by Michele Wilmonen

Created on: February 12, 2009   Last Updated: January 10, 2010

We all have someone that we look up to, someone whose life inspires us, and someone who reminds us that we can achieve so much more then we think we can. It may be someone in history, a fictional person, a person currently living, someone very close to us or a combination of them. For myself, it is a combination of people in history and in real life, but of all of them the one that sticks out as my primary role model is Walt Disney.

-NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR IMAGINATION

How is he a role model to me? Primarily he inspires me to embrace my imagination and never to give up on myself. There have been too many times that I have given up on my dreams and have said "impossible" and "can't". I am sure that with the many failures that he had, that those words must have come across his mind or even his lips also. He had a number of businesses fail before his success with the Walt Disney Company, but he kept charging ahead.

 He charged ahead so much sometimes and gave so much license to his imagination that the Walt Disney Company almost went bankrupt at the very beginning. With the movie that projected the Walt Disney Company into history, Snow White, he concentrated so much on the movie and using the most advanced techniques that if it wasn't for his brother keeping on top of the finances and finding money anywhere he could that the company would have met its end before much into its beginning. But even with the setbacks he continued on and built one of the largest entertainment empires in the world.

-HE WAS HUMAN

With Walt's imagination in being able to develop fantasy, it is an irony that the memory of Walt himself is sometimes elevated to a fantasy level. When someone is gone and people remember them, they concentrate on their good points and forget anything that would make them look bad. But, I find his human traits make him a role model that I can relate to and serves as a reminder that no one, no matter how much you idolize them is perfect, just as you can't be.

His work on the movie Snow White was an example of how much of a perfectionist he could be, but he himself was not perfect. He was grouchy on his bad days like the rest of us. It was said that when he was grouchy that his employees would spread around the company that Walt had his "bear suit on". He also did not give out compliments much and he smoked. Sadly the latter was the cause of his early death.

With his imagination and determination blazing the way to new forms of entertainment, I only hope that I can follow in his footsteps and be able to use my imagination in its full capacity. Keeping in mind both his traits that inspire me but also his human traits that I can relate to and learn from, I continue to look up to him and will not give up on my own dreams. I may not develop the worlds next new entertainment giant like he did, but if I don't give up I just may see my books published after all.

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