meeting with
• 0:03
  your idea, but by the time you leave the meeting,
• 0:07
  it's our idea. You know, because somebody's added
• 0:09
  to it. Somebody else has made a great comment.
• 0:12
  That's the magic of it. And the magic of it is
• 0:15
  the collaboration. Well, the silliest thing anyone
• 0:17
  tells you, Brian, is a project's been canceled
• 0:21
  and someone will say, well, just don't take it
• 0:23
  personally. Well, it's you. There's no way not
• 0:27
  to take it personally. Creative output. is coming
• 0:30
  from you and your team members. So everybody
• 0:31
  takes it personally. And then one of the things
• 0:33
  you wrote is dreams are elusive and always pulling
• 0:36
  at you. They seem to always be right around the
• 0:38
  corner, but you never really know what you're
• 0:41
  chasing until you catch it. It turns out to be
• 0:43
  real magic. The chase will have been worth it.
• 0:46
  Well, I had planned this. I had the entire WI
• 0:49
  patio loaded with 750 people ready to see Bob
• 0:54
  Unger. So he thought I was probably going to
• 0:56
  go back to the studio and there might be 10,
• 0:57
  15 people the way I described it. I said, well,
• 0:59
  it's just the team's gathering. So I walked out
• 1:02
  there. I walked out there with him. And he's
• 1:04
  like, what the heck? It was 750 people. And I'll
• 1:09
  tell you, Bob got up on the steps with me and
• 1:11
  Howard Brown, our team, gave an incredibly inspiring
• 1:15
  address. No preparation. Keep a very, very positive
• 1:19
  attitude about your own. Maybe that one will
• 1:22
  come true. Maybe the next one will come true.
• 1:24
  Maybe it'll be some combination of two things
• 1:27
  you want to do. But don't give up and just keep
• 1:29
  a very, very positive and collaborative attitude
• 1:31
  toward anything you want to do. Welcome to Yes
• 1:38
  And Land, where we say yes to the reality of
• 1:41
  yesterday and today. And we say and to the possibility,
• 1:45
  growth, and imagination of tomorrow. Today, we
• 1:57
  are very excited to have Bob Weiss on the program
• 2:00
  with us. Bob has a storied career, over four
• 2:02
  decades with the Disney company. Started right
• 2:07
  out of college, basically. Did have a job prior
• 2:10
  to that during college, but started out in WED
• 2:14
  Enterprises, which is what Walt Disney Imagineering
• 2:17
  used to be called. And Bob has worked on all
• 2:21
  of the Disney parks worldwide. and some amazing
• 2:25
  experiences that he talks about in his wonderful
• 2:27
  book, Chasing Dreams. And just such a pleasure
• 2:30
  to have him on today to learn from him, to learn
• 2:32
  from the successes and failures that he had during
• 2:36
  his four decades with the Walt Disney Company.
• 2:40
  So, Bob, welcome to the program. Hey, Ryan, it's
• 2:42
  great to be here and great to have the conversation.
• 2:46
  And I feel so privileged that I was able to write
• 2:50
  this book, Dream Chasing, and I was able to get
• 2:53
  it out there and been able to meet people, have
• 2:55
  great conversations about people's dreams and
• 2:57
  how to chase them, how to fulfill them. So it's
• 3:00
  great to have a chance to have a conversation
• 3:03
  with you. And yeah, we're excited to learn about
• 3:08
  some of those, what your dreams were, what you
• 3:10
  were chasing, and what life lessons we can pull,
• 3:13
  we all can pull from the experiences that you
• 3:16
  had as we all kind of chase our dreams. One of
• 3:20
  the things that I wanted to kind of start with
• 3:22
  you about is taking it kind of all the way back
• 3:24
  to an experience you talked about in your book
• 3:27
  when you were a young lad, I believe nine years
• 3:30
  old, as I believe what it was. And you talked
• 3:32
  about first going to Disneyland and that that
• 3:36
  kind of gave you your first spark. And so I'm
• 3:39
  wondering if you can kind of take us back to
• 3:40
  that. What was it that you were feeling in? that
• 3:44
  time that you can remember that gave you that
• 3:47
  spark? What were the emotions you experienced
• 3:48
  that you felt like gave you the spark? Well,
• 3:51
  interesting in my generation, Disneyland opened
• 3:54
  in 1955. I was born in 1957. And I probably went
• 4:00
  to Disneyland by, let's say, 1961, 62, something
• 4:05
  like that. So I never knew a world without Disneyland.
• 4:09
  Like you, like you younger folks who never knew
• 4:11
  a world without Disney World and Disneyland.
• 4:13
  But I never knew the world without Disneyland.
• 4:15
  And Disneyland to me was a place that the family
• 4:18
  went once a year. You know, we didn't have this
• 4:21
  kind of pass where you could go every weekend
• 4:24
  or anything like that. It took a lot of energy
• 4:26
  and money to get passes. But my father was a
• 4:30
  member of the Magic Kingdom Club at his work.
• 4:32
  And he would sell, you know. accumulate, I guess,
• 4:36
  value during the year. And then once a year we
• 4:39
  go, and we kind of decided it was my birthday
• 4:41
  when we would go. So we always went right around
• 4:44
  Labor Day weekend. When's your birthday, Bob?
• 4:48
  My birthday is September 6th, so it was always
• 4:50
  around there. September 6th, all right. It was
• 4:53
  just a great, great experience. It was just something
• 4:55
  that you immediately sense, even as a kid. about
• 5:01
  Disneyland as being a real place, a place that
• 5:05
  has kind of high ideals, that makes people aspire
• 5:09
  to a wonderful, you know, kind of secure life
• 5:13
  and life is good and people get along together.
• 5:16
  It's just a general feeling of Disneyland of
• 5:19
  well -being, I think. And so I had that feeling.
• 5:23
  And even there were times I went, I wrote in
• 5:24
  the book, even there were times I went. I don't
• 5:28
  have it as an adult, but as a child, I had asthma
• 5:30
  periodically. Couldn't run and might have a bad
• 5:34
  day. And we were at Disneyland. It didn't matter.
• 5:36
  It was great. It's the greatest thing in the
• 5:38
  world. So I grew up with Disneyland. I grew up
• 5:41
  with an affection for Disneyland, as many young
• 5:44
  people who first go to Disneyland in their lives
• 5:47
  and then go repeatedly do. And I still feel that
• 5:51
  way. I still feel that. Sense of security, I
• 5:55
  guess, when I go through the gates. Now that
• 5:57
  I'm retired from Imagineering and I don't actively
• 6:01
  pursue projects anymore, it's even better because
• 6:04
  I don't have to be looking around saying, is
• 6:06
  there something wrong? Is there some paints chipping
• 6:08
  or somebody's doing the wrong thing? I don't
• 6:11
  have to. I just enjoy it like a guest, and I
• 6:13
  love that. When you started working for WED Enterprises,
• 6:20
  What was it you were trying to capture in the
• 6:23
  projects that you worked on so that others could
• 6:25
  experience Disney? Well, you know, I didn't know
• 6:28
  what WED Enterprises was. I had worked a summer
• 6:31
  at Disneyland, a summer and a fall at Disneyland
• 6:34
  in outdoor foods, which was popcorn and ice cream.
• 6:38
  And it's a great position to work at at Disneyland
• 6:41
  because you get to stay inside the park all day
• 6:43
  and you watch people and you see how it changes
• 6:46
  throughout the day. go on a shift, they push
• 6:49
  you someplace else. So you might be in Frontierland
• 6:51
  today, Tomorrowland tomorrow, the next day. And
• 6:54
  so it's a really great way to observe how Disneyland
• 6:57
  works. You know, I had an opportunity to work
• 7:00
  at Disneyland for a summer and a fall, and I
• 7:03
  was in outdoor foods, which was popcorn and ice
• 7:05
  cream. I was out on the street all the time.
• 7:07
  You learn so much about Disneyland and about
• 7:10
  the people because you're there all day and you're
• 7:13
  in different lands on different days. I kind
• 7:18
  of heard a little bit about this secretive group
• 7:21
  called WEN Enterprises. And it was because Space
• 7:23
  Mountain was under construction. And I remember
• 7:25
  asking, because I was in architecture school,
• 7:28
  I remember asking, you know, who does this kind
• 7:30
  of stuff for Disney? And they said, oh, it's
• 7:32
  a secret group, you know, WEN Enterprises. You
• 7:34
  know, you can't find out anything about them.
• 7:37
  It really was a secretive group. So it just happened,
• 7:41
  Ryan, if you can imagine, just like. complete
• 7:44
  accident that they came to recruit at my college
• 7:47
  when I was getting ready to graduate. And I had
• 7:49
  studied a combination of architecture where I
• 7:51
  got my degree and I studied a lot of theater.
• 7:54
  And I rushed around and I grabbed my portfolio
• 7:56
  and I went up and I met the recruiter and they
• 8:00
  thought it was a great fit. And that was a great
• 8:02
  opportunity for me. So back to your question
• 8:06
  now, when I started it at Thwed, I knew a lot
• 8:10
  about Disneyland. I probably knew a lot. more
• 8:12
  than many people who started at Wed because I
• 8:14
  had grown up there and seen it so many times
• 8:16
  and worked there a little bit. And my first job
• 8:19
  was building the first Disneyland outside the
• 8:23
  U .S., which is Tokyo. And it was essentially
• 8:27
  an adapted version of the Magic Kingdom in Florida,
• 8:30
  which I had also been to as kind of a teenager.
• 8:35
  Here I was and I was surrounded by people that
• 8:38
  had worked on Disneyland, you know, Bill Martin
• 8:41
  and Bob Gurr and people like that who were legends
• 8:46
  and now are recognized as legends. But at that
• 8:51
  point, they were kind of the senior people at
• 8:53
  WED and they were – some of them had come back
• 8:56
  from retirement even to work on Tokyo. And they
• 8:59
  treated us like we were their – you know, they're
• 9:02
  teaching us the ropes. They really were open.
• 9:04
  They were amazing mentors. And so you really
• 9:07
  got a great – it was a quick education on Disney
• 9:12
  and on how you build Disneyland and how they
• 9:15
  build Disneyland. So I feel privileged to have
• 9:18
  been there at that time. I kind of think of myself
• 9:21
  as part of the second generation of WED. The
• 9:24
  first generation worked for Walt. And then when
• 9:27
  Epcot started and TDL started, this sort of new
• 9:30
  generation flooded in because they needed a lot.
• 9:33
  bigger company to do those projects. And we were
• 9:36
  lucky just to be mentored by those incredible
• 9:38
  designers. What did you learn from the way they
• 9:42
  mentored you to then you mentoring other people
• 9:46
  as you came up? Because obviously you moved all
• 9:49
  the way up to being president of Walt Disney
• 9:51
  Imagineering, which is just phenomenal. And so
• 9:53
  you must have mentored a lot of people along
• 9:55
  the way. What lessons did you learn from them
• 9:57
  on how to mentor? I just finished a book, Ryan,
• 10:00
  my third book. I just finished it. It's just
• 10:03
  gone out to the publisher. And it's based on
• 10:05
  Marty Sklar, who is the leader. I was going to
• 10:07
  ask you about this book, Bob. I'm glad you brought
• 10:09
  it up. I'll tell you about it later. But I bring
• 10:11
  up Marty because he was a big proponent of what
• 10:16
  we called the hallway culture. And we used to
• 10:20
  use these big four -foot by eight -foot storyboards.
• 10:22
  Whenever you were going to present something,
• 10:24
  you pinned them on those. And those were actually
• 10:25
  moved over from the animation department at the
• 10:28
  studio. where you had to do frame -by -frame
• 10:30
  storyboards. So you had these big boards in your
• 10:31
  office, and you're pinning up whatever you're
• 10:34
  working on. And the offices were pretty small.
• 10:38
  So eventually, you had to put them in the hallway.
• 10:40
  And you put them so people walking by could see
• 10:44
  what you were working on. And people would stop.
• 10:46
  Anybody would stop and say, oh, what's this?
• 10:49
  And it made it a very open culture. It wasn't
• 10:52
  secretive. People would meet in the hallways,
• 10:56
  look at somebody's boards and say, oh, I think
• 10:58
  you should do this scene a little bit differently.
• 11:00
  Nobody had a problem either with advising somebody
• 11:04
  or taking advice. It was that kind of camaraderie,
• 11:08
  very casual camaraderie. And I'll tell you, Ryan,
• 11:12
  I had an office at one point at WED. And on one
• 11:17
  side of me was a complete legend, Sam McKim.
• 11:21
  who worked for the company for many, many years,
• 11:23
  was a child actor, did tons and tons of work
• 11:26
  and illustrations for the company. And on the
• 11:28
  other side was Exitensio. There's a new book
• 11:31
  out about Ex, but he's the guy that wrote, you
• 11:33
  know, Yo -Ho, Yo -Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me,
• 11:35
  did so much directing of voice and design. But
• 11:39
  they never acted like they were on a higher plane
• 11:42
  or anything. They were just guys. You know, now
• 11:45
  we think of them as Disney legends, but at that
• 11:47
  point they were just colleagues. Harriet Burns,
• 11:50
  who now is a Disney legend, was in the model
• 11:52
  shop, you know, building. Joyce Carlson is a
• 11:57
  legend. I worked with her because she came to
• 11:59
  Tokyo and helped us complete Small World. She
• 12:01
  worked on all the Small Worlds. So these are
• 12:04
  people who now are recognized for their incredible
• 12:07
  contribution but were so matter -of -fact and
• 12:11
  nice and helpful. So I took that on as my— as
• 12:17
  my mantle. You know, if people want to come see
• 12:19
  me or if they want to talk about their careers
• 12:21
  or, you know, where they want to go, so many
• 12:25
  people helped me that I try to help as many as
• 12:27
  possible. And, you know, you get, of course,
• 12:30
  it gets harder as you go up because you have
• 12:33
  more responsibilities, you have more people to
• 12:34
  talk to. But the best thing in the world for
• 12:37
  Marty, for me, for John Hinch, for anybody, I
• 12:40
  think, was walking the halls, walking around,
• 12:42
  seeing people and just having casual conversations.
• 12:46
  It's the best thing in the world. Absolutely.
• 12:47
  Yeah. And I mean, one of the things that you
• 12:49
  must have had with everybody there was there
• 12:52
  had to be a lack of probably ego and some kind
• 12:56
  of feeling of safety because to be able to put
• 12:59
  your work out there and be able to take the feedback
• 13:01
  that somebody gives, you've got to really remove
• 13:04
  your ego from that equation so that you can be
• 13:07
  receptive for it and feel like an environment
• 13:09
  that you can be vulnerable, that it is safe for
• 13:11
  you to do. So that's a very good description
• 13:14
  of it. And I think. I would tell you that it's
• 13:16
  still that way. I think it's still a very group
• 13:19
  -oriented process. It's collaborative. There
• 13:22
  are no superstars. People work together. There
• 13:25
  are the people who come up with ideas. There
• 13:26
  are people who are focused on making them a reality.
• 13:30
  They work together seamlessly. But back then,
• 13:33
  I think it was different because we had these
• 13:34
  folks who had been a part of the invention of
• 13:37
  things like the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of
• 13:40
  the Caribbean and those kind of things. But there
• 13:43
  was absolutely no ego associated with them. It
• 13:45
  was just like, oh, yeah, we do this. That's what
• 13:47
  we do. Claude Coates was the most humble guy
• 13:50
  in the world. They were incredible. And, you
• 13:55
  know, there wasn't a culture of these folks are
• 13:59
  legends or things. I'm so happy today that people
• 14:03
  are recognized as that because they did really
• 14:07
  great things in their creative careers. But it's
• 14:11
  interesting how I think back then the organization
• 14:13
  was very humble, just very collaborative. And
• 14:16
  I feel like even when I go back there, which
• 14:18
  I do quite a bit now, it's the same way. It's
• 14:21
  very humble. And, you know, you have a team and
• 14:24
  you have somebody that's been there for 30 years
• 14:25
  on the same team as somebody who just got here
• 14:28
  from college. And you will find, I think, in
• 14:31
  that kind of environment, and this probably applies
• 14:33
  to your audience whether they're in some other
• 14:35
  kind of business or not, The senior people of
• 14:40
  your company are really interested in what the
• 14:43
  younger people have to say because they're coming
• 14:45
  out of college. They have different skills. They
• 14:46
  have fresh ideas. And the young people are very
• 14:50
  interested in being mentored. So as long as you
• 14:52
  approach it right, it's a really collaborative,
• 14:54
  great mentorship possibility. Yeah, and I think
• 14:58
  the organizations that can find a way to do that
• 15:01
  are ones that can have a much better culture
• 15:04
  inside the organization. I think one of the things,
• 15:06
  just from my perspective in the legal world and
• 15:09
  law firms, is sometimes, unfortunately, that's
• 15:12
  not the case. Sometimes you'll get lawyers who
• 15:15
  have experience who do get those egos, and they
• 15:18
  aren't willing to mentor. And I think it's really
• 15:21
  short -sighted. I think if we want to do something
• 15:23
  or build something that's more enduring, where
• 15:26
  people want to be and they want to stay, you've
• 15:28
  got to have that positive culture where it is
• 15:30
  more about collaboration and mentorship and working
• 15:33
  together to build something better. There's a
• 15:35
  few quotes I want to ask you about. One that
• 15:38
  came up, and I want to kind of get your take
• 15:39
  on this. And it's a quote you'll recognize. It's
• 15:42
  from Walt, of course. And he said, all our dreams
• 15:46
  can come true if we have the courage to pursue
• 15:48
  them. And so when I hear something like that,
• 15:51
  it talks, you know, he's talking about courage.
• 15:53
  I mean, courage to pursue them, which means to
• 15:55
  some degree, if we're going to be courageous,
• 15:57
  it means that there must be some fear that's
• 15:59
  there because otherwise it's not courageous to
• 16:01
  pursue it if there's not fear. In your career,
• 16:03
  when you were taking on new challenges, what
• 16:06
  fears did you have or did you face as you were
• 16:09
  approaching things that were sometimes these
• 16:12
  huge things that you were doing like Shanghai
• 16:14
  Disney or Tokyo DisneySea, those types of things?
• 16:18
  Well, that's a great thing for us to talk about,
• 16:21
  Ryan. And as you know, my book is titled Dream
• 16:25
  Chasing. And we were actually about – I was about
• 16:28
  halfway through the book. I say we because I
• 16:30
  had a wonderful editor at Disney who didn't write
• 16:35
  anything for me, but she guided me through the
• 16:37
  process. I had never written anything like this
• 16:39
  before. And about halfway through, she said,
• 16:44
  you know what this is about? You're writing about
• 16:47
  – chasing dreams. You're writing about how hard
• 16:50
  it is to come up with an idea, but then how do
• 16:52
  you go all through the gauntlet to actually get
• 16:54
  it done, right? And so I picked up on that theme
• 16:59
  and the book really became case studies about
• 17:02
  having great dreams and what it takes to chase
• 17:07
  them along. I don't think you follow them. I
• 17:09
  think you kind of have to chase them. You have
• 17:10
  to be aggressive. You have to really want them
• 17:12
  to happen. And I think... That what I learned
• 17:16
  in my career and what I now seem to hear from
• 17:19
  people when I go on the road and talk about the
• 17:21
  book is how do I have an idea, a germ of an idea?
• 17:27
  And if I believe what Walt said, which is, you
• 17:29
  know, if you're willing to pursue them, you can
• 17:32
  make them happen. How do I make that happen?
• 17:34
  And I tell people it's a long road. It's a tough
• 17:37
  road. And it's a road that you have to get others
• 17:40
  to share that dream with you. It's not just something
• 17:43
  you're doing, but you have to get others to be
• 17:45
  a part of it. And to do that, you've got to have
• 17:48
  them invest themselves. And sometimes that means
• 17:50
  modifying an idea so that you have a variety
• 17:53
  of opinions and ideas. Oftentimes, you might
• 17:57
  walk into a meeting with your idea, but by the
• 18:01
  time you leave the meeting, it's our idea. Because
• 18:04
  somebody's added to it. Somebody else has made
• 18:06
  a great comment. Somebody else has said, well,
• 18:08
  we could do this. That's the magic of it. And
• 18:12
  the magic of it is the collaboration. And so
• 18:14
  when people say to me, I've got a dream and I
• 18:18
  want to pursue it, the first thing I suggest
• 18:20
  to them is try to get collaborators who believe
• 18:23
  it like you do. Not very many. Many of us are
• 18:26
  soul artists or soul entrepreneurs. Some of us
• 18:30
  are. But most of us are in a position where we
• 18:33
  benefit from collaboration, even in a small company.
• 18:36
  And so that's probably the biggest advice I've
• 18:39
  given in the book is don't give up on your dreams.
• 18:42
  Push them hard. But also be willing to modulate
• 18:47
  them through a great collaborative effort is
• 18:51
  what it takes when you're going to do, especially
• 18:52
  the field I've been in, these big, huge, you
• 18:55
  know. projects around the world, you're going
• 18:57
  to have a big team and you're going to have to
• 18:59
  be a leader of many people. Yeah. I, you know,
• 19:02
  one of the, one of the things too, that when
• 19:04
  I was thinking about this and I, and I found
• 19:06
  another quote, I want to ask you about, uh, about
• 19:08
  this very thing. Tony Robbins said, it's, it's
• 19:10
  not about the goal. It's about growing to become
• 19:12
  the person that can accomplish the goal. So in
• 19:16
  your experiences with this, when you had the
• 19:18
  courage to do those things and you were finding
• 19:20
  people to mentor you and collaborate with you
• 19:23
  on these things, As you look back at that career,
• 19:26
  what was it that you felt like you needed to
• 19:28
  become in order to be the leader that you ended
• 19:31
  up becoming with WDI? That's a great note. And
• 19:34
  I think that I've always seen leadership, and
• 19:39
  maybe it's particular to Disney and particular
• 19:42
  to WDI, is leadership is a very soft kind of
• 19:48
  collaborative leadership. It's not a hard. top
• 19:52
  -down kind of, you know, you guys go do that.
• 19:55
  You know, you don't order people around. And
• 19:58
  I learned a lot. I learned so much of this from
• 20:00
  Marty Sklar. Again, the new book that I have
• 20:02
  is somebody who got to know people almost like
• 20:08
  chess players. And he would say, I know what
• 20:11
  that person does. And I know what they do really
• 20:14
  well. And I know this other person, what they
• 20:16
  do really well. And I think I'll put those two
• 20:18
  together and say, why don't you two get together
• 20:20
  and work on this project for a little while.
• 20:22
  Or you four get together and work on a project
• 20:24
  like that. So the biggest benefit you have is
• 20:30
  being collaborative, being positive, and really
• 20:34
  knowing your people. Know who the talent is.
• 20:37
  and know how to combine them, know how to sort
• 20:39
  of mix it up. You don't want really a room full
• 20:43
  of people who do the same thing or think the
• 20:45
  same way. You want kind of a crazy room where
• 20:49
  people argue and one person's an artist and one
• 20:51
  person's a writer and somebody else is a musician,
• 20:54
  whatever, an anthropologist, so that it's lively
• 20:58
  and that you can learn from each other. And I
• 21:01
  think being a senior leader has to do with recognizing
• 21:06
  that you're not doing it for them and they're
• 21:09
  not doing it for you. You're guiding them to
• 21:12
  create something, but you're guiding them. When
• 21:14
  you do it yourself, you might be the boss, you
• 21:16
  might be the leader. But when you're a senior
• 21:18
  leader, you're really guiding. And you have to
• 21:21
  say, I think this chemistry is not working. Maybe
• 21:24
  I'll add another person or maybe I'll exchange
• 21:26
  a person out. But you do it kind of. softly and
• 21:30
  carefully. You know, you don't just come in and
• 21:33
  order people around. It just wouldn't work in
• 21:35
  this environment. It's very, very collaborative,
• 21:37
  very collegiate. And you have to know the people
• 21:43
  and what they're good at so that you can successfully
• 21:46
  build teams together. I think that's really insightful.
• 21:49
  I mean, I think if a leader really knows their
• 21:53
  people, then they can find those skills and those
• 21:56
  abilities. Because, you know, certain businesses
• 22:00
  and certain industries you might not have as
• 22:02
  many opportunities for creativity uh but i still
• 22:05
  think that there's plenty of opportunities for
• 22:07
  collaboration we i've talked about it with my
• 22:09
  firm lately of of this idea that i heard of of
• 22:13
  a plumber and a poet that you have certain plumbing
• 22:16
  that needs to get done and those are certain
• 22:17
  procedures that have to get followed and things
• 22:19
  that have to get done a certain way because otherwise
• 22:21
  it Palming doesn't work. Then you have the poet
• 22:23
  side of things. And that's where you have the
• 22:25
  creativity. That's where you have the autonomy.
• 22:27
  And I think in every job, every industry, there's
• 22:31
  plenty of poetry that's done. I agree with you
• 22:34
  100%. Yeah, it can be made so much better through
• 22:37
  that collaboration that's there. I was just going
• 22:42
  to add to that, Ryan, that I think what I find
• 22:46
  is even organizations that you might not on the
• 22:48
  surface think. have a strong creative bent of
• 22:52
  any sort. You find that there are creative people
• 22:56
  in every group, every organization. And what
• 23:01
  may not be happening is they may not be stimulated
• 23:04
  or may not feel free to get together. So I even
• 23:07
  tell people, well, you're not going to start
• 23:09
  a creative division in this company, but you
• 23:11
  could give three or four or five or six of your
• 23:14
  most interesting people who think outside the
• 23:18
  box and say, look, We're going to buy lunch for
• 23:20
  you guys once a week for the next two months,
• 23:22
  and we're going to give you a room, and we want
• 23:25
  you to come up with a bunch of ideas and see
• 23:27
  what comes out of it, right? Just find ways to
• 23:30
  leverage the creativity you have in an organization.
• 23:33
  And sometimes it might mean you bring in one
• 23:35
  consultant who helps to do it for you, helps
• 23:38
  stimulate creativity. But it seems to me every
• 23:40
  organization benefits from having a creative
• 23:44
  enclave that's thinking about the future, thinking
• 23:46
  about outside the box. Yeah, actually, I love
• 23:49
  that. You know, and at the end of this episode,
• 23:53
  when we circle back to our three actionable takeaways,
• 23:55
  to me, that's one of the perfect ones that we
• 23:57
  could give as a takeaway. I love this idea of
• 23:59
  putting people together and saying, hey, you
• 24:01
  know, go do lunch once a week and come up with
• 24:03
  an idea. I think it's a great recommendation.
• 24:06
  I'm already thinking about people on my team
• 24:07
  I can do that with, to be honest. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:10
  But people want to. People who want to do it
• 24:12
  want to do it. So if you kind of give them a
• 24:15
  little bit of license, they will. Yeah, I think
• 24:17
  that's right. So another quote I want to ask
• 24:19
  you about, and of course it's going to be from
• 24:21
  Marty Sklar. And he was paraphrasing Einstein.
• 24:24
  And what I've got here is he said, if you aren't
• 24:27
  failing from time to time, you aren't trying
• 24:30
  anything new. So one of the questions I have
• 24:33
  for you is obviously, you know, the book, I believe
• 24:36
  you had said at one point in time was going to
• 24:37
  originally be called successes and failures before
• 24:40
  you land on the title you did. And so you, you
• 24:42
  document some of the failures that were there.
• 24:44
  My question is this, when you had, one of those
• 24:47
  big projects that you were working on that completely
• 24:50
  got shut down. What was it that you were experiencing
• 24:54
  emotionally when that first happened before you
• 24:58
  were able to kind of move forward and move to
• 25:01
  the next project? What did that feel like? And
• 25:03
  then once you kind of described that, how did
• 25:05
  you find a way to move forward? Well, the silliest
• 25:08
  thing anyone tells you, Brian, is a project's
• 25:11
  been canceled or hasn't gone well or something
• 25:13
  like that. And someone will say, well, Just don't
• 25:16
  take it personally. Well, it's you. There's no
• 25:20
  way not to take it personally because creative
• 25:24
  output is coming from you and your team members,
• 25:26
  so everybody takes it personally. So the reminder
• 25:31
  you have to have, which is great in Marty's quote,
• 25:34
  is if you weren't pushing really hard, you have
• 25:37
  to fail once in a while. You have to be pushing
• 25:39
  outside the box. You have to be trying things
• 25:41
  that aren't possible. And Marty's experience,
• 25:45
  you know, goes through many different iterations
• 25:47
  of Epcot. It goes through things that never happened,
• 25:50
  like the Mineral King ski resort and, you know,
• 25:53
  things like that, that they tried and it didn't
• 25:55
  work. And I think the first thing you feel is
• 26:00
  a sense of a kind of loss, right? You worked
• 26:03
  on this thing for months or, you know, in the
• 26:05
  case of Disney's America, you might have worked
• 26:07
  on it for a couple of years. You believed in
• 26:09
  it. And all of a sudden it's shut off and it's
• 26:12
  gone, right? So I think I always go. I used to
• 26:17
  hit the ball. I hit tennis ball a lot once a
• 26:20
  week when I was at WDI. And if things went south,
• 26:25
  went bad, I would double my tennis dates. I love
• 26:30
  that. And I would just go out and I just. hit
• 26:33
  the ball more, you know. And I think a combination
• 26:36
  of exercise, getting some sleep, getting some
• 26:38
  fresh perspective, maybe take a few days off,
• 26:40
  go do something, it works, you know. And you
• 26:43
  realize, okay, life's going to go on. And sometime
• 26:47
  later, the learnings you have in that project,
• 26:50
  Disney's America, you know, many projects like
• 26:54
  that, the learnings you have end up helping you
• 26:57
  in something else. They may not come back exactly
• 26:59
  the same, but the learnings you have, the contacts
• 27:02
  you made, the things that you put together, they
• 27:07
  become a part of you. They become a part of who
• 27:09
  you are. They may not become Disney projects,
• 27:11
  but they do become a part of who you are and
• 27:12
  the chemistry of things you know that you can
• 27:15
  bring to the application of the next project.
• 27:17
  Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Now, so you,
• 27:21
  when you would have those things happen and you
• 27:24
  were able to move past those, how did you help?
• 27:27
  the people that worked for you when you were
• 27:30
  a leader find that same thing, to dig deep and
• 27:33
  to realize like, oh, actually, this is a lesson
• 27:35
  that I can take forward. And I do, I can experience
• 27:38
  it, right? I can accept the fact like this was
• 27:41
  personal and I can have those emotions. How do
• 27:44
  you help them then dig themselves out if they
• 27:46
  struggle with it? Because not obviously everybody's
• 27:48
  going to do that perfectly every time. Yeah,
• 27:51
  I did have a habit of trying to find a point
• 27:54
  in time. that thought it was sort of like, okay,
• 27:59
  we're at the end of the blue sky process or the
• 28:02
  concept process or design development. It looks
• 28:04
  like we're going to go on hold for a while or
• 28:06
  it looks like we may not go forward, is complete
• 28:10
  something that can be packaged up and given to
• 28:13
  the archives or given to the library or people
• 28:16
  can hold on to that kind of captures. the learnings
• 28:20
  of that project. You don't want to lose that
• 28:22
  because people learned a lot. They had a lot
• 28:24
  of great ideas. So you find a way to preserve
• 28:26
  that for your future. And frankly, I always looked
• 28:32
  for a way to celebrate the team, celebrate the
• 28:34
  teams, even if they're at the end point. Okay,
• 28:37
  we're all going to go, when we get this done,
• 28:39
  we're all going to go have a great lunch and
• 28:42
  congratulate each other for a job well done.
• 28:45
  Even if it didn't get built, I think you can
• 28:47
  celebrate a team's work. And teams, I think,
• 28:51
  really appreciate having a sense of closure.
• 28:53
  Okay, we closed it out. We put everything away.
• 28:57
  We had a really nice event, you know, where they
• 28:59
  congratulated us. And now we're getting reassigned
• 29:02
  onto new things and we start fresh. You know,
• 29:04
  I think every stage of a project should be celebrated
• 29:08
  by the teams because there's hard work goes into
• 29:10
  it. And if you only celebrate the ones that get
• 29:13
  finished, it's kind of losing the opportunity
• 29:16
  to celebrate everything along the way if you
• 29:18
  can. Yeah, I think that's a great point. I love
• 29:22
  this idea of still celebrating it, even if it
• 29:25
  didn't work out exactly like you were hoping,
• 29:27
  because the team still needs to feel that. They
• 29:29
  still need to feel like, hey, look, I made these
• 29:32
  contributions. My contributions are valued, even
• 29:35
  if we didn't use it the way that I was hoping.
• 29:37
  It also makes me think of after action reports,
• 29:40
  right? I think in my industry, very few law firms
• 29:45
  do something like that. But in different businesses,
• 29:48
  I think an after -action report can be very helpful
• 29:51
  to help our teammates, to help our people process
• 29:53
  through, okay, so we had this thing. What went
• 29:57
  well? What didn't go well? Could we have even
• 30:02
  done anything differently? Maybe it was just
• 30:04
  the fates just weren't ready for this project,
• 30:07
  whatever. But you're right. It's incredibly valuable
• 30:09
  information. And I've had people call me. I keep
• 30:15
  mentioning Disney's America because it's one
• 30:16
  of the big ones that I had that got canceled.
• 30:18
  But who have called me and they have done PhD
• 30:21
  dissertations about Disney's America. No kidding.
• 30:25
  They sent them to me. Not kidding at all. I've
• 30:28
  also had people with PhD dissertations about
• 30:31
  Tokyo DisneySeas and other things too. People
• 30:33
  love to learn about Disney and write about Disney.
• 30:36
  But everything's a journey and it's great to
• 30:40
  – I don't look back with regret on – I feel like
• 30:45
  all the successes and the failures are an accumulation
• 30:49
  of hard work that, you know, I'm so glad to have
• 30:52
  work done all around the world, you know, to
• 30:54
  feel privileged to have completed every project
• 30:57
  we did start. Yeah, for sure. One of the things
• 31:01
  that I believe a lot in and have. kind of been
• 31:06
  a passion to me for the last several years is
• 31:08
  some work by Simon Sinek where he talks about
• 31:11
  having a why or a purpose. And one of the things
• 31:15
  that he said is working hard for something we
• 31:18
  don't care about is called stress. Working hard
• 31:21
  for something we love is called passion. When
• 31:25
  you were experiencing, and you're still in the
• 31:27
  middle of a project, and things get really hard
• 31:30
  and they're very difficult, you're coming up
• 31:32
  against things that seem impossible to overcome,
• 31:35
  where did you dig down to to find the ability
• 31:40
  to keep going and pushing towards the dreams
• 31:42
  that you had and the things that might have seemed
• 31:44
  impossible? Well, that is the magic to it. That
• 31:48
  is the challenge for a leader or a team member
• 31:51
  is to keep that. keep that passion fueled even
• 31:54
  in the roughest of times in the middle of the
• 31:57
  night when people are working long weeks and
• 31:59
  in a foreign country, living away from their
• 32:02
  families or whatever it might be. I think Simon
• 32:05
  Sinek is very on point there. He's very, very
• 32:08
  clear about that point, as you said. And I met
• 32:12
  Simon a few times and I actually called him when
• 32:15
  I was finishing Dream Chasing. And asked him
• 32:18
  if he would take a look at the book. And he did.
• 32:20
  And he wrote a blurb for the back cover, which
• 32:22
  I really cherish, where he talks about everybody
• 32:26
  has dreams. Everybody has dreams. And I know
• 32:29
  Simon believes that, like I do. And the difference
• 32:32
  is whether you can create an environment where
• 32:34
  those dreams can be fostered as opposed to just
• 32:37
  kind of fall away. So I think in this case, I
• 32:40
  can remember in the depths of Shanghai Disneyland.
• 32:46
  Where we would, my fellow leaders and I would
• 32:50
  walk through the building and just hand out bagels,
• 32:54
  you know, at 10 o 'clock in the morning or hand
• 32:56
  out cookies or have little beer events after
• 33:01
  work. Or, you know, we were in the middle of
• 33:04
  Shanghai and we managed to find a company that
• 33:07
  would do. a bunch of Thanksgiving turkeys for
• 33:10
  us. It wasn't a normal thing to have in China,
• 33:12
  but we got them to do turkeys that we could take
• 33:14
  to each department one morning. You go around,
• 33:19
  you shake hands with people, you listen to people
• 33:21
  bitch or complain, you know, and then sometimes
• 33:24
  they're happy just to get it off their chest,
• 33:27
  right? They just want to tell you how screwed
• 33:30
  up this is. And you can say, you know, I agree
• 33:33
  with you. This is screwed up, but let's figure
• 33:35
  out how to get it done. And when you're on site,
• 33:38
  and Craig Russell is an expert of this, and there's
• 33:42
  other people who are an expert of this, when
• 33:44
  you're walking around on the site, you can give
• 33:46
  people a lot of encouragement. You can have them
• 33:49
  realize that even though they're stuck in the
• 33:52
  day -to -day, if they kind of squint their eyes
• 33:55
  and look at this, it's going to be incredible.
• 33:57
  And they just have to realize that there's going
• 33:59
  to be a lot of hard work along the way. These
• 34:02
  are hard projects, especially the end. And by
• 34:05
  the end, I don't mean the last week. I mean the
• 34:06
  last year that you might be working overtime.
• 34:09
  And it's very difficult to have a work -life
• 34:13
  balance when you're doing that and you're away
• 34:15
  from home. But I think people eventually, and
• 34:19
  sometimes it's, you know, at the end of Star
• 34:21
  Wars, Galaxy's Edge, and at the end of Shanghai,
• 34:24
  very similar, I had a whole bunch of people.
• 34:26
  who were so upset, angry, mad. I'll never do
• 34:30
  another project again. This is too much work.
• 34:32
  It's too much stress, you know. And then the
• 34:36
  one -year anniversary gets together and everybody
• 34:38
  has a little party and gets together and everybody
• 34:40
  says, wasn't that the greatest project we ever
• 34:43
  did? Often when people ask me what my favorite
• 34:47
  projects are, I often end up answering the most
• 34:52
  difficult ones, you know. Because those are the
• 34:54
  ones that you feel like you really earned your
• 34:56
  passion for because it was tough. And that's
• 35:00
  okay. You just have to find out a way to keep
• 35:03
  your own energy going. But the thing that really
• 35:07
  sustains people's energy is their fellow team
• 35:10
  members. And I've seen amazing things. I've seen
• 35:13
  team members take care of each other, go out.
• 35:16
  as a group and have bike rides or play badminton
• 35:19
  together, you know, do team building stuff offsite
• 35:22
  where they can get to know each other better.
• 35:24
  I've seen somebody get sick and a group of team
• 35:27
  members got together and went to HR and offered
• 35:29
  some of their sick leave time if they could give
• 35:32
  it to that person because they needed more time
• 35:34
  or they can cover their job. Teams are amazing.
• 35:37
  And teams are where most of your time is spent.
• 35:41
  And they can be incredible supporters for everybody.
• 35:46
  Yeah, it's, to me, when people are willing to
• 35:51
  do that, it comes from somewhere, right? And
• 35:54
  it comes from who they are, comes from the team
• 35:57
  you're assembling, but also comes from the leaders,
• 35:58
  right? The leaders have to be showing that in
• 36:01
  order for people to follow it. In reference to
• 36:04
  Simon's work, I'm curious, and if the answer
• 36:08
  is you don't have one or you're not sure, that's
• 36:09
  okay as well, but I'm just curious. Do you have
• 36:11
  a personal why statement? You know, Simon in
• 36:14
  his book, start with why and then finding your
• 36:16
  why kind of talks about a very specific like,
• 36:18
  what is the why that somebody has, both a business
• 36:21
  and also individual? I'm wondering if you have
• 36:24
  one. Well, I'd probably steal one from Robert
• 36:29
  F. Kennedy, the original Robert F. Kennedy from
• 36:33
  1968, which is why not? You know, you have to.
• 36:38
  You have to go into a meeting or go into a conversation
• 36:40
  with something and somebody's got a crazy idea
• 36:44
  and not say how difficult it is, but say, you
• 36:48
  know, how could we do it? What's the possibility
• 36:50
  here? You know, why wouldn't we try this? You
• 36:54
  know, why wouldn't we try it a different way?
• 36:56
  My advice to brainstormings when they start is
• 37:00
  don't say no. Don't ask questions about how difficult
• 37:04
  it's going to be. Just explore the possibilities.
• 37:08
  The worst thing is somebody comes up with an
• 37:10
  idea and somebody says, oh, you know, we tried
• 37:11
  that 30 years ago and it didn't work. Well, you
• 37:13
  know, today's today. Let's try it. You know,
• 37:15
  we might want to try it again. You don't want
• 37:18
  to clamp down on things just as they're kind
• 37:21
  of being, you know, they're seedlings. So I think
• 37:25
  it's important that you let creative people run
• 37:27
  a little bit, run way out there, you know, and
• 37:30
  you can always haul them back in when it's time
• 37:33
  to put some business parameters around it. Free
• 37:39
  thinking is a great thing for anybody. You know,
• 37:40
  thinking outside the box is great. It can be
• 37:43
  scary for some people, but that's really what
• 37:46
  we all need to do. Well, I love what you're doing
• 37:49
  there, which is when you're saying why not and
• 37:52
  you're opening up that free thinking, you're
• 37:54
  empowering those people to be able to think and
• 37:57
  know this is a safe place for us to explore these
• 38:00
  ideas. This is a safe place for us to be able
• 38:02
  to figure out what's there. And so to me, it's
• 38:05
  very much what Simon talks about, about it being
• 38:07
  outward facing so that somebody else can be empowered
• 38:10
  to do something better or beyond themselves or
• 38:13
  do something great. I love that. And projects
• 38:16
  are really an important social culture. There's
• 38:19
  a group of people who, you know, in a Disney
• 38:22
  project sense, they could work together for the
• 38:24
  next five years. So, you know, it's a long road.
• 38:27
  And so their ability to create strength amongst
• 38:31
  themselves and to create a team identity and,
• 38:34
  you know, a team support structure and keep their
• 38:37
  own passion burning all the time, that is such
• 38:40
  an important thing. Now, in your book, I believe,
• 38:44
  and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe
• 38:45
  you describe yourself as an introvert, I think,
• 38:48
  if I remember correctly. And here's what I want
• 38:51
  to get your take on, because I came across some
• 38:53
  materials from Adam Grant, who he himself is
• 38:57
  a self -described introvert. And he said that
• 39:01
  there is such a thing as an introverted leadership
• 39:04
  advantage. And then he went on to say in a post,
• 39:08
  Introverted leaders were very open. They were
• 39:11
  willing to listen. They took better suggestions
• 39:13
  and they left their people feeling more valued.
• 39:16
  So as an introvert, if you in fact are leading
• 39:20
  some of the most creative teams in the world,
• 39:23
  how do you think that being an introvert served
• 39:26
  you well in those leadership positions that you
• 39:28
  had? Who was that quote from, Brian? Sorry. Adam
• 39:32
  Grant. Adam Grant. That's a great quote, by the
• 39:35
  way. Send me that. But I think it's very true
• 39:39
  that there are – first of all, there are different
• 39:42
  leadership styles and we all can be successful
• 39:44
  with who we are. But I think in my history at
• 39:50
  least, listening is really important and not
• 39:54
  necessarily walking in and snap judgment on something.
• 39:58
  Kind of walk in and say, OK, tell me about this
• 40:02
  and explain it to me and listen carefully. And
• 40:06
  be willing to absorb quite a bit of that knowledge
• 40:09
  before speaking up. You know, I think that's
• 40:13
  – whether I'm an introvert or an extrovert, I
• 40:16
  think I am an introvert. My style was to try
• 40:19
  to understand problems, understand issues before
• 40:22
  making judgment on them. And the great thing
• 40:26
  about being at a place like Imagineering is –
• 40:30
  You have engineers and technical people and software
• 40:32
  people and artists and writers, and you can get
• 40:35
  a pretty good group together and say, what's
• 40:37
  happening on this project and where is it bogged
• 40:39
  down? And if you've got the right people in the
• 40:42
  room, you can really find out if you listen carefully
• 40:44
  and be willing to, as I said, take somebody's
• 40:48
  call if they're just mad about something and
• 40:50
  listen, try to understand it. So I think that's
• 40:54
  a strength. I try to absorb things before necessarily
• 40:59
  jumping in. And I don't like to hear myself talk
• 41:02
  so much. I like to give direction when I sort
• 41:05
  of understand what I'm doing. I'll tell you what,
• 41:07
  though, Ryan. I've been writing now for four
• 41:10
  years. It's been about four years since I started
• 41:12
  dream chasing. I wrote a little novel called
• 41:15
  Ghost Dog based on Haunted Mansion. I'm just
• 41:18
  finishing this Marty Sklar book, and I've got
• 41:20
  another book I'm starting for Disney. I'm at
• 41:23
  home. with my computer. That's the best thing
• 41:26
  in the world. You're loving it. My wife, my family.
• 41:30
  I write for a few hours. I go out. I grow cactus.
• 41:34
  I go out and work in the cactus garden. I come
• 41:35
  back. I write for a few more hours. So I think
• 41:38
  fundamentally I've realized myself as an introvert.
• 41:43
  But I do love going out and doing the book chores,
• 41:47
  book speeches, things like that. So I do like
• 41:49
  the outgoing part of it. But I do enjoy the quiet
• 41:54
  life of writing and authoring. Being a president
• 41:57
  of Imagineering, you rarely are in a meeting
• 42:00
  that has less than 40 people in it. So there
• 42:03
  are big conference rooms, big issues, lots of
• 42:06
  people with opinions, lots of people to manage.
• 42:11
  1 ,000, 1 ,500 people, 720 people on the concept
• 42:15
  team for Shanghai. You were dealing with a lot
• 42:18
  of people all the time. The best thing in the
• 42:20
  world about Imagineering was name tags, right?
• 42:22
  You could always remember people's name. But
• 42:25
  it's very hard to do that truly as an introvert.
• 42:29
  I say I had to play an extrovert on TV. I had
• 42:32
  to be very outgoing. I had to go out, shake hands
• 42:35
  with strangers, thank people. If you took me
• 42:40
  to a dinner party right now, I'd be very happy
• 42:42
  to sit in a corner and not talk to anybody. But
• 42:45
  I do it because it's important. It's important
• 42:48
  to meet people and things like that. But I do
• 42:51
  think introverts are often overlooked because
• 42:55
  they're not the loudest person. They're not the
• 42:57
  loudest person in the room. I think that's one
• 42:59
  of the things that in Adam Grant, when I heard
• 43:01
  him talk about this very point, that's one of
• 43:04
  the key things he's pointed to, which you just,
• 43:05
  which you just discovered, which is they do get
• 43:07
  overlooked. So many times introverts can actually
• 43:09
  be great leaders, but because they're not the
• 43:11
  ones who are the loudest in the room or out there,
• 43:13
  they're not jumping on the table. They're not
• 43:16
  jumping up on the table, stuff like that. But
• 43:17
  they're often the most thought, they're very
• 43:19
  thoughtful. And I did a few things. I, in brainstorming
• 43:24
  sessions, I would often stop and I would, realize
• 43:28
  there's three people in this room talking and
• 43:31
  there's 12 people in this room, right? So I would
• 43:34
  ask people, I'd say, you know, Mark, what are
• 43:36
  you thinking about this? And then they felt the
• 43:39
  freedom to say something very insightful, but
• 43:44
  they wouldn't necessarily interrupt the room
• 43:45
  to say it. And one of my favorite things to do
• 43:48
  at the end of a couple of days brainstorming
• 43:50
  or a couple weeks brainstorming, it doesn't matter
• 43:52
  what it is, is to stop the meeting. half an hour
• 43:56
  before it's supposed to stop and go around the
• 43:59
  table and have everybody make a comment. So everybody
• 44:01
  gets a moment to say what they thought. Incredible
• 44:05
  insights come out of that because the people
• 44:07
  who've been maybe talking the loudest, you kind
• 44:08
  of know where they're coming from, but there's
• 44:10
  a lot of talent in that room and you want to
• 44:12
  hear where everybody's coming from. I think that's
• 44:14
  a great suggestion too. You are also, Brian,
• 44:18
  in an environment, a place like Imagineering,
• 44:22
  a lot of artists. and engineers, and you find
• 44:27
  that it is a very high introvert percentage environment,
• 44:31
  I think. And so you have a small group of super
• 44:35
  outgoing folks, and you have a lot, maybe not
• 44:38
  as much as animation. Animation is super introverted,
• 44:41
  but imagining is quite introverted as a field.
• 44:44
  So you have to really dig to, that's another
• 44:47
  reason why the better you know your people. The
• 44:51
  better you get to know them, then you know where
• 44:53
  to cast them, who to cast them with, what kind
• 44:56
  of projects to give them. That's the best tool
• 44:58
  in the world is knowing the people. Yeah, I love
• 45:01
  it. So another thing I want to ask you about
• 45:03
  was in your book, you talk a little bit about
• 45:06
  Stephen Covey. You make reference to some stuff
• 45:09
  you guys have looked at with Stephen Covey. And
• 45:11
  I want to get your take on what I think is a
• 45:13
  beautiful paradox. So it's this. Stephen Covey
• 45:18
  wrote in his book. that you should begin with
• 45:21
  the end in mind, okay? And then one of the things
• 45:24
  you wrote is, dreams are elusive and always pulling
• 45:27
  at you. They seem to always be right around the
• 45:29
  corner, but you never really know what you're
• 45:31
  chasing until you catch it. If it turns out to
• 45:34
  be real magic, the chase will have been worth
• 45:36
  it, which is just beautifully written, first
• 45:38
  off. But to me, I think there's a bit of a really
• 45:41
  cool paradox that's there, and I kind of want
• 45:42
  to get your take on it, of that you're chasing
• 45:44
  these dreams, but you don't really know it until
• 45:46
  you get there. With Stephen Covey also saying
• 45:48
  you've got to begin with the end in mind. Yeah.
• 45:51
  Yeah. I think Covey was a nice match when he
• 45:54
  came to Imagineering. He came probably over the
• 45:57
  course of a year. We did lots of sessions with
• 46:00
  Covey and his people. And I think he has a particular
• 46:05
  style of what I'm talking about, which is sort
• 46:08
  of a soft leadership style, which is. Definitely
• 46:11
  strategic. It's definitely leadership. But it's
• 46:14
  not didactic. It's not going and telling people
• 46:16
  they have to go do that because I'm your boss,
• 46:18
  right? It's having relationships. I think Stephen
• 46:21
  was very insightful about his – the thing I remember
• 46:25
  most, Ryan, is him talking about relationships
• 46:29
  like a bank deposit. Are you overdrawn with this
• 46:31
  person or do you have a pretty good account with
• 46:34
  this person? And if you're starting to feel overdrawn
• 46:38
  with this person, you better go – have lunch
• 46:41
  with them or talk about their project or chat
• 46:44
  a little bit and hear their point of view. But
• 46:47
  I think a lot of people figured out from that
• 46:49
  that people think differently, people work differently,
• 46:53
  and the more you can build those relationships,
• 46:57
  the better you can do it. You know, it's all
• 47:00
  about people and how they get along. We also
• 47:02
  did... quite a bit of work as many organizations
• 47:07
  have done with Myers -Briggs and having people
• 47:12
  understand kind of their Myers -Briggs four -letter
• 47:17
  code thing. But it was interesting to be in a
• 47:20
  room with somebody who's quite introverted and
• 47:24
  thinks by feeling versus very extroverted. And
• 47:28
  you learn a little bit more insight about the
• 47:31
  people you work with. And it's tremendous when
• 47:34
  you can do that. So Simon Sinek coming in, Stephen
• 47:39
  Covey coming in, they were fantastic. Once in
• 47:44
  a while, organization has to look inward and
• 47:47
  say what's working and what's not working and
• 47:49
  stop for a second. And it's very hard when you're
• 47:52
  overcommitted and projects are happening. It's
• 47:54
  very hard to do that. The best time to do organizational
• 47:57
  development really is... In the early stages
• 48:02
  of projects, a project is just getting going,
• 48:05
  teams assigned, and we've got challenges ahead.
• 48:09
  I used to always try to do an off -site at that
• 48:12
  moment, take the new team off, doesn't matter
• 48:15
  where you go, someplace, but get out of the office
• 48:18
  and have a day where everybody, and I would say,
• 48:20
  how are we going to work? How are we all going
• 48:22
  to work together? Once you're going, it's kind
• 48:28
  of too late to ask the question, right? You kind
• 48:31
  of want to ask it at the beginning and set some
• 48:33
  ground rules because each team approaches projects
• 48:36
  differently because no two projects are the same.
• 48:38
  Yeah, getting that team formed at the beginning,
• 48:40
  getting them to build those bonds and those bonds
• 48:42
  together at the beginning, I can see how that
• 48:44
  would set it up for greater success if you do
• 48:47
  that early. Yeah, if you look at it, there's
• 48:49
  another guy you might look at, another business
• 48:51
  philosophy you might benefit from looking at.
• 48:56
  He was a great friend. He's passed now, but he
• 48:58
  was a great friend. He was a great organizational
• 49:01
  development person. His name is Ravi Rao, R -A
• 49:05
  -V -I -R -A -U. And he wrote a great book, and
• 49:12
  he spent a lot of time with us, and he had tremendous
• 49:15
  insight. He was a neurologist, actually, by training,
• 49:18
  with tremendous insight into people's behavior
• 49:19
  and a great sense of humor, very soft style.
• 49:25
  But people walked away from a session with Robbie
• 49:28
  with a tremendous insight into how the team was
• 49:30
  going to work. Yeah, I'm definitely going to
• 49:33
  have to pick that up. I'll definitely find his
• 49:34
  material and definitely read that book. So one
• 49:37
  of the things I thought was also interesting
• 49:39
  in kind of reading through your experience is
• 49:41
  that you took a bit of a detour for a little
• 49:43
  while outside of the Walt Disney Company. And
• 49:47
  you had your own company as an entrepreneur.
• 49:49
  I'm interested in what were the... What was the
• 49:54
  best lesson that you took from your time running
• 49:57
  your own business that then helped you overall
• 50:00
  as you came back into Disney and as you ran Walt
• 50:06
  Disney Imagineering? Well, I really enjoyed my
• 50:09
  time at Imagineering and I enjoyed my time away
• 50:11
  from Imagineering. You know, I enjoyed both ends
• 50:14
  of that spectrum. Being away from Imagineering
• 50:18
  was fun and challenging because When you're in
• 50:22
  a corporate world, you just go up to the Xerox
• 50:27
  machine, you know, back when we had paper, go
• 50:29
  up to the Xerox machine and make a copy. In the
• 50:33
  private entrepreneurial world, you have to figure
• 50:36
  out how much a Xerox machine costs and where
• 50:39
  do you go buy one and who's going to take care
• 50:41
  of it once it breaks. You know, you suddenly
• 50:44
  have the responsibility for everything, for people,
• 50:47
  for health insurance, for, you know. Accounting,
• 50:51
  making sure you have enough money every Thursday
• 50:53
  or every other Thursday when you're going to
• 50:54
  pay people. So as much of a struggle as that
• 50:58
  was for me, not being a business person, but
• 51:01
  surrounding myself with good business people
• 51:02
  and the ups and downs of all that, ups and downs
• 51:06
  of interesting clients, I did have a great experience
• 51:09
  from that. And I think when I got back to Imagineering,
• 51:11
  the management people who invited me back, I
• 51:14
  think they saw that that was a benefit to me,
• 51:16
  that I knew more about. not just creative from
• 51:19
  having different kinds of creative problems from
• 51:22
  NASA and museums and other types of organizations,
• 51:26
  but also knowing a lot more about how a business
• 51:29
  runs. And I think that was a great experience
• 51:33
  for me. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed
• 51:35
  being an entrepreneur. And I built great relationships.
• 51:40
  You're in D .C. right now. If you know the National
• 51:43
  Harbor Project, which is on the river just south
• 51:47
  of you, across from Old Town Alexandria, I did
• 51:50
  the master plan for that for an incredible client.
• 51:53
  I didn't know that. Milt Peterson, the Peterson
• 51:56
  Company, the patriarch of that company has since
• 51:59
  passed. But I had easily a 10 -year relationship
• 52:02
  with Milt. It's an incredible project. I worked
• 52:05
  on some things with the Smithsonian. I really,
• 52:07
  you know, I worked with NASA down at Kennedy
• 52:10
  Space Center. on the public programs, things
• 52:13
  like that. Those were incredible experiences.
• 52:15
  I just loved them. I made some documentaries.
• 52:17
  So I love the business world of Disney, but it's
• 52:21
  all absorbing. You can't do anything else. It's
• 52:23
  very hard to do anything else. You know, it's
• 52:25
  really hard for me even to start my book when
• 52:27
  I was starting to think about retiring from Disney.
• 52:31
  These projects are just, they drive your life,
• 52:33
  right? So I enjoyed being away and having some
• 52:38
  different kinds of. clients. I got to meet astronauts.
• 52:41
  I got to meet, you know, incredible architects
• 52:44
  and designers and philosophers. It was great.
• 52:48
  And I brought those concepts back. I often would
• 52:52
  bring people that I met outside back to advise
• 52:55
  me on Disney projects when I was back or to do
• 52:57
  workshops with them because I found it was a
• 52:59
  great talent base that had never been tapped
• 53:02
  at Disney. So it was a great process. It was
• 53:05
  a great, you know, several years away. Love being
• 53:08
  there. Love being at Disney at the same time.
• 53:11
  Yeah. So one of the things I'm kind of hearing
• 53:13
  too is that, you know, when you do have these
• 53:14
  big projects and either when you're at Disney
• 53:17
  and they take up a lot of your time and energy
• 53:20
  or when you're an entrepreneur and it's all the
• 53:22
  time, right? It's 24 -7 when you're an entrepreneur.
• 53:24
  Yeah, absolutely. It sometimes will come at a
• 53:26
  personal cost. And I'm curious about that because
• 53:31
  it's something that I experienced early on in
• 53:33
  my career as a divorce attorney. I unfortunately
• 53:35
  got divorced. And I kind of experienced a little
• 53:39
  bit of that. You know, for you, what were the
• 53:42
  lessons that you took from that about how that
• 53:45
  affected your personal relationships? And how
• 53:47
  did you use that to kind of shape and change
• 53:49
  and improve your future relationship? Yeah, I
• 53:52
  think that's a great question. And I think we
• 53:53
  all, many of us have struggled with that, struggled
• 53:55
  with being away from home for a long time, you
• 53:58
  know, or getting on a plane, you know. Getting
• 54:02
  home on a Friday night and realizing you have
• 54:04
  a flight out on Sunday evening, you're going
• 54:07
  to be gone again. It's tough on family life.
• 54:12
  It's tough on partners. I also got divorced,
• 54:15
  so I feel for you on that. And I think there's
• 54:20
  an absorption into the project. The project will
• 54:23
  fill every bit of you if you let it. And you
• 54:27
  have to just figure out your own balance because
• 54:30
  the company won't necessarily give you that balance.
• 54:32
  You're going to have to find it yourself. You're
• 54:33
  going to have to set limits. And I feel better
• 54:39
  now. I'm in a relationship with my wife and I
• 54:42
  have a daughter. I have an adult son. And I feel
• 54:46
  like I have much more balance now than I did.
• 54:49
  My son will tell you. My son is now 30 years
• 54:52
  old. He'll tell you I was just. gone all the
• 54:55
  time flying somewhere and it was part of it was
• 54:57
  because i ran the company when my son was young
• 55:00
  and then i went to disney when he was a little
• 55:02
  bit older and you know i was off at shanghai
• 55:04
  or off somewhere all the time so um i could have
• 55:09
  done it better but you learn along the way right
• 55:11
  and um you know i think you have to you have
• 55:15
  to set certain you know things life happens right
• 55:17
  and you got to figure out how you can make those
• 55:19
  things i i I spent a lot of time on this Marty
• 55:22
  Sklar book, and Marty was somebody who I know
• 55:24
  work was his life. But I learned a lot more about
• 55:27
  his family life, his respect for holidays. I
• 55:31
  went through his calendars, and you'd find his
• 55:34
  daughter's graduation or his son's dissertation.
• 55:39
  He was very careful about making sure. But his
• 55:43
  wife told me, Leah Sklar, told me that— And they
• 55:47
  recognized that Disney was a part of their life.
• 55:51
  It had to be because he was such a leader and
• 55:54
  pulled in every direction. So I don't know, Ryan.
• 55:57
  That's a tough balance. Let's work to find it.
• 56:01
  But it is a tough – there's no question. I'm
• 56:04
  more balanced now, but that's because I'm not
• 56:06
  in that – I'm not in the world anymore like that.
• 56:12
  So it's tough. I feel for everybody that's in
• 56:14
  that world. I think one of the takeaways for
• 56:18
  me with that is that we do need to work to look
• 56:20
  to find the balance that's right for us. And
• 56:23
  if we are married, that's right for our spouse
• 56:25
  and our families as well. And making sure that
• 56:27
  we have time that's dedicated to those things
• 56:29
  so we are showing up to those important events.
• 56:32
  making time for the things that are most important.
• 56:35
  So our family knows that we care and knows that
• 56:37
  we love them and appreciate them as well. Yeah,
• 56:39
  we had, I don't like this term at all. It's an
• 56:42
  HR term. It's a terrible term. It's a relocation
• 56:46
  term that they call a trailing spouse. And that
• 56:49
  means we employ the one person in the family
• 56:53
  and they're going to bring to Shanghai with them
• 56:55
  a trailing spouse. And what you learn is trailing
• 56:58
  spouse is a whole lot of wives, partners, husbands,
• 57:01
  you know, it's, It's a bunch of people who are
• 57:04
  incredibly brave to pick up their life, have
• 57:08
  it all up, some quitting jobs, to move with their
• 57:12
  spouse or their partner to Shanghai, knowing
• 57:15
  that they're going to be working 18 hours a day
• 57:18
  for a very long period of time. And so we did
• 57:20
  try to reach out. We tried to reach out. We did
• 57:22
  bus tours of the site. you know, lunches where
• 57:26
  we would invite spouses and partners out to get
• 57:30
  a briefing on how the project was going. And
• 57:33
  a lot of times people would come up to me and
• 57:35
  say, you know, I'm so glad you did this because,
• 57:37
  you know, she's working 18 hours a day. We rarely
• 57:41
  see her. She can't talk about anything because
• 57:44
  you have such confidentiality, you know, restrictions.
• 57:48
  But we came here and we got a better idea of
• 57:50
  what's going on. And we have a little bit more.
• 57:52
  sympathetic attitude toward what they're going
• 57:54
  through. You have to really say it's a family
• 57:57
  or partners or a team. We employed as many spouses
• 58:03
  and partners as we could if we found legitimate
• 58:06
  jobs for them and they had talent and we could
• 58:09
  bring them into the project. So it's a tremendous
• 58:12
  sensitivity. You have to constantly be reminding
• 58:14
  yourself that people have lives, they have kids,
• 58:17
  they have dogs, cats. I mean, it's just, you
• 58:19
  know, and they're important, right? Just, you
• 58:23
  know, forget about it. Birthdays, you know, holidays,
• 58:25
  you know, just really do anything you can to
• 58:28
  remember your people are people and they have
• 58:30
  lives too. Yeah, I think that's great. One of
• 58:33
  the things I also want to ask you about was,
• 58:35
  I mean, obviously you must have had a close relationship
• 58:39
  with Bob Iger because he wrote the foreword of
• 58:42
  your book. I'm wondering, what's the most important
• 58:46
  lesson that you learned from him as a leader?
• 58:49
  Bob was always, always in my experience, and
• 58:53
  I think most of the people that I know will say
• 58:55
  the same thing. Bob was always positive, generous,
• 59:00
  interested, inquisitive. What are you doing?
• 59:03
  How's it working? He just had a way of stimulating
• 59:07
  positive energy. He never came into a room and
• 59:10
  left people on a down. He always, you know, even
• 59:14
  if he gave a lot of notes or had, you know, he
• 59:17
  always left on a high note. Because of his attitude
• 59:19
  and because of his generosity. Incredibly excited.
• 59:25
  He shared excitement. He pushed people in a very
• 59:30
  positive way to try new things. Why not try it?
• 59:34
  Why not try that? He had a very definitely a
• 59:39
  why not kind of attitude and gave great notes,
• 59:44
  gave great opinions. There's no way it could
• 59:48
  work for Bob Iger without feeling like you wanted
• 59:51
  to absolutely do the best thing you'd ever done
• 59:53
  in your life because he encouraged us to feel
• 59:56
  that way. And then, you know, you know, to have
• 59:59
  somebody be that positive and then to be able
• 1:00:03
  to reach out, you know, I reached out to him
• 1:00:05
  and said, you know. Could I get on Good Morning
• 1:00:07
  America with the book? And, you know, he makes
• 1:00:09
  things like that happen for you to write the
• 1:00:11
  foreword for the book, to do so many things for
• 1:00:14
  so many people. Just a great experience. Tough,
• 1:00:17
  tough job, you know, running a whole company.
• 1:00:21
  But, you know, an amazing ability to remember
• 1:00:25
  people, to remember where we were the last time
• 1:00:27
  we showed him this, you know. And I'll tell you
• 1:00:30
  one story about Bob that I think is really telling
• 1:00:32
  about this. There's two stories, actually, if
• 1:00:34
  you want to hear them. One was over a course
• 1:00:39
  of about six months, I reviewed all of Shanghai
• 1:00:41
  with him. He would come over for maybe three
• 1:00:43
  hours, and each day we would do Fantasyland or
• 1:00:45
  tomorrow we'll do Adventureland. Then we'll do
• 1:00:48
  Mickey Avenue. And we usually had about three
• 1:00:52
  hours of his time each day. And he gave notes.
• 1:00:55
  We had great sessions. And then I asked him,
• 1:00:58
  I said, you know, at the end, what if we do the
• 1:01:02
  whole park? We'll reprise the whole park. So
• 1:01:05
  you can see, we'll do a walk in the park, and
• 1:01:07
  we'll take eight hours. We'll take eight hours
• 1:01:11
  of your day, the entire day, and we'll start
• 1:01:13
  at the parking lot, and we'll just recap everything.
• 1:01:16
  All the notes we've taken, everything you've
• 1:01:18
  told us, plus walk through it. And he agreed
• 1:01:21
  to do it, and we did eight solid hours of meetings.
• 1:01:26
  And I never did this again, but at the end of
• 1:01:29
  that meeting, I said, Bob, we've got about 10
• 1:01:33
  minutes left. Would you be willing to address
• 1:01:36
  the team? You know, everybody just saw their
• 1:01:40
  work. Could you give a quick address? So I made
• 1:01:44
  it sound like I just, oh, hey, by the way, why
• 1:01:46
  don't we just do this? Well, I had planned this.
• 1:01:48
  I had the entire WI patio loaded with 750 people
• 1:01:53
  ready to see Bob Iger. So he thought I was probably
• 1:01:57
  going to go back to the studio and there might
• 1:01:58
  be 10, 15 people the way I described it. I said,
• 1:02:00
  well, it's just the team's gathering. So I walked
• 1:02:03
  out there. I walked out there with him. And he's
• 1:02:05
  like, what the heck? 750 people? And I'll tell
• 1:02:10
  you, Bob got up on the steps with me and Howard
• 1:02:13
  Brown, our team, gave an incredibly inspiring
• 1:02:15
  address. No preparation, but he had seen the
• 1:02:20
  park. So he could earnestly speak about his.
• 1:02:25
  Complete enthusiasm. That is tremendous leadership
• 1:02:28
  to me. I never sprung that on him again. I don't
• 1:02:30
  think I would try that again. But I'll tell you,
• 1:02:33
  one other thing with Bob Iger is we were late
• 1:02:36
  on Rise of the Resistance, Rise of the Resistance
• 1:02:39
  for Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. And it was just
• 1:02:43
  lots of programming time, lots of making sure
• 1:02:47
  it was reliable and all those things. And the
• 1:02:51
  date was coming up and we knew we weren't going
• 1:02:53
  to meet it. And there was a lot of pressure on
• 1:02:55
  me to just say, well, you're going to open. Just
• 1:02:57
  say you're going to open. And I had to say, it's
• 1:02:59
  not going to be ready. It's not going to be artistically
• 1:03:01
  ready. It's not going to be functionally ready.
• 1:03:04
  We don't want to open something and then be trying
• 1:03:06
  to fix it while guests are in line, right? So
• 1:03:09
  after a lot of back and forth, everybody's afraid
• 1:03:13
  to tell Bob Iger this. So I got the chief engineers
• 1:03:17
  and the chief software people and the chief creative
• 1:03:19
  people. It was a group of about... I don't know,
• 1:03:22
  six people is all it was of seniors in the team.
• 1:03:25
  And one morning we went to Bob's office and we
• 1:03:30
  sat down and each person talked about where the
• 1:03:32
  project was. And I told Bob, for these reasons,
• 1:03:35
  I brought the people here so he could hear directly.
• 1:03:37
  For these reasons, I'm recommending that we not
• 1:03:39
  open Rise of Resistance yet. Imagine telling
• 1:03:42
  Bob Iger, the most important attraction, not
• 1:03:44
  going to open on time. And Bob answered instantly.
• 1:03:48
  He said, okay, I understand it. Don't apologize
• 1:03:51
  for it. We'll open it when it's ready. You guys
• 1:03:54
  are doing the right thing. And that's why we
• 1:03:57
  went and did it. So that's tough. That's tough
• 1:04:01
  love, but that's real support. That's true support
• 1:04:03
  on both counts. Yeah, you guys had the courage
• 1:04:07
  to go to him, and then he had the courage and
• 1:04:08
  faith to trust you guys, that you would not come
• 1:04:10
  to him and say it's not ready unless it truly
• 1:04:12
  wasn't going to be. Yeah, if you're going to
• 1:04:14
  walk in there and tell him that, he's going to.
• 1:04:18
  Believe that you brought the experts in there
• 1:04:20
  for a reason. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. What about
• 1:04:23
  with Josh tomorrow? You obviously would have
• 1:04:26
  had to have worked closely with him during your
• 1:04:29
  tenure there. He was over at Parks Entertainment.
• 1:04:32
  Now he's taken over as a CEO. What's the most
• 1:04:36
  important lesson you learned from him and his
• 1:04:38
  leadership? I have tremendous, tremendous admiration
• 1:04:41
  for Josh. And I'm so glad he's in this role.
• 1:04:44
  I worked. for Josh in the role of being over
• 1:04:47
  all parks. I think I first worked closely with
• 1:04:51
  him at Disneyland when he was first there, and
• 1:04:54
  then he took over all the parks. And he is also
• 1:04:58
  an incredibly collaborative leader, loves to
• 1:05:02
  talk creative ideas, loves to try to figure out
• 1:05:07
  the whole why not question, how can we figure
• 1:05:11
  out how to do this, tough decisions. about, you
• 1:05:14
  know, projects where there's lots of R &D still
• 1:05:17
  has to happen. And we don't know if we can, you
• 1:05:19
  know, do this, but we're going to embark on it.
• 1:05:22
  You know, he's been great. And he loves Imagineers.
• 1:05:26
  So you get a lot of positive vibe from him when
• 1:05:30
  he's at Imagineering. Great direction, great
• 1:05:32
  definitive, you know, creative direction and
• 1:05:36
  ideas. And at the same time, he's so great with
• 1:05:40
  guests in the park, you know, with park management.
• 1:05:42
  He understands the complexity of the business,
• 1:05:44
  you know, getting Imagineers and operators together,
• 1:05:48
  you know, to support big projects. He's really
• 1:05:51
  great. He's a great strategic mind, great collaborative
• 1:05:54
  mind. So I'm so happy to see the combination
• 1:05:57
  of Josh, who comes from that background, and
• 1:06:02
  Dana Walden, who comes from the media background.
• 1:06:04
  I think the leadership of the company is in really
• 1:06:06
  great hands, I think. I think, you know, tremendously.
• 1:06:10
  Yeah, I think it was a smart decision to have
• 1:06:13
  them do that the way they did with both of them.
• 1:06:15
  I think that's going to bring a lot to the future
• 1:06:18
  of the company. I'm excited to see where it goes
• 1:06:22
  and see where they take it and to see how they
• 1:06:23
  put their stamp on it. Yeah, absolutely. And
• 1:06:26
  it's not, you know, I worked for Michael Eisner
• 1:06:30
  and he, you know, I owe Michael Eisner a lot
• 1:06:33
  of my own career. background and advancement
• 1:06:36
  and then i worked you know for for bob for bob
• 1:06:40
  eiger and and had a great experience and i've
• 1:06:42
  worked for josh so i've had a tremendous uh you
• 1:06:46
  couldn't ask for better mentors really all three
• 1:06:49
  of them yeah i love it so okay so bob where i
• 1:06:52
  want to kind of take us from here real quick
• 1:06:53
  is just uh Real quick, kind of finishing up a
• 1:06:55
  couple of things. We do a this or that segment.
• 1:06:57
  So I have a few questions for you on a this or
• 1:06:59
  that. Meant to be fun. Nothing taken too seriously.
• 1:07:03
  Let's see if my synapses still work. And we'll
• 1:07:06
  do a quick rapid fire after that. And then at
• 1:07:08
  the end, what we'll do is we'll talk about those
• 1:07:09
  three actionable takeaways. So here's our this
• 1:07:12
  or that, okay? And these are gonna be some hard
• 1:07:15
  ones. I'm pretty sure, okay? Magic Kingdom or
• 1:07:19
  Epcot? Magic Kingdom. Love it. Disneyland or
• 1:07:23
  Disney World? Disneyland. Oh, same. It's so nostalgic
• 1:07:27
  for me. That's just heart. All that is is heart.
• 1:07:29
  I didn't mention this earlier. You asked me which
• 1:07:31
  one you should go get on a plane and go visit.
• 1:07:34
  I'd say Disney World. But you asked me for my
• 1:07:37
  heart. Where's my heart lie? It's coming through
• 1:07:40
  the tunnels at Disneyland. For sure. Okay. How
• 1:07:44
  about this one? Disneyland Churro or the crepes
• 1:07:48
  at Epcot just outside Ratatouille? I reject both
• 1:07:52
  options. Oh, no, you don't like either. I don't
• 1:07:55
  like either one of them. The only junk food choice
• 1:07:59
  I have at Disneyland is a hot dog from the Coke
• 1:08:03
  Corner on the way out. That's my favorite. Okay,
• 1:08:05
  that's the only thing you really like there.
• 1:08:07
  I see I'm a huge churro fan. I could eat churro
• 1:08:09
  forever. Okay, how about this one? Front row
• 1:08:13
  or back row on the Incredicoaster? Back row.
• 1:08:17
  I like the back row. You get a little more whipping.
• 1:08:19
  You get more whipping. Most fast rides, you get
• 1:08:22
  more whipping in the back row. Yeah. Star Wars
• 1:08:26
  or Marvel? Star Wars. Paris or Tokyo? That's
• 1:08:30
  hard. You know, this is tough. Oh, for sure.
• 1:08:31
  You're right. These are hard. But Star Wars is
• 1:08:33
  something I grew up with. Yeah. Star Wars is
• 1:08:35
  amazing. From the beginning, you know. Paris
• 1:08:37
  or Tokyo? Tokyo. That's easy. I built Tokyo.
• 1:08:42
  I built Tokyo. For sure. Um, book or a movie
• 1:08:46
  just in general, reading books or watching movies?
• 1:08:49
  Boy, that's a, that's really hard because I love
• 1:08:51
  movies, but I read more now than I've ever read
• 1:08:54
  in my life. Uh, I've never read the way I read
• 1:08:57
  now. So at the moment, at this point in my life,
• 1:09:00
  it's books. Okay. Give me what's a, what book
• 1:09:02
  are you reading right now that, that we should
• 1:09:04
  read besides of course you are. Yeah, I read
• 1:09:06
  a lot of books and I read a whole variety of
• 1:09:10
  stuff. I read contemporary stuff. I read fiction.
• 1:09:12
  I read nonfiction. But I also read obscure stuff
• 1:09:15
  that's from the 30s. And I'm reading a book called
• 1:09:20
  Spy right now. Okay. And it was a huge hit in
• 1:09:25
  1932. And when I read about these things, I go...
• 1:09:30
  I read a lot of World War II history stuff, which
• 1:09:33
  this is, by Bernard Cohen. But a lot of times
• 1:09:38
  I go to eBay and I try to find original editions.
• 1:09:43
  I read Mysterious Island, the great Jules Verne
• 1:09:46
  book, and I read it in an old edition with illustrations.
• 1:09:52
  There's something cool to me about reading an
• 1:09:54
  old, old book. That is old. For sure. I love
• 1:09:59
  it. I love it a lot. But I also watch movies.
• 1:10:01
  I watch movies constantly too. I watch new movies
• 1:10:05
  and I watch a lot of classics also. Yeah, I'm
• 1:10:08
  a huge movie guy. I mean, I do love reading books,
• 1:10:10
  though. I'm more of an audiobook, though. That
• 1:10:14
  was one of the things I actually loved about
• 1:10:14
  your book. Thank God. Thank God you are. We're
• 1:10:17
  all getting to make audiobooks. I love that you
• 1:10:19
  read yours because I'm actually always a little
• 1:10:22
  disappointed when somebody writes a book that's
• 1:10:24
  either a memoir or autobiography or something
• 1:10:26
  like that and they don't read it themselves.
• 1:10:28
  I'm always like, no, I wanted to hear you read
• 1:10:30
  it. It's a big commitment in time. I read both
• 1:10:34
  Ghost Dog and... Dream Chasing. And Dream Chasing
• 1:10:39
  took me 26 recording sessions. Wow. So it is
• 1:10:43
  a big commitment of time. And how long each recording
• 1:10:46
  session? Well, I think we got to a chemistry
• 1:10:49
  where we realized I really only was productive
• 1:10:51
  for about three hours. Or I'd lose my voice,
• 1:10:54
  focus. So we had three hours at a time. And to
• 1:10:58
  do an unabridged nonfiction book of almost 700
• 1:11:03
  pages, that's a lot. But I stuck it through.
• 1:11:06
  They dragged me into it, really, Ryan. And now
• 1:11:09
  I absolutely love it. I can't wait to do the
• 1:11:11
  Marty book. I can't wait to do this other book
• 1:11:13
  I'm doing. I will always do it if I have the
• 1:11:16
  opportunity now. And I'll do a better job the
• 1:11:18
  next time. Oh, yours was great. Honestly, it
• 1:11:20
  was so great to hear you read that. I absolutely
• 1:11:21
  loved it. Thank you so much. But I think the
• 1:11:23
  reason that I said books in that pairing of books
• 1:11:26
  and movies is because... Trying to be a writer
• 1:11:30
  now, I really need to read other great writers.
• 1:11:32
  So as much of my focus as possible is not surfing
• 1:11:37
  the internet or reading the news. It's reading
• 1:11:41
  great writers because that's what I'm trying
• 1:11:43
  to learn. Yeah, that makes sense. It's probably
• 1:11:46
  part of why, as I started this podcast in January,
• 1:11:49
  I listen to and watch so many podcasts now because
• 1:11:52
  I'm just trying to learn and understand what
• 1:11:54
  does it look like? What are people doing? um
• 1:11:58
  how can we make improvements and make it better
• 1:12:00
  for sure um okay let me let me hit you hit you
• 1:12:03
  with some quick rapid fire ones so this is kind
• 1:12:05
  of this first thing to come to your mind we'll
• 1:12:07
  only do a few um oh boy this is more synapse
• 1:12:09
  stuff i gotta sharpen this one's more um favorite
• 1:12:12
  disney movie man you're so tough on me In your
• 1:12:17
  book, you had said that you, as far as animated
• 1:12:20
  features at the time, you really liked Sword
• 1:12:22
  in the Stone. I didn't know if that had changed
• 1:12:24
  over the years. That's when I grew up. I think
• 1:12:26
  my favorite animated feature today is Coco. Oh,
• 1:12:30
  Coco's so good. Yeah, I love Coco. There's so
• 1:12:33
  much heart to that. Great music in it. It's a
• 1:12:36
  wonderful show. I also grew up with the black
• 1:12:40
  and white. Fred McMurray movies, like Flubber,
• 1:12:43
  the original one. Flubber was great. The original
• 1:12:46
  was amazing. I love those movies. I love those
• 1:12:48
  movies. They're fantastic, yeah. Yeah, they were
• 1:12:50
  so fun. Favorite Disney song? You have to help
• 1:12:56
  me with the title. It's the Dream is a Wish Your
• 1:12:59
  Heart Makes. Is that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. From
• 1:13:01
  Cinderella? It's from Cinderella, yeah. Yeah,
• 1:13:03
  yeah. What a wonderful song. You will have to
• 1:13:04
  help me with the song title. I think that's what
• 1:13:07
  it is. A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes. I
• 1:13:09
  think that's what it's called. Is that what it's
• 1:13:10
  called? I think it has another name. But anyway,
• 1:13:12
  that's my favorite. And we used it for the opening
• 1:13:15
  of Shanghai Disneyland. We did kind of a rock
• 1:13:17
  version of it. Fun. That we did. And then I used
• 1:13:24
  that quote as the opening of my book because
• 1:13:27
  it's so meaningful to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's a
• 1:13:29
  wonderful song. Okay, first ride you go on when
• 1:13:33
  you go to Disneyland. I have to give you two.
• 1:13:37
  It's either Haunted Mansion or Big Thunder. Both
• 1:13:41
  are so great. Big Thunder Mountain for me when
• 1:13:44
  I was a kid, I just loved it so much. I don't
• 1:13:47
  know what it is about. The whole start, too,
• 1:13:49
  when they have the fun voice and it's the wildest
• 1:13:51
  ride in the wilderness. There's just something
• 1:13:53
  about that that I love. There's something about
• 1:13:54
  that that has never, you know, with great kudos
• 1:13:57
  to Tony Baxter and with tremendous kudos to Exit
• 1:14:02
  Tencio and everybody that did Haunted Mansion.
• 1:14:04
  I love Haunted Mansion, too, which is why I wrote
• 1:14:06
  the book Ghost Dog, which is inspired by the
• 1:14:07
  Haunted Mansion. Yeah. Do you like the version
• 1:14:10
  that they do, Nightmare Before Christmas, during
• 1:14:13
  the Halloween and Christmas time? Do you like
• 1:14:14
  that change? I do. I think it's fun that they
• 1:14:16
  do that. I think it's fun that they do that.
• 1:14:17
  But I think that there's something about the
• 1:14:21
  original Haunted Mansion that just works incredibly
• 1:14:23
  well. I loved it so much and I was thinking,
• 1:14:28
  I'll never do anything this good. This is just
• 1:14:30
  impossible, right? And so I said, well, the one
• 1:14:34
  thing you could probably do, because nobody's
• 1:14:36
  around who did it the first time, is I said,
• 1:14:39
  well, I could write a book about it. So I picked
• 1:14:41
  out the dog in the graveyard scene that's howling.
• 1:14:46
  And I said, well, I'll write a movie that this
• 1:14:48
  dog follows a kid home. And so that's my contribution
• 1:14:52
  to the Haunted Mansion canon. That's an excellent
• 1:14:56
  one. And speaking of attractions that you have
• 1:14:59
  worked on, though, what's the attraction you're
• 1:15:02
  most proud of that you had the opportunity to
• 1:15:04
  work on? Yeah, see, that's the tough one, too.
• 1:15:06
  Because then I start to think about the things
• 1:15:09
  that we did that were groundbreaking and difficult.
• 1:15:13
  And I tend to come up with three or four. I know
• 1:15:18
  you're asking for one. Three or four is great.
• 1:15:21
  It's certainly Tower of Terror. the original
• 1:15:24
  in Florida. It's the new pirates that we did
• 1:15:29
  in Shanghai. It's Tron. And it's less of my personal
• 1:15:35
  effort, but tremendous management effort, which
• 1:15:38
  I explained to you already about Rise of the
• 1:15:39
  Resistance. Those things are all really, really
• 1:15:43
  important to me personally. Yeah. I can remember
• 1:15:45
  the first time I went on Rise. when you first
• 1:15:48
  walk out to where all the stormtroopers are.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah. It was the most like awe I've ever had
• 1:15:54
  at any park, at any attraction ever. And I just
• 1:15:58
  thought after going on it, this is the greatest
• 1:16:00
  attraction ever made. It was so impressive. Everything
• 1:16:05
  about the technology, but it didn't feel like
• 1:16:08
  it was technology. It just felt like you were
• 1:16:09
  there and part of it, which is what I think you
• 1:16:11
  guys do so well with Imagineering is that you
• 1:16:13
  utilize technology, but it feels like an experience,
• 1:16:15
  not like it's just technology, which was so amazing.
• 1:16:18
  I love Cosmic Rewind because the team worked
• 1:16:23
  so hard on it. It was a tough job to do. Kevin
• 1:16:27
  Fahey is an incredible creative partner. I can't
• 1:16:32
  control it, but I love it best when it's fun.
• 1:16:35
  Earth, Wind, Fire, September. So I write it whatever
• 1:16:40
  it is. But when that comes on, it's extra special.
• 1:16:42
  I just love it. Yeah, for sure. It was one of
• 1:16:44
  my selections when we were selecting. Oh, it's
• 1:16:47
  perfect. Yeah, it's a great song for it. When
• 1:16:50
  we were last there at Disney World in, I think
• 1:16:52
  it was November, I was raining terribly that
• 1:16:55
  day. Just a torrential downpour. I was there
• 1:16:57
  with my wife and two little girls. And it was
• 1:17:01
  the very end of the day. And the ride, unfortunately,
• 1:17:02
  had broken down a couple of times and we couldn't
• 1:17:04
  go. But we could at the end of the day. So the
• 1:17:06
  park was closed. And they still let my 10 -year
• 1:17:09
  -old and I go on that ride. And she was so over
• 1:17:13
  the moon about it. She was so excited that she
• 1:17:16
  and I got to go when the park was closed. They
• 1:17:18
  still let us on. It was such a fun, magical experience.
• 1:17:22
  I loved going with my kids. Well, my birthday
• 1:17:23
  is in September. So whenever it's September,
• 1:17:26
  I feel like it's just me. It's just they're doing
• 1:17:29
  it for me. They are. They are doing it for you.
• 1:17:31
  And I'll always think about that now. If I go
• 1:17:33
  on that ride and that song comes on, there's
• 1:17:34
  no question. If you get September, thank you,
• 1:17:35
  man. I'll be like, it's Bob. It's Bob. Well,
• 1:17:37
  thank you. It's been such a pleasure to have
• 1:17:39
  you on, Bob. What I want to do, if we can, is
• 1:17:42
  provide to our listeners three actionable takeaways
• 1:17:46
  or three things that, as somebody's thinking
• 1:17:48
  about this topic overall, about dream chasing
• 1:17:51
  and working towards things that are great, that
• 1:17:54
  stretching their imagination. What are three
• 1:17:57
  specific things that somebody could, put into
• 1:18:00
  effect in their lives today or this week and
• 1:18:03
  take action on that we could recommend to them?
• 1:18:05
  Yeah, I think that my philosophy is that everybody
• 1:18:08
  has interesting dreams, has interesting things
• 1:18:10
  they want to do. And the number one thing you
• 1:18:13
  can do is seek out allies. Seek out allies that
• 1:18:17
  can help you with that, that can help you move
• 1:18:19
  it forward. Be passionate yet flexible. Be passionate
• 1:18:27
  about what you want to do. Be flexible about
• 1:18:29
  how you do it, how it gets done, who can help
• 1:18:31
  you do it. And the best thing is keep a very,
• 1:18:36
  very positive attitude about your own dreams.
• 1:18:39
  And maybe that one will come true. Maybe the
• 1:18:42
  next one will come true. Maybe it will be some
• 1:18:45
  combination of two things you want to do. But
• 1:18:47
  don't give up and just keep a very, very positive
• 1:18:50
  and collaborative attitude toward anything you
• 1:18:53
  want to do. Those are absolutely fantastic. I
• 1:18:56
  think those are three great things that I'm personally
• 1:18:58
  going to make sure I've got written down and
• 1:19:00
  I'm going to go do as well this week to start
• 1:19:03
  helping to accomplish the dreams that I have
• 1:19:07
  in the things. Absolutely excellent. It's been
• 1:19:09
  such a pleasure having the opportunity to visit
• 1:19:11
  with you, Bob. You've been such a joy to have
• 1:19:14
  on here and such a positive energy and what you're
• 1:19:17
  bringing out and putting out to the world. So
• 1:19:19
  great to have you on. Well, thank you so much,
• 1:19:21
  Ryan. And it's been a great conversation. And
• 1:19:24
  I'll just, I'll do my commercial at the end.
• 1:19:26
  I hope people will seek out Dream Chasing as
• 1:19:28
  a kind of a manifesto about dreaming. I hope
• 1:19:32
  if you're a Disney fan, you like the Haunted
• 1:19:34
  Mansion, you'll seek out Ghost Dog. And in about
• 1:19:37
  nine months, let's get together again, Ryan,
• 1:19:40
  because this huge book on Marty Sklar, the 50
• 1:19:45
  -year patriarch of Imagineering that I've just
• 1:19:47
  finished writing, it's just going to the publisher
• 1:19:49
  now. will be coming out. So let's talk about
• 1:19:52
  that in nine months. Let's put it on the calendar.
• 1:19:54
  Yeah, absolutely. My, my recommended takeaways
• 1:19:56
  from my perspective, we're going to be first
• 1:19:58
  for everybody that you've got to go get a dream
• 1:20:01
  chasing. It's just, it's just absolutely phenomenal.
• 1:20:03
  Get it and read it, get ghost dog, and then can't
• 1:20:06
  wait for this book on, on Marty. I'm very, very
• 1:20:09
  excited for it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
• 1:20:12
  It's been great. And thank your whole team, everybody.
• 1:20:15
  As you leave this conversation, remember that
• 1:20:18
  yes, the past can hurt. And you can either run
• 1:20:20
  from it or you can learn from it. So here's to
• 1:20:24
  learning and finding joy in the journey. See
• 1:20:27
  you real soon.