Before we begin today, I want to set some items of context.

Starting from Nothing The Foundation Podcast Guest Name Interview Introduction: Welcome to Starting from Nothing The Foundation Podcast, the place where incredible entrepreneur show you how they built their businesses entirely from scratch before they knew what the heck they were doing. Dane: In this solo podcast of Starting from Nothing on the Wednesday episodes where you hear from me, we re talking about Walt Disney this week; a lot about Walt Disney and specifically how he was so drastically different from John D. Rockefeller. Now, both men were titans of their industry. Both men impact the world you live in today. What child hasn t been impacted by Disney? But do you know how different Walt was from John? Hopefully by listening to this podcast today it will give you the permission you need to be yourself and celebrating you because John and Walt couldn t have been more different and their impacts more different, but both of them were such great men of history. By listening to the contrast and the difference between John and Walt, you can see the magic behind these men. Like I said earlier, I hope that this gives you the permission to honor and be yourself and find that greatness in you. In today s episode we re going to be in a continuation of the John D. Rockefeller versus Walt Disney debate. I am sorry to leave you hanging on the one hand and also kind of excited that you had to be waiting in suspense to learn more about Rockefeller. Before we begin today, I want to set some items of context. For these solo episodes, of course, I m going to be speaking deeply into what I consider critical topics for success, happiness, and freedom in entrepreneurship, and what better way to do that than to talk about some of the greatest entrepreneurial men in history. Two, this will be off the cuff and from the heart, spoken into one key idea. Three, I ll be speaking from my own personal experience on truths I ve discovered. Four, these are designed for the purpose of making entrepreneurship a possibility for everyone that wants it. Five, this is all in service of one key thing which is your freedom which transcends money and transcends anything that is a constraint so that you re

actually have personal freedom in every situation regardless of your circumstance. We left off last week talking about Rockefeller. I m talking about things like loaning his money to a potato farmer, putting out candles in church, only missing one week of church a year, and Rockefeller s persistence with hiring, with getting hired as an accountant when he went through every business for a week. Or no sorry, he went through every business for weeks up to 300 different businesses and when he didn t get hired, what did he do? He started over again at the first business that he went to. Can you imagine the respect that endeared with the business owners, this guy that wouldn t leave them alone? Of course he ended up finally getting hired as an accountant. Now, I love John Rockefeller. I love who is. There is some baggage there. There are some very questionable things that he has done. This particular podcast is focusing on not whether or not he was a good or bad man but the stuff that s actually important for us to replicate anyway which is what were John s skills and can we replicate those skills and make that independent of the man himself. John versus Walt Disney, they couldn t be more polar opposite. Walt Disney was an artist. John, a shrewd and crude I don t know if crude s actually right a shrewd business man. John Rockefeller was calculated and Walt Disney was more expressed, let s call it that. Let s call it calculated versus expressed. There was a time in John D. Rockefeller s business life when John was in the oil business and also by the way, if you didn t hear the previous podcast, last Wednesday s podcast, about John Rockefeller, please go back and listen to that now. You ll get a full little soiree, if you will, onto John s business here. Give me one second while I take a sip of water. Go back and listen to John. For this particular episode, we re going to be edging in to Walt Disney here for just a brief period of time on this more condensed solo podcast. While John was calculated, Walt was expressed. What I mean by that is when John was about 26 or 27, I think he owned about six different refineries. John was in the oil business, you could go out and dig for oil, which is very risky, or you could refine oil which is the more predictable business. John picked the predictable business. He didn t pick the risky business. He didn t dig for oil, he refined it. At one point, well not one point, at many points in the oil industry, oil was either feast or famine. There was lots of oil or there was none of it. John ran all of his refineries by the numbers. He was calculated.

One thing that John could do that I just marvel at is he was able to accept the harsh verdict of a number without hesitations. If the number said something that wasn t desirable, he would make the decision anyway. At one point when the oil was famine, there wasn t enough oil to refine, he looked at the numbers for his businesses and he decided to shut down four, I believe, out of six refineries. Four out of six refineries, John D. Rockefeller shut down. Now can you imagine if you re running a business based on emotion or based on even intuition, how much that could actually get in the way where John is like, Oh wow, hey, these four refineries, they re not making money, I m going to shut them down for a month. Oh, hey look, the numbers work again. I m going to turn them back on. Imagine the horror of the team, or the employees, or the people working at those refineries and being like, What do you mean John? I m out of a job. and John was like, Well, we can t run these businesses. It s just not profitable right now, it s not sustainable. You re not going to be able to have a job here if we keep running the way it is so we need to shut down. Four out of six refineries. It was somewhere between two out of six to four out of six. The numbers are escaping me but it was something alarming. Imagine having to shut down four out of six of your locations. Whereas most business owners just try to keep scraping by if they re breaking even or losing money. As soon as John was breaking even or losing money, he shut it down. As soon as he starts losing money, he shuts it down. Then when the oil industry starts coming back up, he turns those refineries back on. Now are you running your life, your finances, your business, your money in that disciplined of a way where you just look at the numbers and you re like, Hey, I can t run this anymore. John D. Rockefeller was so calculated and it s so easy to see why he became a billionaire, and he was a shrewd businessman, and that cannot be more opposite when compared to what I know about Walt Disney. Walt Disney, the life of me, the parts that I read about him, I don t ever remember him looking at or reading a financial statement. Walt was an artist. Walt was so good at what he did and he had about I imagined he had about 10,000 hours of drawing by the time he was 16. He just loves to draw. There were times in school when he would draw something on a sheet of paper and the school teacher would come over to him and be like, You traced that. There s no way that you drew that, Walt. That looks way to good. And Walt s like, Uh, no. I drew this. Screw you. And the teacher s like, Really? Prove it. So he had Walt the teacher was a boy or a girl, had Walt go to the chalkboard and Walt recreated the drawing on a chalkboard to the shock and awe of the teacher and the entire class.

I love that story. I love that image. I love the image of Walt just completely showing up the teacher, Oh really, you don t think I drew this? boom! Go up to the chalkboard, draw it. Now both John and Walt were incredibly confident and driven. They had those intrinsic qualities: confident, driven. They had it. It was there. But their personalities couldn t be more different. John wouldn t have been you wouldn t catch John drawing in class. You wouldn t catch John drawing art but you would catch Walt. Walt went into the war, and when he was in the war he would draw for he would make money for drawing I can t remember what he would draw. He would draw like caricatures or pictures of the men on the army and he would sell those for the army men. The army men would come to him to draw these things. He started making money while he was in the military. Even Walt being in the military was a shock to me when I read about it. Walt was just drawing his whole life, artistic, expressed. By the time that Walt succeeded with Mickey Mouse, I had counted somewhere between 30 to 38 times Walt had failed at doing it. I don t know if you know how difficult it was to create cartoons back then but just like, for example, syncing up the music to Mickey as he walked was near an impossibility. But Walt was so brilliant that he would connect and create these devices that He created this floating bubble that would move up to the ceiling and down to the bottom of the floor that the musicians, the orchestra that would be in the sound studio would play to sync up the music to Mickey walking. Now, this isn t the kind of mind that John Rockefeller has, this is the kind of mind that Walt has. Walt was very imaginative. Walt had the imagination. He had that artistic genius, but it was dangerous for Walt. Walt had a brother, Roy, who he drove nuts. Walt would sign contracts and just burn through money and then Roy would be like, Dude, Walt, what are you doing? What are you doing? By the time that Walt has succeeded with Mickey Mouse, he had mortgaged his house a number of times, he d loaned out money trying to pay for these studios, studio time to record. Walt would jump off a cliff and then learn how to fly. He would book a studio to get Mickey Mouse made and then when he d get in there he d be like Oh crap, how are we going to actually do this? and it would drive Roy nuts. So while John was calculated, Walt was imaginative and expressive. Walt wasn t calculated in the way that John did. Walt didn t have the desire to understand business the way that John did. John is like this anomaly that has these skills in this area in a number areas. Walt is just this imaginative artist, this powerful pioneer.

Without Roy Disney running the business side of things, Walt would have been in deep trouble. It would have been interesting to see what Walt would have accomplished without Roy. Walt loved imagination, loved to be expressive, loved to sign contracts without reading the details to which Roy would read later and be like, Walt, what are you doing signing this? and Walt s just like, Eh, whatever. Let me do my thing with Mickey Mouse, for example. Now Walt had an incredible wife. Walt was an expressive thinker and expressive talker. What Walt did was he married very, very wisely. He married a woman who loved to hear Walt talk. Walt married a woman that loved to hear him talk. Because of that, Walt was able to think through so many of his ideas because he had the grace of a woman holding space for him to brainstorm his ideas. I think if there s not enough that s said about the way that women support their husbands and the great men of our generation generally have pretty remarkable women behind them. There s a funny story I heard about George Bush. He told it once. I think I was in person with him when he told this story. I wasn t like hanging out with him but I was in a room listening to him talk. I think it was him talking but the way the story goes is that George Bush and his wife, they were like out a gas and he was the president of the United of States, he s in his limo and they re out of gas. He pulled into a gas station to get filled up with gas which seems interesting to me that they would kind of like screw this up. They re pulling into a gas station to get gas and the gas station attendant was filling up their car. George Bush s wife I can t remember what her name was she said, Oh, George, I was dating that boy in high school. and George kind of pump his I can relate to this. He s like, Oh. Well, how would that have felt for you to be married to a gas station attendant? I think it was Barbara Bush maybe, whatever George Bush s wife. She says, Oh, honey, if I would have married him, he would be president. I don t think there s enough that s said about the women and how they drastically shape and define and make men great. Walt and his wife were no exception. Walt had a number of countless nights where he would just sit there, and talk, and rant, and rave, and ramble on about all these ideas and his wife would just lovingly sit there. In that speaking, he got the ability to grow his intellect and grow his intelligence. You know, I identify with Walt in that I feel like I get smarter, more smart, however you want to say that. I feel like my intelligence and confidence grows the more that I m able to think if I think through ideas out loud. I can just have someone literally sit in a room and just listen to me and all I would do is just talk and I would actually talk myself through problems and solutions

and create some of the most brilliant stuff ever just by having someone listen. Walt had the gift of that with his wife, and John also had a He had a wife but I on the book that I read, Titan, there wasn t much to be said about his relationship with his wife in that book. Of course, Walt definitely, there were things to say about him. Walt was creating cartoons in his garage. He was doing all these kinds of things. When he married his wife, that s when his ideas started to become as far as I can remember, really, really clear. You had these two men, these two titans of industry, what child today isn t impacted by Walt? It s hard to see. Just about every kid I ve ever met, one of them has watched some form of Disney movie. With rare exception to the small percentage of people that don t get the gift of television movies. But even those kids in Africa, I ve seen them wearing Mickey Mouse shirts, which is fascinating. Walt s impact is global but he was imaginative, and creative, and signed contracts without reading them, and he wasn t very good businessman at least the parts that I read whereas John was. As I m comparing these men, I want you to know that there are so many different avenues of success. By me talking about these men, my hope is that it gives you permission to be you. My intention of talking about these men isn t that like, Hey, here s how you can be more like Rockefeller or here s like you can be more like Walt Disney. Sure, you could replicate some of the skills they have, but the purpose of these podcasts is for you to have freedom, for you to know that entrepreneurship s possibility, and for you to know that there is no separation between you and the Rockefeller's. There s no separation between you and Walt Disney. When you read their biographies you realize that you can be they re just human. You can be your own version of greatness like them. There s no separation between you two. John s father abandoned him. There are so many different things that you would never even realize until you read these biographies, and then when you read these biographies, that s when things change for me. When I realize that these great men that I could be like them, I love that. I could be like them, I could be great like them, and I get that when I read these biographies. In a world where I m either getting beat down, or discredited, or discounted, or told I m stupid, or not having friends, or just being excluded in some way, getting rejected like I got diagnosed with ADHD in 7 th Grade and it s not like the diagnose they do today where you go into a doctor and you say, Hey, I forget things. Oh you have ADD. No, I sat through the misery of testing for hours until they looked me in the eye and said, Yeah, your brain is deficit.

It s not a cool thing like you have a deficit in your brain like They gave me tests that made me feel like an idiot for hours. To think that Walt certainly seemed like he had the same deficit, which is BS to me, but the fact that that happened to me and then I get to read and I see that Walt Disney I m like, Man, I can never be like Walt Disney, but then I read the biography of Walt Disney and I see, holy shit! Excuse my language. Holy crap! I see that I could be like this too. Me talking about these biographies, this is what I want you to know is that you can be great too. There s no separation between you and the greatest people of history. They are human beings just like you. They just did things differently. When you see the things that they did differently, you can emulate and do those things and become the version of whatever it is that you think is great. John changed and transformed the world of oil. Walt changed and transformed the world of entertainment. Walt didn t read contracts. John not only read contracts but hired the best attorneys to make the craziest contracts. Walt would never do that, but both men achieved greatness. Greatness is defined as they re living their greatest expression of who they are. Not greatness based on achievement, greatness based on the expression of who they are. The greatest expression of who they are and love, as my friend Dmitriy puts it. I could talk for days. I could talk for hours about these men, about the inspiration that these men give to me. When Walt was drawing in the military, John was trading commodities. It couldn t be more different. When Walt was creating cartoons, John was monopolizing industries, but both men were uniquely themselves. Both men were uniquely them. They were so true to who they were. My desire for you is that you live true to who you are. You don t need to be anyone else but yourself. You know what I need to tell you? You cannot be anything that you want to be. You can only be what you ve always been designed to be. Can you imagine a cheetah trying to become a shark, or a shark trying to become a cheetah, or me becoming a world-class boxer and beating Evander Holyfield, or Evander Holyfield becoming a word-class video game player and trying to beat me? This wouldn t happen. You cannot be anything that you want to be. You can only be who you ve always been designed to be. Now, said more accurately, you can go ahead and try to be anything that you want to be and in that trying of being something that you re not designed to be, you can exhaust and drain yourself, or you can be who you ve always been designed to be, who your instincts are designed to be, who your personality is designed you to be, who your heart is designed you to be, who

our great Creator has designed you to be. With those gifts, you can live in alignment with that. Can you imagine a world where everyone is living in the deepest alignment of who they are? Can you imagine that every person wakes up in the morning and they re living in the deepest alignment with who they are? Holy crap! That s what reading these biographies of Walt Disney and John D. Rockefeller can do for you. If you guys are liking these types of flavors of podcast where I m talking about the John s and the Walt s and you want to hear more stories about John and Walt like real specific instances like when a teacher challenges Walt or when John shuts down his refineries, I ve got them. I ve got stories for days. I deposit these stories into my brain, into my psyche, into my subconscious, into my experience. I deposit these stories to inspire and uplift me and remind me that I can be great like these men. Because there is no separation between these men and me and there s no separation between these men and you. You can be these things. Bruce Lee had the fastest punch in the world but when you study that Bruce Lee was traveling the world and looking at kinesiology books and learning how the muscles and the tendons of the arm worked, and he learned how to execute his arm in a way that lined up with the way that the muscles of the arm work, you see that you could have done the same thing and learned how to punch fast like him. Maybe not as fast as him, but when you see that it wasn t that Bruce Lee was good at karate but that he studied the way that the muscles all linked together and he get to move his arm in such a way that the muscles would all link up and execute the fastest speeds so he could have the fastest punch in the world and you wonder, Oh man, Bruce Lee just had talents and gifts. Bullshit. Bruce Lee studied kinesiology books and muscles. There is no separation between you and Bruce Lee. There is no separation between you and greatness. When you understand that you can be that by changing what you do, then you can live your greatest expression of love and be great too. Thank you for listening today. If you like to hear more of this kind of stuff, please let me know. And you can apply for our next program to learn to find your alignment, find your greatness. In the process of building a software company, you can find your own alignment. In the process of building a software company, you can build the skills of entrepreneurship and find your alignment. If you d like to join our next program to do that, you can do so at thefoundation.com/family.

Closing: Thank you for joining us. We ve taken this interview and created a custom action guide so you know exactly what action steps to take to grow your business. Just head over to thefoundationpodcast.com to download it for free. Thanks for listening and we ll see you next week.