If Disney Ran Your Life

Dates are important in your culture. Whether it is your family culture or your organizational culture.  On January 25, 1982, I began my career with Disney. On January 25, 2019, I launched my podcast.    If you can pick a date and tie it to something meaningful. You have a better chance of remembering it.    During this episode, I will explain how Disney has used dates to build stories and celebrate new beginnings.    We all have the same calendar, but you can use dates to think differently

Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from mistakes.  The Disney way is to have faith in the future even if you can't see it.  One of the factors we have to deal with is time. We only have 24 hours and we have to find a way to get things done.  You can't wait for perfect to launch. At Disney, we practice a concept called 80 and Go.  Walt Disney said, "Aim for perfection. Settle for excellence." It is hard to be perfect. But it isn't hard to be excellent.  Get is as good as you can get it, launch, and then sweep up the crumbs as you go.  The 80 and Go concept allows you to do things now rather than wait. Get started and then continuously improve. You can't improve if you don't take the risk. The road to excellence has no finish line. You will never get there, but you have to start so you can get better.   

There is a long list of reasons why we don't take risks. But not taking risk becomes a habit.  In the spirit of Walt Disney, if your goal isn't impossible you are not reaching high enough.  But shooting for impossible if you aren't used to taking risks won't work. How do you get to the place where risk-taking is a normal response? You have to take time to develop habits and rituals. If you want to improve your life where it is much better in the future, taking a risk has to be an impulse.  Motivation is the best way to move out of comfort and towards risk. A clear, concise, and compelling vision can drive risk.  The reason people take risks is because they are in search of a better tomorrow.  Waiting and doing nothing are the twin siblings of self-destruction.  Habits and rituals are changed slowly and steadily. Motivation is the driver behind making a change.  Don't put a lot of pressure on yourself to do something amazing. Get started. Keep your goal small enough to be right in front of you. Eventually, it will become something amazing. 

Dreaming moves the world forward.  Dreaming moves us forward. But if we get too busy, we don't take time to dream.  If Disney ran your life, Disney would be a big part of what drives your activity.  Dreaming is a vision of the future that's better than today. A big dream can give you a target to reach for and push yourself. Having a place you are moving towards helps you keep moving when the work gets tough. 

If Disney ran your life, you would focus on self-improvement. One of the quickest ways to self-improvement is to make coaching becoming a habit Throughout our life, we have always received feedback on our performance.  You are in charge of everything that happens in your life, and if you took charge of coaching yourself you can have a magical life.  Five areas I focus on in self-coaching: Mind, body, spirit, work and home.  I spend time every day thinking about what I learned yesterday, what do I get to do today, and what do I hope for tomorrow. Figure out your own set of metrics and be relentless on working on improvement.  For some encouragement in self-coaching, check out my book, Mid-Life Celebration. 

Joy has no accent. No matter where you are from or what language you speak, we all experience joy.  Joy is fun, exuberance, with some happiness.  If Disney Ran Your Life, you would show up with joy to everything you do. Whether you were at work or with family, you would bring joy with you.  Know your core competencies.  You need to find your own applause. Every day is not going to be a party. People won't line up to congratulate you for what you have done today.  Does your "Get to do" outweigh your "have to do"?  The things you get to do that don't feel like work to you should be maximized. The rest should be automated, eliminated, or delegated. 

On this episode, I made a stretch.  Usually, I prepare for episodes of If Disney Ran Your Life. Or, I at least have thought through the topic. This episode, I let Jody Maberry ask me about anything he wanted to.  We begin the conversation talking about Glacier National Park, a place I love and visit several times each year. With so many wonderful National Parks in the United States, why do I return to the same park over and over? There is magic in going deeper into one thing, rather than collect as many experiences and information as possible. Too often, we use the need for more information to postpone facing our fear.  In Glacier, I have found peace in returning to the same place enough to get to know the park as a friend.  Consider this; how can a business bring a customer back multiple times without them getting tired of it? In our personal life, how can focus on our core competencies without feeling like we need to move on to the next thing to get our fix?

Planning gives you more balance in your life.  Planning gives you better results.  In our quest for excellence, planning gives us balanced excellence.  With proper planning, you can see where you may be spending too much or too little time, make adjustments and find personal vibrancy. 

Over Focus is about doing things by design rather than by default.  Focusing on things others under focus on or ignore.  Understanding the concept of Over Focus Disney has fanatical attention to detail on everything we do. What you see, smell, touch, hear, and taste. And what you don't hear.  Our Over Focus on detail allows you to feel like you are in Italy when you visit the Italy Pavillion in Epcot. Over Focus allows us to create a one of kind experience.  We even know most of the detail work goes unnoticed. But the details are part of the experience, but we would not do it any other way.  You don't have to be Disney to Over Focus. Just begin to do things by design rather than default. Be deliberate about what you decide to do. 

Happy present moment.  When a new year begins, we celebrate the new year.  We don't take time to celebrate the present moment for what it is because we are too focused on the future. We are looking forward to the weekend, or vacation, or the end of a big project.  The present moment gets squandered because we are waiting for a bigger moment in the future.  It is hard to be present.  But if you make it a habit to be mindful of what you have to be thankful for, you can enjoy what you have right now.   

At Disney, we strive to exceed expectations. If you do what people expect, all you do is meet expectations.  If Disney ran your life, you would not settle for meeting expectations. You would constantly look for opportunities to exceed expectations.  Look at how people do things. Look at what people expect. Now, how can you do it differently? What unexpected gesture can you do today that will create magic for someone else?

In business and in life, it is important to reflect on where you are, where you've been and where you are heading.  In this episode of If Disney Ran Your Life, we reflect back on the experiment of the podcast to see where we have been.  The whole show is an experiment and with this episode, we see how the experiment we have gone.   

For this episode of If Disney Ran Your Life, we return to where it all started.  My first role at Walt Disney World was at the Jungle Cruise in the Magic Kingdom.  I return to where it started to talk to you this episode and am on location at the Magic Kingdom.  This is the 14th and final episode of season 1 of If Disney Ran Your Life. All 14 episodes have been an experiment, always poking at new ways to do the podcast and create interesting episodes.  These 14 episodes have been what I consider the "cast previews" or the basement tapes.  There are 2 lessons I learned while recording these episodes of the podcast; -Creating a podcast was harder than it looked.  -When I let go of my original goal and vision everything fell into place.  As we wrap it, the one message I want you to know it is ok to do something that might fail. 

Welcome to If Disney Ran Your Life with Jeff Noel. After a wonderful 30 year career at Walt Disney World, including 15 years teaching at the Disney Institute, Jeff Noel shares how Disney impacted his personal life.  Hear inside stories from a life at Disney and realize how you would think differently about everything if Disney ran your life. 

This episode marks the beginning of Season 2 of If Disney Ran Your Life.  Every episode of Season 2 was recorded on-site at Walt Disney World in a single day. If season one, the first 14 episodes, were considered the Cast Preview, season 2 is the soft opening.  On this episode, we visit Disney University and explore the very early days of my 30-year career with Disney.   At Disney University, I learned how to be creative within parameters, which is a concept I still apply to my life.  At the heart of Disney, is stories. If you can find a way to tell stories you will be more committed and less likely to take shortcuts.   Among the magic I learned in the first days at Disney, is you can't do this by yourself. It takes a team. You have to count on the people around you.   

On this episode of If Disney Ran Your Life, we record on location in front of the Jungle Cruise in the Magic Kingdom.  When I was a skipper on the Jungle Cruise, I learned people who enjoy the attraction at the end of the day deserve a cruise just as magical as early in the day.  Everyone you serve, in your professional and personal lives, deserve your best effort. Every time.  Are you making every effort count?

This episode was recorded live at the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World.  During my time working at the Contemporary Resort, I learned you have to treat everyone as a VIP - Very Individual Person. You can't go through the motions, you need to pay attention to every guest and respond to their needs. Every guest is important. 

In any organization, you can hear people talk about "the good 'ole days".  Usually, it always involves a story. And these stories are important.  Sharing these stories become part of what gets passed on to new employees.  Stories help you realize the road to excellence has no finish line.     

On this episode, we come to you from Disney's Animal Kingdom.  Although I never worked at the Animal Kingdom, we would bring Disney Institute Field Trips to the park. Feild Trips allowed us to move from classroom discussion and theory to boots on the ground learning. When we are out in the parks, students can see theory in practice.  When you hear the story of the origin of Animal Kingdom, you will realize the ultimate solution is often something you did not envision in the beginning. Thinking differently changes your approach.   

This episode was recorded live from Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World in the show of the Tower of Terror.  Roller coasters are not my thing. A ride like Tower of Terror did not appeal to me. When it began, I was intimidated and didn't think it would go well. But from one ride, I went from a near wardrobe malfunction to wishing the ride was taller.  Most of what we are afraid of has the same impact on us. We are scared until we face it, then we realize it is not as bad as we thought. Before long, we wonder why we were ever afraid of it.