There are four components of pursuing a goal and achieving success. Many people start well, but it is not how we start the race in life that determines true greatness, but how we finish. In the next several posts, we are going to look at the four components. Let’s deal with the first and most important: FOCUS. You must be totally focused on your success goal. It drives you every day and keeps you motivated to keep going even during the most challenging times. Without focus, we are just rudderless ships with no hope of every reaching our final destination. Walt Disney is probably the most talked about modern example of a tenacious focus and pursuit of his goal regardless of the setbacks and disappointments he encountered. Consider this:
Walt formed his first animation company in Kansas City in 1921. He made a deal with a distribution company in New York, in which he would ship them his cartoons and get paid six months down the road. He was forced to dissolve his company and at one point could not pay his rent and was surviving by eating dog food.
Walt created a mildly successful cartoon character in 1926 called Oswald the Rabbit. When he tried to negotiate with his distributor, Universal Studios, for better rates for each cartoon, he was informed that Universal had obtained ownership of the Oswald character and they had hired Disney’s artists out from under him.
When Walt tried to get MGM studios to distribute Mickey Mouse in 1927 he was told that the idea would never work– a giant mouse on the screen would terrify women.
The Three Little Pigs was rejected by distributors in 1933 because it only had four characters, it was felt at that time that cartoons should have as many figures on the screen as possible.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was sneak previewed to college students in 1937 who left halfway during the film causing Disney great despair. It turned out the students had to leave early because of dorm curfew.
We all encounter disappointment and setbacks. It is our focus and our refusal to give up that drive us on to success.
