Failure has a bad name. We have created an atmosphere where we prop up mediocre work and call it great. We do this because we are afraid to offend the average worker by telling them the truth: their work is something short of spectacular. It seems that we have lost the ability to see the importance of failure as a key ingredient to being great at what you do. Let me give you an example of a man who was truly outstanding in the field of entertainment: Walt Disney.

 In 1927, Disney Studios produced a short cartoon called Trolley Trouble. You might figure that the show featured the usual cast of Disney characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, et al. However, none of those characters had yet crossed Walt Disney’s mind. The character at the center of the cartoon was none other than Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and what happened in a dispute over his rights paved the way for Disney to develop an entertainment empire unmatched by his rivals.

Walt Disney had already tried his hand at cartoon shorts and had failed. In 1922, he opened a film studio in Kansas City and closed it down the next year. He moved to California and formed the Disney Brothers Studios with his brother Roy. That is where he developed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Trolley Troubles was produced for Universal Pictures and was Disney’s first successful venture. However, he had sold the rights to the movie and when he tried to negotiate a new contract with Universal, his efforts fell short. Disney decided to walk away from Oswald. Distraught at his failure as a businessman, he got on board a train from New York to California.

Walt Disney had a decision to make on that train. Should he let this latest setback derail his dreams of producing cartoons or would it spur him to create something new that no one else had done before. On the long ride home, he got an idea for a new character – Mickey Mouse. Instead of selling the rights to his new animated character, he decided to keep them for himself. The next year, Disney Studios released the classic Steamboat Willy, which was an instant success. It was the first cartoon to actually synchronize sound with animation, as Mickey whistled and beat out a musical tune on pots, pans and cow's teeth! It was cutting edge technology for the Roaring Twenties. It was far more popular than Trolley Troubles. People became huge fans of Mickey Mouse. In the next two years, Disney Studios churned out 26 new cartoons. The Disney empire had been launched.

However, Walt Disney did not stop there. A decade later he had produced the classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a full-length animated movie. No one had ever tried to animate realistic humans, nor had they taken on the task of a feature-length animated film. It became the most popular film of 1938 and earned a Best Picture Oscar. In the 1950s, Disney began to produce live-action movies. They took cinemas by storm. In all, Walt Disney earned 22 Academy Awards for his movies: the most by any person. He also took up a new entertainment venue- television, with his Mickey Mouse Club and the Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color- both designed to promote his theme park, Disneyland. This theme park became the standard by which all other parks measured their success. In its first month, over a half million people visited Disneyland. Now Disney theme parks have a worldwide presence.

That does not begin to touch all that Disney has become - the merchandise sales, the cruise lines, the live Ice Capades shows, the TV networks, etc.  It seemed that everything Walt Disney touched turned to gold. His name became synonymous with cutting edge innovation. None of it might have happened had he not failed in negotiating the contract on the next Oswald the Lucky Rabbit movie.

Sometimes failure is the catalyst we need to do something great. We need to look at failure as an opportunity to fix a problem and strive for something, not just better, but something beyond what anyone has done before. That begins with the truth: mediocre does not lead to greatness. Truth is, failure can and often does.

Take a look at early Disney works:

Trolley Trouble