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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode 176
i'm your co-host mike parsons and as
always i'm joined by the creative guru
himself mr mark pearson freeland good
morning mark
good morning mike and good morning
listeners yes you're right mike it's all
about creativity today isn't it as we
spark up a brand new series on the
moonshot show
can you believe it a whole new series
dedicated to creativity which is quite
the mystery for most of this isn't it
mark
yeah i think mystery is actually a good
word to describe creativity i for one
certainly have a point of view or an
idea or a fascination i guess with the
concept of creativity it can come in a
number of different ways i think there's
almost a barrier i suppose that
sometimes exists around creativity
because some of us think that we are or
maybe aren't creative and therefore it
can feel a little bit like a closed club
almost
what i'm interested is you and i and our
listeners we've dug into creativity
before on the moonshot show we're now
into a brand new series what keeps on
coming up in in my eyes when we dig into
these type of
entrepreneurs and thinkers is actually
how accessible creativity can be
when you put in the right maybe habits
or frameworks or right ways of thinking
around the concept of creativity what do
you think of creativity uh when we start
discussing it what comes to your mind
well i think if we're talking about
accessibility and creativity
none
are greater than the star of this show
right
yeah that's right mike today listeners
we are digging into perhaps one of the
most creative people that we can imagine
when we're looking at what film to watch
or what stories to tell our children
it's certainly been part of my life ever
since growing up and he is the man the
myth the legend mr walt disney and mike
i mean this is this is a bit of a
powerhouse individual that we're digging
into isn't it
it is i mean what a legacy to think that
you've got
the films you've got the parks and now
and now you've got disney plus like this
brand and this legacy continues and what
is so perfect
is that if you go back into 1919 walt
disney was actually fired
from the kansas city star
and
when he was fired
from the newspaper
he was fired quote unquote for
lacked imagination and had no
good
ideas
this
is very moonshots the resilience to keep
going we love this and when i say he
kept going
he went on to win
as a brand and as a company over 26
oscars so if you want to talk about
shooting for the moon and not giving up
when things get tough walt disney is the
man when you talk about creative legacy
walt disney is a man and the crazy thing
is
he actually had a process and a method
that we can all adopt as well i mean how
exciting is that mark
well exactly i mean you and i we could
spend the next hour mike talking about
our favorite disney films couldn't we
because there are just so many i mean 26
more than 26 academy awards wow we but
you're right the focus of today is
really going to be about finding the
let's say the secrets or the methods
that i think we can all learn from and
be inspired by in order to perhaps
unlock or become just that little bit
more creative in the work that we go out
and do no matter what industry it might
be in so i mean what the perfect way to
start a brand new series mike
it really it really is and you know
later in the series we're going to have
the likes of jim carrey and sir ken
robinson which is like fantastic
but but mark how good is it that
we can start the show
with
hearing from the man himself and you
know for a guy who
you know
he was around a long time ago but some
of these practices are some of the
cutting edge practices we use now in
lean startup or scrum and agile it's
crazy to think that we can go and listen
to the man you know pioneering decades
before any of us were thinking about
lean startup right
yeah that's right and it's it is the
perfect way to begin not only today's
show on walt disney but also our brand
new series on creativity by hearing from
the man himself mr walt disney really
breaking down the behind-the-scenes
thinking and elements and approaches to
perhaps some of the greatest films and
actually you're right mark it all starts
with scaling as well as experimentation
the old saying
these are the things that dreams are
made of
might well apply to the scale models
and the drawings
and the
blueprints
at least
when we dream up new ideas for
disneyland
they first take shape and form in such
preliminary studies as this
here at the studio we get many letters
from art students and from people who
are just interested in art
some of these letters ask questions that
deserve a more detailed answer than
could be given in a written reply
and so from time to time we're going to
devote an entire program to answering a
few of these questions
[Music]
in our future production of bambi
the characters were developed by drawing
from life
our artists made thousands of action
sketches
catching every pose and characteristic
attitude
in the production of lady and the
this technique of humanized animal
characters reaches a point of near
perfection
we first tried this approach to
humanized animal animation in one of our
early silly symphonies
for this project we brought some kittens
into the studio
and let them play and roll about as they
pleased
while the artist made sketches
and collected ideas for the kitten story
the result of this experiment was the
academy award winner of the year 1935
the three orphan kit
[Music]
how good is that that they did thousands
of sketches to work out the movement of
the characters they actually broke it
down into small things that they can
scale it sounds like a modern day
startup mark
yeah it does doesn't it i mean what i
find so fascinating you know genuinely
hearing from the man himself there
the
characterization of personifications of
animals are such a
um
stamp within the disney films that
sometimes we kind of take it for granted
when final products are given to us and
we just think oh yeah well that's the
way it's always been it's always quite
interesting to hear the creator
themselves breaking it down and
demonstrating how they actually got
there in the first place and you know it
does it's it's maybe trial and error
perfecting it over time and the thing
that stood out for me was making those
scale models
and essentially prototyping prior to
then going out and building that final
product whatever it may be it's a film
or a theme park or a product like you
and i or maybe our listeners would go
and build isn't it fascinating when you
fast forward from walt disney's time to
now
that fundamental idea like this still
we still use
yeah and you know the the fascinating
build that i want to give you is
the pattern that you and i have
discovered and um it reminds me of
the
um story that james uh dyson founder
ceo and actually sir james dyson now of
uh dyson very famous uh vacuum cleaners
famous hair basically anything that has
air movement he kind of has nailed it
but check this out mark so it's got
nothing to do with animation and yet his
story was he was in the back shed at
home and he made 5
120 different prototypes
before he got his first product right
and isn't that crazy that dyson and
disney have that that shared a
legacy that same practice of test and
learn prototype make them uh make your
product in a sort of small mvp or a
prototype in order to get it right and
so it sort of dispels for me
that these
famed inventors or creators are walking
down the street and are struck by
lightning and there it is
actually it's the resilience to keep
building the prototypes it's learning
every time you make a new prototype you
learn something new
and slowly
consecutively
religiously over time you actually make
the breakthrough through hard work and i
think that is such a big lesson the fact
that we can see that in the creating of
a disney character or a dyson hair dryer
the lesson is the same isn't that crazy
exactly it's there's an accessibility
almost to it where and actually i find
it quite reassuring even they don't just
happen overnight dyson didn't just enter
his shed and come up with you know all
of his various
inventions straight away it takes time
and i think
what also stands out to me as we were
hearing from walt disney there as well
as your build with with dyson
is that
things that your first creation your
first version perhaps of an idea or a
product or a book
may not necessarily be perfect and
that's okay
it's almost giving permission to the
creator or the thinker that your first
solution you know customers may not
flock towards it it might not work but
actually through time give yourself
patience give yourself the opportunity
to listen to learn
from the maybe the trial and error
perhaps
it then gets better over time and i find
that very very reassuring because i
think a lot of us try and rush our
product out and think it's going to be
an overnight success because we love it
but the truth and then you get very
dejected when the first one is not very
good or the second one is falls short of
customer expectation it can be
disheartening you can be considering
throwing it all in
but what do we see here whether it's
disney or dyson it's the capacity to
skate create little scale models to
experiment to prototype and
to go out into the back shed for not
just days and weeks and months but years
to get it right and to think that disney
was fired from the newspaper for a lack
of imagination no good ideas
but did he stop mark
oh no
thankfully not
and i tell you who else is unstoppable
mark i gotta say our members they are
pretty unstoppable too aren't they
they certainly are particularly those
with the uh outrageous energetic dynamic
user names so mike as is customary i'm
going to introduce and give a roll call
to all of our members and supporters of
the moonshot show
please welcome bob niles john terry nile
marjlin ken dietmar tom mark
marjan connor rodrigo yasmin daniela
lisa sid
annette david joe crystal evo christian
and hurricane brain definitely the most
dynamic there uh dynamic name there at
the end mike the hurricane brain
it is wonderful and i hope we're
whipping everyone up in a hurricane of
creativity
because our members you certainly
deserve it we are so grateful for your
support it helps us pay for all of those
bills that we get every single month to
produce this show for you and we love it
we love learning out loud together we
love the search of finding the best
version of ourselves together and your
support helps us do it so we are
extremely grateful and if you our
listeners if you'd like to be a member
head over to moonshots.io
and there there'll be a big button up in
the top of the nav saying become a
member and if you do so you'll be able
to contribute you'll be able to share
your thoughts and your ideas but mark
when you're a member you also get access
to a completely
unique
second podcast that we make isn't that
pretty cool you certainly can for
members and subscribers you get access
to the master series and mike this is
keeping you and i and the moonshots team
pretty busy it's certainly let's say uh
an additional comprehensive deep dive
into some of the key areas topics ways
of thinking frameworks that we're
finding out within the moonshots weekly
show isn't it i mean topics such as
second order thinking finding your
purpose entrepreneurship
art of communication circle of influence
habits all these amazing topics
it gives you and i and the moonshots
team as well as our members and
subscribers an opportunity to have a
deep dive into these unique individual
topics every single month doesn't it
yeah and i think we're going to be
launching
another one live for members only on
managing people which is a real
masterclass
90 minutes deep dive into all the best
moonshot thinking about how to work
together and get the most out of the
people that you work with
so check all of that out at moonshots.io
where you can become a member and get
access to all of those goodies but i
tell you what else
we've got goodies just jam-packed into
today's show we've uh just heard from
walt disney himself what we're going to
do now is we're going to listen to tom
craven who worked at disney for 41 years
and he's going to tell
the story of inspiration and creativity
and how they made the magic at walt
disney and he's going to talk about a
project um the very famous project uh
from disney called the water pageant and
through that we're going to have so much
to learn so let's have a listen now to
tom craven
well what is magic well there's lots of
definitions of it but what i want to
focus on is what it takes to make magic
i've boiled that down into these three
elements
inspiration
creativity
and faith
i guess you could call it my magic
formula
among other projects i was assigned to
build and operate the electrical water
pageant
now the electrical water pageant is
basically a parade of floats on water
and
it was something that had never been
done before
it was to be a one night event only it
was to take place on the seven seas
lagoon and it was to be for this big
luau of specially invited guests that
would be held on the beach of the
polynesian hotel
well the leech barge is about 70 feet
long and
that meant that the entire parade or the
water pageant was about a thousand feet
long
and so we divided this into two strings
of seven barges each
we also uh
put two outboard motors on the lead
barge of each string and that
was what was used to propel the water
pageant across the lakes and the lagoons
of walt disney world
sound easy
sure
not really
you see
whenever that lead barge slowed down or
stopped
all the other barges jackknifed into
each other
and instead of having a floating parade
we had this floating mess
and so we were running out of time which
we always do
and so we contacted these watercraft
experts and they all told us exactly the
same thing they said
what you're trying to do is impossible
because
a a float or a string of floats on water
are not going to act like a string of
trailers on land they're always going to
run into each other
well we already knew that
it took us a while to get this kind of
going and
what we were
trying to do was figure out how we can
make this work
and what we didn't know
is that what we needed
was inspiration
and so there we were out on the seven
seas lagoon one night with less than
three days to go and
we were had the whole team there we were
gathered around our floating mess we
were trying to figure out what we were
going to do how are we going to make
this work
and this voice spoke up
it was one of the drivers of one of the
strings
he was a high school kid
he'd been hired part-time by disney to
drive it
and he had
a little bit of experience with
watercraft he had no experience in
physics no experience in engineering
and he wasn't even a part of our team
but he had this idea
his idea was that if we put another
outboard border on the very last barge
and faced it in the opposite direction
we could keep the string taut and keep
them from running into each other
it worked
it was a simple elegant idea
and it worked and i thought
i should have thought of that
my team should have thought of that all
those experts should have thought of
that
but they didn't
and so we were left with this high
school kid
saving the day
and what i learned from that was this
that inspiration can come from anywhere
and you really need to spread your net
far and wide much wider than your own
circle
because that's where you're going to
find inspiration
and now here it is
44 years later
and the electrical water pageant is the
only thing that has survived from the
grand opening
and it's been performing every night
since
all because
of the inspiration of this high school
kid
mike i mean i love that story you know
just to retrace uh because it was a nice
long story from tom craven
it was meant to be a one night only i
and now it's been going for more than 40
years and it takes place every single
night
and it's the longest surviving uh
experience within the park i mean just
from that isn't it a fascinating little
story that proves the
hard work and effort that can go into
creating or producing an idea putting it
into action and the effect it can have
over the years isn't that fascinating
yeah it really is it's a great little
insight into this idea that creativity
truly can come from anyone anywhere
and you know as as i was listening to
this
it was a sort of a challenge i think is
are we
are we open to where creativity can come
from are we listening to the signals or
are we sort of
all fired up and just trying to solve
everything ourselves
or are we kind of more present and aware
of what's around us and taking in those
signals sometimes i think we're perhaps
running too fast uh to hear
to hear those signals what do you think
yeah i i do actually totally agree i
think there's been certainly in my
career a tendency perhaps to lean or
look towards
the person or the persons with the most
experience
so the people who are in in the taste of
in the case of tom craven he was
probably looking with his team at the
um water experts the people who were in
physics the the electricians the people
who were building these products and in
my career i'd probably look more towards
the people who have more years
experience maybe
experience handling different clients or
different levels of work
and actually the case in point that tom
craven's telling us which by extension
is the strategy within disney
is that that inspiration can come from
anywhere and all it takes is just the
team's ability
to be open and interested in the points
of view from your your other colleagues
you know if you create an environment
that is receptive to the ideas and
points of view of of those around you
it's very very likely that you might
discover a brand new way of doing
something that that perhaps is much
better than what you currently have
yeah and i think i think um
a lot of people who are leading projects
or companies
feel that the burden is squarely and
almost exclusively on their shoulders to
have all the answers
and i think what we're starting to learn
here mark is that the answers can come
from anywhere can they
yeah exactly rather than
trying to put yourself in a position
as a as a leader let's say and thinking
okay well i have to get this right
everybody's relying on me
yeah that that might be true but the
truth is by opening yourself up as we're
hearing from tom craven there
and even the walt disney clip at the
very beginning opening yourself up to
feedback to ideas from maybe your team
as well as consumers or the public or
the viewers
or the listeners in in our case on the
moonshot show
by opening yourself up and hearing the
points of view of the feedback of of
those around you those ideas can can
become a lot a lot better and i really
like this as we embark on this brand new
series on creativity again it feels
reassuring because you don't then as a
leader perhaps have all of the weight on
your shoulder instead it can be shared
and your ideas or maybe style of
management or your ideas on creativity
can be improved just by a good
old-fashioned use of teamwork
yeah well let's let's dig into that how
how could we
in our day-to-day work encourage more
ideas from uh different members of our
team
that i think is a really important
question i think one of the things is uh
you know apart from inviting
people to contribute ideas i think
scheduling time where you are actively
inviting people to actually contribute
is really important particularly at the
start because if it's not like a muscle
that you're used to flexing
people might not know how to do it so i
think you want to kind of build a moment
where people are brought together like
right ideas who's got them so i think
scheduling them is like super super
critical
um what else would you do if you want to
build a habit of
getting ideas from all parts of the
organization what else do you think we
can do matt to encourage that
yeah i think just to build on on your
recommendation there of scheduling time
to experiment you're right i don't think
everybody has necessarily got experience
in actually coming up with or sharing
ideas and i think what i would
try to foster is creating an environment
where all ideas are welcome so focusing
on building a an environment whether
it's via teams or zoom
zoom calls or face to face
having a a working environment where
everybody's ideas whether it's important
for a project or just the way of running
the business
are open and everybody can have a point
of view so that everybody feels
ownership
in the product maybe it's one product
maybe it's the flow of the business
that feels
quite a key area to focus into because
then it instills trust and coming up
with an idea sharing it with your
teammates and your leaders then becomes
a little bit easier because you have
that confidence to go out and do it
yeah but you you know it's interesting
you point out confidence and trust and i
do think that those are huge parts of
people wanting to
contribute or not wanting to contribute
as it may be
and so i think our job
is to not only invite people to
contribute but i think like the rule of
just never
criticizing a contribution
always building on top of it i think
it's really important because
if
if i was reluctant to share my ideas and
i saw somebody contribute and get shot
down or criticized or someone says
that'll never work
then there's very little incentive for
me to contribute so i think if you feel
like it's safe to contribute and that
there's no
sharp stick at the end of the
contribution i think
that sort of positive reinforcement and
you know i think another thing that
would would help that is to have
cross-functional teams i think that's
where you get yes the real energy when
you've got people from different
backgrounds different perspectives
coming together
i think that's one way to get some
really fun ideas and some sort of
different thinking like if you have
everyone from one team trying to solve a
particular type of problem you're
probably going to get a little bit of
group think but if you bring people in
for different uh disciplines different
teams
i think you can create some some good
energy there so what a great learning
mark that that creativity can come from
anywhere and before that we heard walt
himself talking about prototyping and
experimentation huge themes
that we love here on the moonshots
podcast i mean we're already hitting
some big moonshots uh home runs aren't
we mark
yeah in both clips we're learning from
the speakers
around bringing something that
previously had felt impossible to do
impossible to create a pageant a
thousand feet long stay in one line as
well as
create
animals with humanized behavior in
animations or scale models of deers and
cats and so on ideas that perhaps seemed
impossible at the beginning are now
becoming real just through a good
old-fashioned use of teamwork open
environments as well as trial and error
and prototyping i mean you're right
these are spot-on with lessons that
we're still learning on the moonshot
show even though walt disney was around
you know many many decades ago i know i
know and i tell you the the creativity
is is flowing not only with with disney
but mark when we get a few reviews
of the show
some thumbs up some ratings whether
you're in spotify apple podcast or one
of the millions of other podcast players
of your choice
we love it when people
give us a rating and if they can to give
us a review it is so
important uh for us to spread the word
to give others the opportunity to learn
out loud together with us we've had some
great one from
sarah in germany from caleb in the us of
recent
mark
it is crucial for us this is you know
all those
little algorithms that are running on
our show
when they see people giving us
five stars or leaving a review
that helps more people discover the show
it's critical for us isn't it
yeah it is absolutely essential the
uh in place of maybe sharing it via
you know social medias and so on the
thing that really really helps get the
moonshot show into the ears of listeners
around the world
and therefore keep the moonshots train
uh running is by giving us a rating or a
review you can give us a review in
places like apple podcast give us a
rating in places like spotify everything
helps the algorithm behind the scenes
work at getting the moonshot show out
into the palms of listeners around the
world and fundamentally mike you and i
moonshot team all we're trying to do is
provide a good way of learning out loud
into the ears of our listeners we're
finding all these different frameworks
templates strategies with regards to
creativity or entrepreneurship or
leadership and all we're trying to do is
learn what habits techniques skills that
you and i can learn from and share them
with our listeners and by giving us a
rating a review you're helping us get
the moonshot show out into the ears of
people around the world and just helping
all of us learn that little bit more
i agree and i think a great place to
jump off now
is into the application of these habits
in these practices of creativity and the
great news is that there's actually a
formal sort of model
an approach that walt disney used for
creativity and
he kind of adopts these three different
characters and so we've got a breakdown
now from andy from igd learning he's
going to break down these three
characters of creativity from
walt disney himself
the first one is the dreamer now the
dreamer
is all about the creative ideas and the
passion what's the big picture stuff
that this is
really letting your imagination run well
without any restrictions or any
criticism yeah you are really outputting
creativity what do i mean by how do you
do this well get flip charts write ideas
down what's the big picture if you solve
this problem right now what would it be
achieving if you achieve that outcome
what would it be doing for you the
organization
for your wider range for the customers
for whoever's involved who are the
stakeholders are what will this be doing
for them get really big go really out
there
yeah and what you're trying to do is
output all of this dream big vision
stuff yourself so what do you want
what's the big picture
what if it worked and what if it really
succeeded what if we sold loads of this
stuff to really allow the dreamer to get
big
now
what do we do if the vision goes really
well
how can we imagine the solution
what's the benefit of applying now you
will have chance to get critical about
it and to get it into action plans later
so dream dream really really big cover
flip charts walls post-it notes get all
the ideas out
because once you've done that and you're
taking a breath
and you've moved either yourself or your
team into a next spot you go into the
realist zone
again the realist is about switching the
thinking into a more logical planning
style
and so you narrow down then the dreamers
ideas into a short list
yeah you then start to discuss that idea
constructively typically what you do is
you take the one best idea
one best idea the dream has come up
that your imagination your creativity is
created during this stage you then get
the next set of steps coming through an
action plan
starting to evolve
and so you go right how can i apply this
idea into reality what's the action plan
to apply
what's the timeline do i need how do i
evaluate that this has been a success
you start getting that dream you start
getting into manageable action plan
chunks we're not going down into the
individual actions of individuals yet
we're going into the key component
stages to make this dream a reality
and then the critic or the spoiler
so you get right here's a dream and
here's the bit that the realizes of
trying to make internal action the
planners now what's being really
critical about this idea but find some
critical thinking to it
what might be the barriers to prime our
idea and how can i overcome those
barriers
and in this session what you're doing is
trying to look to constructively
critique it you're trying to find the
weak point you're trying to
really get in there and find out the
things that might go wrong
having heard the action plan and what
the dreamer wants so what could be wrong
with the idea what's missing what are
the risks what are the dangers how can
we not apply it what happens if we don't
do anything and what are the weaknesses
and so really now what your critical
critic is trying to do is trying to
start to break it
and then what we would do typically
within sessions is you cycle through the
process so the critic takes all that
stuff and the realist starts to do some
things and we go back to the dreamer as
the dreamer think about that and we end
up with an action plan
wow mike talk about an actionable
framework i mean just for you and our
listeners this was a creative strategy
that was identified by uh robert dilts
who is a neuro-linguistic programmer
back in 1994
and he identified those three areas that
we just heard andy break down the
dreamer the realist and the critic
as real personalities or let's call them
hats that walt disney would employ as he
came to work
each day sometimes he'd turn up as the
dreamer he'd allow all the ideas to be
totally free-flowing and fun other times
he'd come in a little bit more of a
realist hat on sometimes he turned up
and he be the critic putting all the
ideas through the uh the rigor of of um
focusing on all the barriers and so on
but isn't it interesting if we take a
step back and we learn from walt disney
as andy from idg learning was breaking
down then you can use this framework
this strategy
to create actionable plans for any of
your products or ways of thinking even
nowadays isn't it a great little
framework and strategy that we can learn
it really is it's it's sometimes
referred to as the walt disney method or
the disney creative strategy
but it's essentially embodying these
three
different archetypes and mark
my reflection as we were listening from
andy from igd
was that often the reason
that uh product or business ideas fail i
believe is because
the idea has only had one or two of
those roles applied to it so often like
if you think about it um let's imagine
you've got like a like a a product idea
and uh you've really dreamt of really
big
um often
what will
be the challenge is that the the realist
which is all about how are we going to
do this what actions is it going to take
hasn't probably uh analyzed the idea or
perhaps
we haven't really challenged why we're
doing it what's the value it's creating
do people really want it so i mean if
you play this out a bit you could have
dreamt a crazy big idea you might be
able to pull it off but nobody
kind of asked the question well why are
we doing this is there a market is there
a need and so i actually think
even if you're not in the world of
animation like disney you can use
something like this this walt disney
method um
this creative strategy um to better
challenge your ideas
because frankly i know i've made this
mistake where i've been sort of a victim
of wishful thinking
where my idea has been undercooked i
would say in one maybe two of these
areas i think it's such an interesting
way to quickly make your ideas
better what do you think matt
yeah i think the thing that i take away
from this the disney creative strategy
is how to compartmentalize
each of those
moments within the process in order to
allow that brainstorming and that stress
testing to really have good value
you know for me i've certainly perhaps
it's my monkey mind oh
just into being trying to get to the
solution too quickly i'll often blend
the dreamer role with the realist and
the critic sometimes maybe even all
three together
and the problem with doing that is every
single idea will be blocked or perhaps
no
idea can be created because you're
always focusing on the challenges before
being able to come up with a potential
solution
and what i i love about this process is
to
almost wear one at the beginning blue
sky thinking don't worry about
restrictions yet
then
get into the next place and think okay
well now let's be a realist let's see
how we can actually do this okay well
now let's be the critic and i quite like
this
uh cyclical approach that you can also
do going back through the process more
than once and i think that's certainly
where the value of stress testing the
idea comes through but i also love this
idea of
allowing each idea to
come to the surface
in a timely manner rather than shooting
it down too quick because then you kind
of get it all out your system i quite
like that
yeah and and i think uh the the rigor
and the capacity to challenge your own
ideas like this i think is super
important i think it's it's really
fundamental in terms of a practice that
you can take on
to
um
like just much better ideas like you
could have some great inspiration
um you may have dreamt big but but you
know go out there and and
why not like play devil's advocate or uh
try and spoil the idea like
that will only make it a better idea and
and we've certainly heard on the show a
lot people that are prepared to
challenge their own ideas and just go
for the best outcome and they're not
overly attached just because it was
their idea but are willing to like
really put their ideas through some sort
of boot camp some sort of
rigorous program to make them better i
think this is really the path to having
much better ideas and we'll if we're in
a knowledge economy so it's all about
ideas that's what's really going to set
you apart i think this is very very
exciting that for somebody
who was uh you know who grew up post
world war one we're still taking
practices from them here in 2022
and it doesn't stop there mark because
we can look at one of the more recent
titles from disney frozen i know you're
a fan mark it's okay you can admit it
and we can see disney's
creativity his uh method coming about
once again and to analyze how they did
it in the disney film frozen we've got
none other than a moonshot's favorite
charles duhigg breaking it down on how
frozen was able to create creativity
here in the modern age many companies
face this basic question how do you
speed up innovation how do you make the
creative process faster
within psychology the people who know
how to do this are known as innovation
brokers for companies like disney this
is part of their dna this is what all
their executives think about all the
time and one of the best examples of
this is when they were making the film
frozen
now all of us know frozen as this
monster success one of the highest
grossing films of all time
but midway through making frozen it
almost all fell apart
in fact the team that was making frozen
they didn't know how to end the film
they couldn't work together they
couldn't figure out how to make the
creativity flow
and so what they did is they turned to
an old principle the best creative
process often
isn't about being original
it's about taking cliched ideas from two
different realms
and smashing them together that's what
happened for frozen they took these old
fairy tale ideas they took these new
ideas about women being strong and about
sisters saving each other instead of
needing a prince to save them they smash
them together
and the result
was one of the most successful films of
all time
[Music]
mike i love that little story and i mean
look from a moon shotter himself mr
charles what a perfect inclusion into
our show on walt disney first of all but
i love this this innovation broker
approach the fact that they couldn't
necessarily figure out that end and
instead started to blend and therefore
create brand new
uh narratives from old cliches i think
that's really again good extension of
what we heard in the first clip from
walt disney at the beginning of the show
yeah she's kind of prototyping and
experimenting you know blending it
together to see if it works
maybe doing some screen testing with the
audience or maybe just again like we
have from tom craven allowing each
member of the team to come up with a
different point of view and therefore
just experiment get in the lab i think
it's a really nice
again demonstration of how a product
that we all know we all love with frozen
and yes you're probably right i probably
have been caught singing the songs of
frozen before
maybe not to our listeners fortunately
but i think it's a great
behind-the-scenes story there of a team
that
maybe struggled at one point but then
were able to overcome it
maybe through trial and error and come
up with a product that then went on to
win academy awards and so on
and and again what we're seeing here
with someone like disney is
themes of prototyping
themes of creativity comes from anywhere
these different uh hats to put more
rigor on your ideas
and i
just see in
the living pulse of disney right now
they're taking that classic idea that
we've seen in moonshots so many times
you could almost say that there's no new
ideas just
old ideas remixed and remade from the
modern age this was certainly something
we heard from elizabeth gilbert and many
others it's incredible to see
how strong these patterns are in this
sort of moon shots model
where we see repeatedly the same
techniques the same approaches are used
for innovation creating new things for
growth for bringing new value into the
world for having impact
this idea of taking old
old ideas and remixing them and you get
something new and it's a smash hit i
mean i find that really inspiring on
both of those levels one what they did
with frozen but two it's a pattern that
we're seeing
through many different innovators
through many different moonshotters
aren't we
yeah we really really are and again it
it's fascinating that this behavior has
existed almost time memorial mike
right
we seem to step into these different
uh
individuals entrepreneurs superstars
authors
every week probably every day for for us
and it's fascinating when we do start to
see these these different blends coming
through it's fascinating
when we do discover different um
approaches
just being extensions or maybe
reinterpretations of certain
contemporary um
approaches that we've we've run into in
the past i think it's it's fascinating
and it's really where that value of the
of the moon show comes through isn't it
when we do run into these different
ideas much like with elizabeth gilbert
and big magic that idea that all ideas
uh perhaps have been traced before but
you're the first person stepping into
those shoes and you're it's the first
time that you're doing it yes
there's so many different avenues to
creativity as we're finding throughout
all of our series on creativity
that it's accessible to everyone
yeah and i think hopefully what we're
starting to see here is prototyping
taking ideas from anywhere
wearing those those hats reconstituting
old ideas putting a new spin on these
are all
uh inspiration
that we can take from walt disney these
are all things that we can do today we
just have to adopt the habits of
creativity from from
walt disney himself you know and i i
think not many better teachers when it
comes to creativity than walt disney
right mark
yeah i mean he's certainly somebody that
stands out
when i'm thinking of creativity i mean i
do love that story that he was
uh you know fired for not having a
creative idea or an original idea yeah
no good ideas
no good ideas
now look at it he's it's one of the most
well-known certainly a household brand
across the world
and
as you've already pointed out they've
extended
beyond just films into theme parks into
television and streaming they've won
multiple awards it's it's a fascinating
brand isn't it that's just getting
better and better with the years
arguably
from that original original startup
approach of walt disney again i think
that's an interesting extension when you
do think of a brand as big as disney
then you start to think of it as a
startup back in the day of doing
prototypes doing experimentation i mean
these are still methods that they do
nowadays of course with their
consumers they'll do screenings they'll
test different approaches to
bringing out films and testing those
different endings cliches perhaps
again it's a startup mentality isn't it
yeah and and holding on to these
principles that you know
bring the creativity bring people
together um and uh in a sort of
celebration of that we've actually got
one final clip mark and it's um pulling
together some of the best
clips
some of the best quotes
from walt disney himself
and uh look we were unsure if there was
enough inspiration yet so we're just
gonna bring it home with uh a clip now
that is going to share with you some of
what's thinking around creativity and
imagination so let's have a listen for
the last time to the thinking of walt
disney
[Music]
if you can dream
you can do it
always remember that this whole thing
was started by a mouse
[Music]
when you're curious you find lots of
interesting things to do
[Music]
you can design and create and build the
most wonderful place in the world
but it takes people to make the dream a
reality
all the adversity i've had in my life
all my troubles and obstacles
have strengthened me
you may not realize when it happens
but a kick in the teeth may be the best
thing in the world for you
we keep moving forward opening new doors
and doing new things
because we're curious and curiosity
keeps leading us down new paths
all our dreams can come true
if we have the courage to pursue them
it's kind of fun to do the impossible
laughter is timeless imagination has no
age
dreams are forever
[Music]
that's the real trouble with the world
too many people grow
up
our greatest natural resource is the
minds of our children
i don't like formal gardens i like wild
nature it's just the wilderness instinct
in me i guess
the way to get started is to quit
talking and begin doing
why worry
if you've done the very best you can
then worrying won't make it any better
when you believe in a thing
believe in it all the way implicitly and
unquestionable
i'd say it's been my biggest problem all
my life
it's money
it takes a lot of money to make these
dreams come true
[Music]
i have no use for people who throw their
weight around as celebrities
or for those who fawn over you just
because you are famous
i dream
i test my dreams against my beliefs
i dare to take risks
and i execute my vision to make those
dreams come true
[Music]
of all the things i've done
the most vital is coordinating those who
work with me and aiming their efforts at
a certain goal
ideas come
from curiosity
[Music]
mike what a
nice little
final clip for our walt disney show as
well as a great clip that's going to
continue beyond show number 176
throughout the rest of our creativity
series
a list of essentially mantras um mantras
that walt disney's either written down
maybe he'd even share them with his
colleagues obviously we've heard about
it now on the moonshot show
i mean i was scribbling away i was
highlighting some of the quotes that we
heard from there
there's so many great ones on there
which ones were standing out for you
i picked three i love this
uh
um one he says all the adversity i've
had in my life all my troubles and
obstacles have strengthened me
um i thought that was great um another
one total moonshots one the way to get
started is to quit talking and begin
doing yes
i love that one
and actually the third last one i dream
i test my dreams against my beliefs i
dare to take risks and i execute my
vision
to make those dreams
come true
like oh
that was big what about you any others
you want to add to those yeah i'd i'd
add just two others to those because
you've already touched on a few of my
favorites as well
i loved the very very moon shots almost
stoic approach that we've heard about on
the show before why worry
as long as you know it's the best that
you can do
i like that that's that's speaking to me
with circle of influence
as well as you know ownership and having
a clear conscience if you're working as
hard as you can as well as i think one
of those final ones
his greatest role
was to help coordinate others towards a
shared goal as i think about the
upcoming show that you and i and the
moonshots team are about to put up for
our subscribers and members
on the master series about managing
people
uh leadership management
coordinating uh team members that speaks
very very highly to me as a great role
for those who are in place of managing
people your role is to help guide others
not necessarily be the loudest person in
the room but be there for to facilitate
and guide and i love that humility that
you hear from walt disney's quotes there
where he's saying look i'm not here just
to create all the big ideas i'm here to
also help others the team around me get
us towards that shared goal i think
that's a really nice
nice little uh thought there
some great action
great manchester's and to think that
you know we've been able to do a show on
uh rob iger who was also the ceo at
disney to think that we've had such a
great chance to learn from one company
so many times all thanks to the efforts
and the uh the genius uh and hard work
and the resilience of walt disney
himself
um it's a big show mark uh we covered a
lot i mean that last clip uh we just
played could have been the show
in its entirety we could have just rift
about that um what stands out for you
what changes for you now that we've done
this show
i really like the
practicality
that comes with what's known as the
disney creative strategy the dreamer the
realist the critic i think that
framework is a really
actionable
habit
and way of
coordinating brainstorming as well as
decision making with any
part of your team whether it's an
internal team or an external team i
think that's quite an interesting little
framework and strategy that i'll be
putting into practice in the future
because it just helps get all of the fun
ideas out then allow
allow a layer of realism as well as
critic criticism to come through later
what about you mike what spoke to you
loudest throughout our clips today on
walt disney i think i have to agree i
wasn't familiar with this model until we
prepared the show so um
totally into the dream of the realist
and the critic i think it's a fantastic
model i'm just going to be uh applying
that now to all the ideas i hear over
the next week
i'll be here exactly i'll be kind of
schizophrenic i'll be dreaming the
realist and the critic
it'll send everyone into a spin but all
good
well mark listen thank you to you for
joining me on this journey and thank you
to you our listeners
who are learning out loud and being the
best version of yourselves and today we
got a mega dose of that on show 176 with
walt disney
and it all started with understanding
that
ideas begin small
scale it up experiment build the
prototype that was the fundamental
learning we started with from disney
himself then we went to the lifer of
disney tom craven who told us that magic
takes inspiration creativity and
faith
and if you really want to start getting
strategic it's that
classic disney creative strategy a
disney method some call it the dreamer
the realist and the critic and we see
that it's all about bringing creativity
from all four corners of the
organization even sometimes combining
the new with the old and it all came
together for us as we took inspiration
from the man himself from disney who
told us that there was so much in the
world to dream big to move forward
through adversity sometimes adversity is
just what we need and that we need to do
it together with others because it's a
team sport and that's what we believe
here at the moonshots podcast that being
the best version of yourself is a team
sport and the way we do it is we learn
out loud together that's it for the
moonshot podcast
that's a wrap