#2 Disneyland: The Invention That Revolutionized the World Part 2

Welcome to another podcast episode of Uncommon Excellence. And today we are going to be diving into part two of Disney's Land. And I'm really excited about this podcast episode. Just a couple things before we get into it. I just wanted to say I'm definitely working on getting better. And this is only the second episode. I cannot wait to learn and grow with you guys. I cannot wait to go on this journey and. And this is going to be one of the greatest projects that I've ever done that I want to do, and I can. I'm just so excited that you guys are going to join, join me in this. And I really appreciate, appreciate the viewership and the listeners out there. I really want to express my gratitude and I cannot wait for just this wonderful time. And, you know, this is going to be a great. This is going to be a great podcast, and I'm working on getting it better, trying to be consistent, on a consistent schedule, and I cannot wait. So before we dive into this episode, actually a really cool thing that I just added, when you buy the book in the link below, it will actually, with no cost to you, send a. It will send a little bit of money to me for referring it. So kind of like associates type of ordeal where it's no cost to you, but you actually can support that, the podcast in that way when you buy.

The book through the link.

So go and do that if you really like this podcast episode and if.

You really like the book.

And in this podcast episode, we are going to be talking about the journey between the amusement park industry, where Walt began, and then the whole idea of the amusement park industry that he was trying to create, basically till the construction period of this time. And so what we're going to be looking at is kind of the whole idea around Disneyland. So the first podcast episode was, all right, what's the idea behind Disneyland? Early life of Walt Disney. Now we're in the section of the. What was amusement parks before Disneyland? Now, what are they? What is Walt wanting them to become? And now how are they going to do that? What's the construction like? And then the next podcast episode will be part three, which should be the last part, basically opening day and the ending and kind of what this looks like in the future of Disneyland in the 1960s and kind of that time period. So I cannot wait. This is going to be awesome. So let's just dive into it. So amusement parks were looked down upon in the time before Disneyland. Richard Snow, really, he takes a whole chapter to express why they were looked down upon. And which, surprising enough, the most prolific in the amusement industry was Coney Island. And this was located in New York City. Now Coney island, it was more of a carnival ride experience. And when I say carnival, it's like when you go to your local fair and you have, you know, the Ferris wheel, you have all, all these junky, trashy rides. And that's no offense to Ferris, the, the county. Right. But I'm just saying that's what an amusement park was. And that was the top of the top. And this is really funny. This, this is awesome. This is a funny quote by Walt Disney. I'm almost ready to give up the idea of an amusement park after seeing Coney Island. The whole, the whole place is so run down and ugly and the people who run it are so unpleasant. The whole thing is almost enough to destroy your faith in human nature. Dude. Dude, that's just, that's so funny, man. The, the fact that he says it's enough to almost lose your faith in human nature, that's crazy. I can just imagine, dude, if Disney didn't like that, oh man. Like that must be subpar. Dude, that's crazy. And what, like, what's crazy about that is that was the top of the top. The cream of the cream. The cream of the top, whatever, however you say it, that, that's crazy. And so I think what's kind of cool about that is it it shows that Disney did not, you know, Disney was trying to pioneer this industry. This industry was almost. This wasn't. This was a brand new industry. So much potential that no one realized. And it's crazy because that, that's a really, that's a really funny quote by Disney. That, that's crazy. And I think what's really cool about that is he knows it can be better. So let's dissect his quote a little bit, right? The whole place is so run down and ugly. Rundown meaning trashy People didn't keep it up. That's what he means by the people who run it are so unpleasant. They don't keep it up. So it's run down. It's ugly because they, you know, they don't make it. They don't try to make it look nice. The people who run it are so unpleasant. The crazy thing about this, and I will try to get to it in later this episode or potentially next episode, but this guy named Van Arsendol, French I believe, is he starts his own school for Disney itself just to get this down, where you don't treat guests or you don't treat the customers like customers. You treat them like guests. And so what. What you do is you call them ma' am or sir or you be very polite versus Coney island, where it's so informal. And when, even when you go to Disneyland now, it's. They're really kind. I mean, you don't really notice it a whole lot, but it's little details like that. And that's a great takeaway just in normal everyday life. But it's little details like that to improve your business. So instead of being very sloppy about your business or anything, you say, you know, ma', am, sir, what can I do for you? And you're very polite. And that's just one aspect of the. When it says the people. When he says the people who run it are so unpleasant. M. It's awesome. And so this is to show that when you pioneer a new industry, you have to have incredible vision and you have to persevere in it. And the thing is, this comes with. Everyone is going to tell you not to do that. The greatness of a pioneer in a new industry is that people are going to tell you not to do it. That's the crazy thing about this. They did that with Disneyland. They did that with television. As we're gonna get later to. In this episode, they. And when I, like when I say they, that's the world, you know. And for Disney, this was crazy because I have this in my notes. In the case of Disney, this was everyone. So it was his investors, the people sponsoring Disney and Disney, Disneyland and all that. His brother. His brother, like, ran Disney for finances. It was his business, the actual Disney business. And this is really sad, but it's true. And even his own wife, Lillian. Disney. Right, Lillian. Disney, like, didn't know why he wanted to start Disneyland. But Walt had to have so much vision and so much perseverance. Even when his wife told him not to. That the fact that, like, the fact that his wife said not to, you would. You would think, oh, maybe I shouldn't do this. There's a. I. I. Forgive me for not knowing this, but there's a story of or on the Founders podcast where David Senro was talking about this guy who he didn't know. He. He knew what he wanted to do, but it wasn't working out for him. And he kept going strong. His wife told him not to do it. Tons of people told him not to do it. And he would even cry himself to sleep because he didn't know if he was going to make it through that time. And then he ended up becoming a huge success later in his life after years of tomo and toil and labor trying to get to that spot where he knew he could go. But even when everyone else told him, hey, you can't do this, you can't do this, even to the point where his own wife and children didn't, like, you know, didn't agree with that. And so I think it's really crazy because this is, this is a founder mentality. This is uncommon excellence, whether that's in the details, whether that's in just any everyday living. And I think that's really important for all of us, because when you look at this, right, when people tell you not to do it, is your reaction to say, hey, I'm gonna do this anyways, or is it to shirk back and say, no, I'm not like, I, I agree with you, I shouldn't do this. You know, and that's the biggest thing, right? And so Disney wanted to focus on redefining what an amusement park was. The whole industry, he wanted to make it clean and he wanted to focus on the family. And the reason why was because Coney island focused on just children or just teens, or it was kind of segregated fun. Like, hey, we're like, like when you go to a fair, right, you hang out mostly with your, you know, friends, or if you're a teenager, your other, like, teenager friends. You're so focused on you that it's not family fun. And this is what Disney wanted to focus on. He wanted to focus on the family and having a good time together, which is something that the amusement industry did not promote at that time. Disney. And this is a great quote. This is by Neil Gabler, and he wrote Walt Disney, the Triumph of American Imagination. Uh, it's a great. I'm going to read this book actually, for this podcast later in the year. But he wrote an, I believe, a 600 or 800 page biography on Disney. And I love this quote. Disney reconceptualized the amusement park as a full imaginative experience, a theme park, rather than a series of diversions. And just as its animation revised graphic design, his park eventually revised urban design. Now, I think what's really cool about this quote is that it's saying, like, hey, this is a when. When he's talking about a full imaginative experience. It's all coming together in one. So you have the five different lands. Frontier Land, Tomorrowland, Fantasy Land, all these different lands. And they're coming together in this kind of blended, but the unified experience. And it's not like diversions where it's like, oh, you have like Star wars land over here and that's a diversion from the main thing, or there's nothing like that. He was trying to redesign and reconceptualize, as this quote says. I love that quote. And, and what's really cool is he actually started to do it. So in 1952, Walt's vision started to take shape and he discussed the idea with his team and set his sights on Anaheim, California. So we're moving on from like the idea of it now into construction, but trying to figure out where to put the. Where to put Disneyland. So they were looking at like different places and they set their sights on Anaheim, California. And the reason why they did that is because they determined it would be accessible and offer room for growth. And one of those reasons was anaheim was located 30 miles south of downtown LA or Los Angeles, and it was easily accessible by car. But the thing is, they were about to develop the highways, so they were going to develop the Santa Ana Freeway, which was under construction at the time. And so Walt had the capacity or the knowledge to look down like five years into the future and say, all right, this will be done in the next four years. This free will freeway will produce a lot of growth for Disney especially, but also Anaheim. And we can kind of work together. And so this was like a big thing for Disney. Disney was able to look five years into the future. And what I mean by this is when I say five years into the.

Future, it's kind of the idea in.

Business where five years into the future or 10 years into the future, you always want to do something of that capacity or something of that sort to where Steve or Jeff Bezos, excuse me, Jeff Bezos says that what do I know in 10 years from now will be the most desired thing by customers? And he says, well, I know people will want lower costs and free shipping. And that's Amazon's whole thing. Now. They've been around for 20 years, I believe, a trillion dollar company, and they know how to get things done. And this is the same thing with Disney. He looked five years into the future in a way and was thinking, all right, this is when the Santa Ana Freeway will be done. The, the highway. And all of a sudden he was like, all right, this is going to be the future. Anaheim's going to be the future. And we want Disneyland to be the future. And that's why it was a great thing for Disney. So it made Anaheim an attractive location, but it could also accommodate the larger number of visitors that were expected to drive to the park or arrive at the park.

And the people at the park at.

The time thought 25,000 was going to be the most. Turns out, well, they were thinking more like 12,000. And then on opening day, 20 to 50,000 people. I know that's a big range, but there was numerous accounts on how many there were. 20,000. 50,000 people showed up and they were only expecting like 15,000. So they only had like 12,000 parking spaces, which was crazy. But that was also a big thing for Disney. So this is looking ahead and knowing where and when the time is right. This is also just timing. This is the whole philosophy around time. If you. I watched this TED Talk of this guy, I can't remember his name, but. But this TED Talk of this guy where he was saying, if you started, let's just say Amazon or Microsoft, if you started one of those companies, one of these billion or trillion dollar companies nowadays, nowadays, if you started that company in the 1800s, 1900s, in a different country even, it would not do as well. Because the reason why was because they chose the right time to do it.

And, and it is really hard to do that.

But you can see that with Disney. You can see that with pretty much like all these big companies, if you start that same company in a different timeframe, it's not gonna do as well. So I think this is really important because this is not just a normal idea where like th. This is like really important with time. And so now progressing on with the story Disney. So, all right, he was looking at Anaheim right now. He needs to keep it secret. He needed land for Disneyland. He was concerned about land speculation and rising prices if the plans leaked. And so this is genius. He started a decoy campaign. So first he was using different enterprises. It was called wed. So WED in all caps, which just stands for Walter Elias Disney. That was the company name, wed. Basically they would buy anonymous land purchases. So around the area of what they needed, they would like buy this land, buy this land, but under different people's names or under that company. But they didn't want it to be suspicious because if someone found out, they'd be like, oh, Disney just bought like this land for $20,000. And I know he has to buy mine in order to do this and so I'm going to charge 50,000. So that's what he was concerned about. And they didn't really have a lot of money back then. And so they were trying to not. They were trying to Use, as the, you know, the book puts it, like different corporations or a decoy campaign. And so what's really cool about this is they start doing that. Retlaw Enterprises as well is just Walter spelled backwards, which was kind of cool. And they started doing that. They circulated false rumors about the land being used for agriculture or a different industry. And they also tried to do multiple sellers. So they would have like a bank buy it for them and then buy it from the bank. Or they would use that, a broker or someone of that nature to buy a certain piece of land for them. And then they would also. This is also really genius fake locations. So they would suggest, hey, this place in Santa Fe or this place in Santa Monica. They, they would say like, oh, this is the. I think they use Burbank or parts of the LA county as potential site. So they would say, hey, oh, this place is where they're building Disneyland. And they would start a, start a false rumor. And then investors or people that were trying to buy up the land so they could hit those price spikes would do that. And then like they would buy in that one area. And then Disney had all of Anaheim to basically play around with because there was not a ton of more people trying to, that he had to deal with. And then they also got local help. So they partnered with Anaheim city officials and they also, they secured a public road closure to connect parcels of the land together. So they, Anaheim was really thrilled about having Disneyland in Anaheim because they could see that this is like, well, Disney was a pretty big company then. And so they, they wanted to get ahead of the curb and this would definitely help Anaheim. So they were trying to do whatever Disney needed in order to get Disneyland there. So they worked on that. And then they were able to secure 160 acres at a decent price. And this enabled for Disneyland's groundbreaking opening in 1955. But before we get to that, they needed the, they needed the money to start constructing it. So they, they've just acquired the land right now. The crazy thing is, is that Disney was out of money even after he had sold his vacation house and he had spent over $100,000 of what he had borrowed on Disneyland. And this was crazy because 1, $100,000 borrowed back then was a ton of money. And then two, he borrowed against his insurance. And if you guys don't know how big that is, that was crazy because he was a huge smoker and this is life insurance. He was a huge smoker and he was putting his life on the line to get Disneyland done, in a sense, he was a big smoker. You know, eventually, I think had to get a lung taken out or got surgery on his lung. And he just. He really cared about Disneyland and Disneyland. It was just crazy because he. He was willing to put his life on the line to get this done. And I think what's crazy is it really came across to Roy because Roy just thought that Disneyland was just another idea or concept or as Roy put it, one of Walt's, quote unquote screwy ideas. And Roy realized that Walt was getting serious about this, and he decided to loan him some money to help him cover the costs. Some of the costs. I think he started out with 10,000. And then Walt, you know, he was again, like, hey, can you just lend me $10 here or can, like, $100 here? And eventually it, like, grew to a. Like, a decent amount. But it was crazy because he. Walt was so dedicated to this that he was willing to sell his vacation house. He borrowed against his life insurance. I think he eventually got to an, like, 350,000 borrowed. And that's, like millions of dollars worth now. And just to get this done, which is crazy. And so I think was. So you have that right. He's trying to construct Disneyland. He's trying to get money for it. And this is one of the most legendary moments in Disney history. So this guy named Herb Reiman draws Disneyland. And the reason why was because Walt needed a concept drawing. And this is. This is what makes history concept drawing. So Walt Disney needed a visual representation of Disneyland to pitch to its investors, especially ABC and bankers. The drawing would showcase his vision and secure the funding. So Walt. Walt basically approaches Herb. And Herb was a skilled artist and Disney collaborator. He was working at a different company for a time, or he had worked previously at Disney. And then Disney called him up and said, hey, can you get over here? And he told him this idea about Disney, Disneyland. And Walt was like, hey, can you create this drawing? And Herb was hesitant, but Walt persuaded him with the line quote, if you don't do it, nobody will. And he was still a little bit hesitant even after that kind of moved him a little bit. But Walt was like, all right, I will stay with you until you get this done. And so he helped. He would describe Disneyland to Herb, and Herb would just be drawing, just drawing this. And literally, they got it done in 48 hours. It literally took one weekend. They start on Friday, got done Saturday, and like, finished, like, late afternoon on Sunday. And so over one weekend in 1953, Walt and Ryman Herb's last name were worked closely in Walt's office and Walt would describe his vision while Ryman sketched out an aerial view map of Disneyland. And it created the now iconic layout of Main Street. Sleeping Beauty, Castle, Adventureland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland. And if you, if you ever look up photos of like, hey Disney, or like you look up Disneyland and it's like kind of a drawing of Disneyland online, that's kind of the idea behind it. It was a concept art that they were trying to pitch to investors. And so this drawing impressed investors and ended up securing funding for Disneyland. But the crazy thing was so right before, right. So he was. So Herb drew that. That made history. And what ended up happening was they needed to pitch these ideas to investors or shows or network. So they. All right, so they were trying to secure funding. So television was what Walt believed was going to the, was going to be the new and upcoming thing, but other, other people, which is literally the same idea as pioneering the amusement industry. This was everyone else, they were skeptical and they didn't believe him. I love this quote by Elon because there's a quote that I'm going to read to you which kind of embodies kind of what Walt believes and kind of the whole idea behind Disney's philosophy.

And so I love this.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. And that was from Elon Musk. And what's crazy is Disney believed that television was going to be the next biggest thing. And every single person did not like every single person except the people that were in the TV industry did not think. Did not believe that, did not think that. And what's crazy about this is that television what like what's crazy about this is if you notice technology and if you get ahead of the trends, you can greatly benefit your company or your life. When you notice Nvidia, Nvidia invested into AI before it was a huge thing. They basically created parts of AI. When you invest heavily into that, you get great rewards. And this comes with self confidence and self belief in your skills. And now you don't always trust yourself on every single thing, but. And you don't need to, but when it comes to business and you are confident in what you believe and what you have studied for all your life. So whether you're Steve Jobs and you've been creating Mac, MacBook Airs and you know, phones for like all of your life, then you should be, you should have the confidence to call shots. And I think that's really important because if you want to get ahead of the curve and get ahead, you need to be able to read trends. And when you read the trends, you invest in certain technology. Disney did this. A ton of people have done this to where technology has greatly benefited their company. And even if you're not in the technology industry, if you're in a food industry like Costco, I believe Costco can like has done that. There's been different food companies. John Mackey and Whole Foods, he invested heavily in it, into technology, and it's greatly benefited his company, Brad Jacobs, with his Garbage or United Waste company. They invested into technology and they ended up making like billions of dollars. You don't have to be in the technology industry to see these, to see these trends at all. And so that's what happened to Disney. And he would soon find out later that it would be hard to get a network. And there was only three networks at that time. It was abc, CBS, and NBC. And it was hard to get a network because Disney had two requirements. So everyone loved Disney. Everyone was like, hey, what? We love you, Disney. Like, we want to make a show with you. But Disney had these two requirements. He was going to make a show, a show about Disneyland, which was kind of iffy because everyone was like, no, we don't really like Disneyland or that idea. We, we think you're not going to do well in the amusement park industry. So we don't really want to make something like that. But this put them over the top where, yeah, we're, we're not going to make a show with you. The show had to pay for the park or for a good amount of it. And what's crazy about this is that NBC and CBS did not, they did not do that. And what's crazy about this is ABC was. ABC was the last resort for Disney because ABC was the youngest network and they had never had a hit. There was people that made jokes about them all the time. And they, they needed Disney to help them in order to not go bankrupt. They were fake. They were facing bankruptcy in 1949 or 1951. And this was, I believe in 1953 or somewhere, somewhere around in that time. And basically Disney had two requirements. And so what you see is I think ABC puts up $5 million, which they did that. They guaranteed $5 million. So they didn't have the money to put up $5 million right away. But once they started making shows, they guaranteed that they would pay for $5 million worth for the park. And I think they put like a down payment of 500,000 down or something like that. But basically they. So ABC really or Disney needed AB or. Well, ABC needed Disney and Disney needed ABC because he needed to pay for the park. And he was running out of a ton of money. Like I said, he was. You know, his brother was lending him money. He was taking out his life insurance money or loaning against his life insurance. He had just sold his vacation house. All these things were stacking up against him. And so he came up with the. One of the most. The greatest marketing ideas ever. And so the formation of the network. The what? Like, the show was about it. The show was Disneyland. It was called Disneyland. It was hosted by Walt Disney himself. It makes some cartoons with real life. Like, while talking about the whole idea of Disneyland. And this is what I mean when. This is one of the most incredible marketing ideas probably. If. If I probably in American history. This is one of the most revolutionary ideas that you could probably take for your company if you're a business owner. Even if, like, in your life, tons of people have stolen this idea or use this idea where you show how you make something, right? Disney showed how they were going to make Disneyland. What was going in. It involved, like, if you haven't watched the original Disneyland series where he's talking about Disneyland, it opens with, like, Frontierland, all these different lands. I would highly recommend you'll watch like, just an episode or the intro. It's really incredible marketing because think about it. You're not just making a show to make money to pay for Disneyland.

You're willing to make.

You're willing to make a show about Disney. Disneyland in order to make dis. In order to make Disneyland or to pay for Disneyland, which is genius marketing. And this is why the. The whole idea behind this is this is why you show the process of how you make something. It makes a great number of sales for your company. And Disney was one of the first to broadcast this to the world. And so that's why when you're watching a video of how they made like a certain type of shoe or how they made the phone, this is why they have promo videos of where, like, you see, like. Like if they're making a sword or something, which is kind of a random example, but when they're making a sword, it starts with metal and then it gets heated up and then they're pounding it and then it turns into a little bit sharper and they're sharpening it and then all of a sudden it. They get the handle and it's made out of leather. And then all of a sudden they have a sword made or they're like baking alcohol. There's all these different promotion promotional videos where they're showing you how they make stuff because it, it's a, a twist of storytelling, right? The storytelling is embedded into your product or when you storytell, your product is embedded in the storytelling. And that's kind of how you need to treat running your business or just what you do in everyday life, right? When you know. And I love this quote by David Ogilvy. Whenever you can make the product itself the hero of your advertising, if you think the product is too dull, I have news for you. There are no dull products, only dual writers. David Ogilvy. And what I love about this is there. He. He is a hundred percent correct, right? There is no, there's no such thing as a dull product, right? The phone, the iPhone could be the most dullest thing ever. But because they have, you know, advertised it and they have written it, storytell, they, they have written a story about it in such a way that it's so captivating to the audience. And, and that's what I really like. Like, I love what he says. Like, whenever you can make the product itself the hero of your advertising, Disney did this. Disney knows how to do this. Like, the fact that Disney did this should be so much like, it should be so encouraging to us because you don't need to do this just with like a phone or some technology or whatever you're doing. You can do this in whatever. It could be amusement park, it could be a theme park, it could be a tv. Anything, man. And so I think this is just a great takeaway. It's a big thing for pretty much everyone listening to this, where I think the biggest thing is just learn how you can storytell, write better stories. There are no such things as dull products you could like. Would you rather watch a video of how they made this orange? Like, all right, what sounds better? Orange juice or fresh squeezed or fret? Yeah, fresh squeezed orange juice. Well, we all know there, there's a little bit of aspect or a storytelling aspect in fresh squeezed orange juice. They had just fresh squeezed. It. It tastes amazing. I'm sorry if you don't like orange juice, but it's great. And that's kind of a weird and random example, but there's a, like a twist of storytelling in that. And so I think there's some big things that we can learn in just that. And so now we go into the construction phase of Disney or Disneyland. He has Gotten the money and he's hiring some people. And I think I'm going to be highlighting this guy named Joseph Fowler. And he was kind of the man behind Disneyland's construction in some parts. And with the point of pointing out these people, right? Herb Reidman, Joseph Fowler. The biggest thing is you need people around you that if you're in a company, you need to have people around you that are A plus players, right? B players hire C players and A players hire A players, right? You need to have A players because they will demand the utmost from their peers, from their workers, and they will be some of the best. And I see this in, in this guy, Joseph Fowler. Richard Snow definitely highlighted this really, really well. And this is kind of the history behind this guy. And then just kind of like what he did in Disneyland. So he had a naval background and expertise. He graduated from the US Naval Academy and served as a naval officer. He gained extensive experiment experience in engineering and shipbuilding preparing him for large scale projects. And he was hired by Disney in 1954. So he was brought on to supervise like the construction of Disneyland. And he was tasked with managing tight deadlines, complex logistics and budget constraints. And basically the main things that he contributed to Disneyland was he oversaw the entire construction process, ensuring that the park was ready for in 1955, the opening of it. And he also played a pivotal role role in building a Mark Twain steamboat. And if you haven't been to Disneyland, it's basically a boat where it's like an old steamship boat. And he spent a ton of time working on like, is this going to be steam engined? How many people can it hold? How can we make it look like it's from the 1800s? And he worked so hard on that and it actually turned out to be a standout opening day attraction. And so the crazy thing about him is he earned the nickname Admiral Joe. And he was really disciplined, that's what they would call him, Admiral. And he was known for solving problems efficiently and keeping the project on track. He later helped develop Walt Disney World and they actually named a harbor after him, named Fowler's harbor to honor his work. But the whole idea, he had a great relationship with Walt Disney. He was trusted by Disney for his engineering expertise and ability to, to deliver on ambitious ideas. And so the theme is that Disney couldn't have done this without key people like Joe Fowler, Roy Disney, Herb Ryman. And I think the whole idea, the whole theme, all this is behind what Simon Sinek says. And what he says is the reason so many businesses fail. However is because passion alone can't cut it. For passion to survive, it needs structure. A why without the house? Passion without structure has a very high probability of failure. And what Simon Sinek is saying is there's a why, there's a how, but being passionate about something doesn't. Passion can drive people. And I see that Disney was very passionate. You can see that. He wasn't great with his finances, but he was very passionate. He wanted to survive. But in terms of the structure, Joe Fowler or Admiral dro, Herb Ryman, Roy Disney, they provided a structure to Disneyland that without them, I don't think Disneyland would have ever worked. And that's why I think it's really important what Simon's saying. Like, you can have a guy where he's all about the why, like, why are we doing this? All that. And then you have the guys that are about, like, how, all right, how are we going to get this done? Passion without structure has a high. A very high probability of failure. And Disney finds a. You know, like, finds a way to get this stuff done. He's very much. He hustles very hard. He's a very hard worker in his early days. And then the more that he works in his later years, he's not concerned about money. He's not doing the finances. He's not. And which is great. But Disney needed people around him to kind of keep him under control, but also be really smart of how they did things. And that's what they did. And so, kind of moving on, just summarize a little bit more of the story. Disney finds a company to create some of the rides. They're called Arrow Construction or just Arrow. And he gets some people to start working on the Jungle Cruise ride. That was a great chapter. The Jungle Cruise ride, just really quick, was where they basically took, like, a ton of different plants and a ton of different trees and different agricultures from different. Whether it was Mongolia, India, Africa, Amazon, or, you know, South America, America, they blended it all to make it look like a unique forest or jungle. And so that's kind of what they did with a Jungle Cruise ride. And that was kind of the chapter of Jungle Cruise. And then they started working on putting a real train in Disneyland called the Lillian Bell. And that was named after the Lillian Bell that Disney had on his property at Carrollwood. And that was kind of the summary of a couple of chapters that happened in between these. Construction. That was kind of the construction phase. And so now we get into a fun part. This is the impact of Davy Crockett On Disneyland's development. So if you don't know, Davy Crockett was a huge success in the 1950s. Basically, it was a. It was a series starring Fess Parker. And it became a massive, massive success on abc. And basically it portrayed Davy Crockett, the front frontiers man and set. It was set during America's expansion into the frontier. And it resonated with a ton of people, but especially children. And people went crazy. This. This is crazy. So the show was so big that they. They sold the most of coonskin caps, which was something that Davy Crockett wore. And so he had coonskin caps. People would buy lunch boxes, swimsuits, anything you can think of. They just went crazy. And so the whole. This whole merchandise campaign helped generate $30 million of revenue for Disney and his projects, including the construction of Disneyland. And it was bananas, man. They had. Yeah, $30 million. That's a ton of money. And really cool thing is that basically the whole financial. It's the whole financial side of Disney was that it led to. They were actually like. They had like, a hard job keeping the rights because no one owned. Like, hey, this is Davy Crockett. Like, anyone could print anything or make anything. So the total thing, the whole idea behind Davy Crockett, like the coonskin hap caps, all that made $300 million. That was just total market for Americans. But $30 million at least went to Disney from what we know of. And that was just crazy. They were able to strike a chord with the American people. And I think it shows that success is. Success can be around the corner. Right? You never know. You never doubt yourself. You never know when something will pop up. And your show or whatever you're doing just goes off the rails or off the walls. And it's just crazy. And so this is crazy. The hit song, the Ballad of Davy Crockett, or just Davy Crockett, which I'm sure most of you have heard, if you haven't, you can still listen to on Spotify. It's crazy. But it sold over 10 million copies. Think about that. 10 million, like, copies. That. That's insane. And the Disney songwriters, they were making.

It and they didn't even think it was that good. And then they found out, like, they. Yeah, they didn't think it was that good. And then they were like, you know.

This will do and we'll just put in the show. And they put in the show and it became an overnight success. It ended up being number one on Billboard's top 100 songs. That would Be like the equivalent of like, I don't know, the Weeknd or Toilet, Taylor Swift or just anyone nowadays that, like, that's how big this is. I, I think this would be, I'm assuming America top 100 songs because this was mostly American. But it was, it ended up being number one. And it wasn't just like, oh, it's number one for a couple days. It stayed up there for a good amount of time. And so this really helped Disneyland and the construction of Disneyland. It helped fund Disneyland's development and offered much needed capital capital for the park's ambitious construction. And it, the show, like the whole culture phenomenon, the buzz, all that kind of, it created a, an awareness of Disneyland and kind of built anticipation for its Disneyland's opening in July 1955. And Disneyland couldn't be delayed any longer. So they were set on opening it in July 17, on July 17, 1955. And they were really set on that they could not move it. And they built Disneyland in a year. Like, that's crazy. A year. Think about that. That's insane. So they try to build Disneyland, but that, that gives them a huge financial boost and just really helps promote Disneyland. It was really good. And so now that, that was kind of the impact of Davy Crockett on Disneyland. Now we get into sponsorships. And Disneyland was. When you walk into Main street, if you've ever been to Disneyland, when you walk onto Main street, they have a ton of shops. And so what they did was those would be the sponsorships. So they would have flags up or a poster or if you get a shop here. And people. Disneyland really relied on those sponsorships in the beginning for funding of the park. So it's really hard to get sponsorships. But they got brands like Kodak, film Sunkist, Pepsi Cola, and that's just to name a few. But they got like others.

But they would be leasing, like if.

You had this hotel on our property, you have to pay us $50,000 a year. If for this company you had to pay us $25,000 a year if you wanted like a couple banners, if you want, if you wanted a stand or if you wanted this. And they became a money making machine. They just did. They did it and it was kind of awesome because they found a way. This is like the whole idea behind McDonald's, right? Have you ever heard that thing where McDonald's or the saying it. The saying is that McDonald's is not a burger company, it's a real estate company. And that's because franchising. When you think about franchising is they lease stuff. So, so what happens in franchising or leasing is McDonald's buys the real estate or they buy, they buy the land, and the people that want to put a McDonald's on there lease the name out. And they, they say, hey, we want this McDonald's here. And they start paying McDonald's a monthly payment while McDonald's owns the land. But they, they don't have to, you know, they don't have to really upkeep it or they don't have to do a whole lot. But that's the whole basic idea where they buy real estate and they buy land, and then people pay them for that land because they want the name. And that's like kind of like all of franchising. And so that's why they're billions of billions. Maybe like, yeah, billions of billions of dollars in net worth. I don't think a trillion yet, but they might be somewhere close to that. But that was kind of the, that was kind of the whole idea behind leasing and sponsorships for Disney.

And so the biggest thing I think.

We can take away from this section is that Disneyland was trying to get creative. And I think you need to get creative when you're in a position like this where you don't have a lot of money. You need to get creative. So if, like, we can sell, like, oh, do you want to put your banners up in this part of the park? Hey, you got to pay us this much a year. And so it kind of funded the park in a way, upkeep and all that. And so that was the sponsorships portion of Disneyland. And so we, we've covered, you know, construction, the pitch to the show where, like, what, what would happen when you need, when they needed money and they wanted to start a TV show. The different people, Herb Ryman, Joseph Fowler, sponsorships. And the next person we're going to be talking about is Van Arsendal and basically how he started the whole school behind Disney. And this is a crazy idea because Disney comes to Van Arsendal and he says, hey, or I think it's Stevie Wood and CV Wood. We haven't really talked about it much, but CV Wood was the guy was get who was getting sponsorships, connecting Disney with all these people. I think he connected Disney with Joseph Fowler. Disney did not like CB Wood, or as all of them called him, Woody. And he, he eventually left the company, but he was, he played a big part in Disney's open or just the whole beginning of Disneyland. And so he really worked on that. But a big thing was Disney with Van Arsenal. CV Wood got Van Arsenal. And Van Arsenal had been at this manufacturing company where he was ahead of. He was the head of all these different people. And so what Van Arsenal goes on to do was he starts.

Woody is like, hey, we need you.

To create something to introduce our new. Our new workers or yeah, our workers at this park. Something to do. Or we, we. We need to have a handbook. Right? And so he starts working on this. He eventually creates Disneyland school where they, they train these people up, they figure out what to do and how. How to be polite. And basically the opposite of Coney island where these people are. It's mandatory to be pleasant. Like you need. You should be happy. And I think it's crazy because it ends up being a great thing for Disneyland and Walt loves it.

And the thing that Van Arsenal France promotes or shows to Disney to get approval and is a handbook. In this handbook is referred to as like cast member training. Because they wanted to instill into their workers that their workers were not just workers that showed up on a job. These were cast members because Disney wanted the philosophy that you were in a movie set. Every single time you walk into Disneyland, you're on a live action movie set, which is incredible. And, and France outline. So this is kind of what the, the content and kind of the purpose behind it. But France wanted how, like, the employees should conduct themselves. The importance of courtesy, cleanliness, and creating a seamless guest experience. And the, the cast members were going to be taught, like, how to remain on stage when in view of the guest. This included personal appearance, behavior, how to interact positively with the guests. And I love this, this is in the book on page 186. He was showing Walt to get this approved that we don't have customers. We serve guests. We are hosts and hostesses. There's no such thing as a dumb question. We don't have crowds. We have an audience. The Disney look, in essence, dress like a prep school graduate and don't do anything, do anything tricky with your hair. We work while others play. Meaning act. Meaning always act if you're having a good time as the guests and don't ever try to. Those were just some of the little things, like you call them guests and we are the host and hostesses. You know, we are the cast members. Call them. Yeah, call them guests. And so this is just kind of a thing that Disney, he loved it. And so basically how this got approved.

Was.

Van Arsenal France, as I already mentioned, he, he had a lot of experience in, like, the industry of manufacturing and kind of like drilling and disciplining people. And what was really cool is he started a thing called Disney University, and so that's where all these cast members could go to go learn all this stuff before they go to Disneyland and start working there. And basically, he tailored it to the handbook to what Walt wanted in his park, the vision of Disneyland.

And he brought it before a meeting.

And this is where he mentions the hosts and hostesses, all that stuff, and Walt loves it, and he pitched the idea, and Walt just goes through the roof. He approved the handbook because it aligned with his belief that the park's success depended on its. Its employees creating a consistent and exceptional guest experience. And as I already mentioned, this helps.

France.

Who laid the groundwork for Disney University, which continues actually to train cast members to this day, which is kind of a cool fact, right? So if you ever go to Disneyland, maybe ask some Disney cast members, hey, what was it like going to Disney University? They probably won't tell you anything, but that would be kind of fun. And I think the. The whole reason why I'm mentioning Van Arsenal, France, or kind of the whole idea behind this handbook is one. We're going back to our theme, right? Our theme is we need. Walt needed other significant people in his life to make the. The Disneyland dream possible. And I think this is also how we should add to our customers or audience. Or just like, if you're. If I'm a podcast host, you address the audience, not customers. If I'm a businessman, I'm addressing, you know, not the customers, but, you know, there needs to be a creative name for them. But, like, you need to find ways in order to always be courteous, polite, but also invest little details. And this is. Right, this is the uncommon excellence. This is uncommon because not a lot of people do it, but this is excellent because it works tremendously well. So if you can have greatness in the little details and have excellence in customer service, this can translate into any industry. Whether you're Elon Musk and building spaceships, whether you're Tesla, whether you're Amazon, whether you're Costco, it doesn't matter who you are. You can have excellence in the details, and that is uncommon.

And.

And I think just as an encouragement to everyone out there, you need to find how to have uncommon excellence in your industry. So for me, how can I have uncommon excellence? How can I have uncommon excellence in the details, in the little ways of the audio? How can I get that all nailed down and just dialed in? How Can I improve my voice to where I'm not stopping so much? How can I? And it's the uncommon excellence in the details, right? This is what we can learn from Disney. And this is. This is why I really like. I really loved reading this book. And I'm going to talk more about it in part three, which should finish off the book. And that should be coming out next week.

I cannot wait for this journey.

And I think we can learn a ton from these people that have come before us, Right? This is the whole idea behind history. History is the way of learning. Keys, like generations go by, and you might look back, if you don't read history, you might ignore previous problems that have already been solved that are presented in your own life right now. So if you're going through, you know, trauma in your business, I. I guarantee you, you are not the first person that's gone through that. Or if you're going through trauma in your life or anything in your life, that's a trial, I guarantee you, you're not the first person to do that. And so we see with Disney, I didn't get into a lot this episode, but it comes mostly during the opening day. But Disney deals with a ton of. Ton of just hard things on opening day. And it's crazy because he. Like, when you go to Disneyland now, you see, oh, hey, this is really cool. Like, I like.

I love Disneyland.

It's like, just excellent, amazing. I'm getting a full experience. And when you went back there in 1955, they had a ton of things to work on, a lot of improvement. But they eventually got to the point where everyone trusts them and they redefine an industry. And I think this is really inspirational stuff that we need to take away. And it's not. It's not important just to listen to this and say, all right, got it. You need to take this away, put it in your own life and say.

Hey.

Let'S do something with this, right? So whether you need to be working better on the details of your life or in any aspect of your life, whether that's business, whether that's just anything, I think these are really good takeaways. And I cannot wait for part three of this because this is gonna be a great finale. With the opening of Disneyland, we kind of summarized getting into the construction phases and kind of like leading up to it, the handbook.

Davy Crockett, Joseph Fowler, Herb Ryman.

So, like, the drawing, the sponsors, the network, all that. And so now we got to the handbook, and I can't wait to finish this book out next week will be.

Part three of the Disneyland book.

And I will make sure to link the book in the description if you want to buy it right now. And it is no additional cost to you like I've mentioned before, but I will get affiliate affiliate small percentage of the amount that you spend on that book and with no additional cost to you. And thank you so much for listening.

To this and I'll talk to you again soon.