The Ride of A Lifetime

Walt Disney, a well-known company. Multiple generations grew up with Disneyland and its cartoon. Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Belle, has been one of our best memory and source of happiness. In the 2000s, after the successful acquisition of Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, and 21st Century Fox, it becomes the largest and most respected media company in the world. Robert Iger is the man who saves Disney at a most turbulent time and built this media empire.

Mr. Iger shared the lesson learned from being an employee from ABC to the Walt Disney Company for 46 years, including 15 years being the CEO of the Walt Disney company in the book "The Ride of a Lifetime." It is divided into two parts- learning and leading.Part one tells his story of starting from the bottom of ABC television - being a studio supervisor, where Robert meet his first mentor, Roone Arledge,a pioneering television executive at ABC News and Sports, who taught him the dictum that innovate or die, and there's no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested. Also, the work ethic, that relentless pursuit of perfection of Roone, has shaped Robert's mindset. Capital Cities Communications' acquisition of ABC's exposes Tom Murphy and Dan Burke to Robert. They were other essential characters in Robert's career. Tom and Dan gave him the utmost trust and unconditioned support along the path to be the CEO of ABC.

Disney's acquisition of ABC introduced Michael Eisner to Robert, who he described as hard to get along with at the beginning. Michael taught him how to run a multinational company. The turbulent time at Disney ( Michael step down because of the "Save Disney" campaign ) gave Boober a chance to be the CEO, after a half-year of exhausting interviews and presentations with the board, he got this spot which he describes this experience as one of the toughest and darkest time in his life. It taught him the importance of tenacity and perseverance but also about the need to steer clear of anger and anxiety.

The journey of being the CEO of the Walt Disney company starts in 2005. Part two is about every significant movement he made during his tenure - the restructure of the company, the acquisition of Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, 21st Century Fox, and the launch of Disney plus and ESPN plus. He shared how he successfully persuade these founders and complete the deals that are considered as impossible. The friendship with Steve Jobs is highlighted throughout the book. He shared the reason for giving birth to the streaming platforms and how he foresees the media industry.

After reading "The Ride of a Lifetime," I realized how challenging it is to be the CEO of a multinational cooperation. It takes ambition, sweat, determination, and hard work. More importantly, this book helps me redefine leadership in 10 simple words, as Robert described in the prologue- optimism, courage, focus, decisiveness, curiosity fairness, thoughtfulness, authenticity, the relentless pursuit of perfection and integrity. It also taught me that one should always be modesty, no matter how profound achievement one made. Like what he wrote at the end of the book, "No matter who we become or what we accomplish, we still feel that we're essentially the kid we were at some simpler time long ago. Somehow that's the trick of leadership, too, I think, to hold on to that awareness of yourself even as the world tells you how powerful and important you are".