A Tale of Two Brothers

I recently returned from an extended stay in Walt Disney World. Now, many people know I’m a big fan of Uncle Walt. The man’s determination to turn his dreams into reality was second-to-none. Along the way, he encountered plenty of pitfalls and obstacles and he surmounted every one of them.

And fortunately, he had his brother, Roy, to provide the safety net.

You see, as much a visionary as Walt Disney was, it’s common knowledge that he was virtually clueless about managing money. He’s even quoted as saying, “All I know about money is that I have to have it to do things. I neither wish nor intend to amass a personal fortune. Money may worry me, but it does not excite me. Ideas excite me.”

Well, that’s all fine-and-dandy, but we all know that without money, things don’t get done. And that’s where Roy Disney came into the picture.

Roy was to money what Walt was to creativity. And I think it’s fair to say that without Roy, there would be no Disney Empire today. Roy, a banker by trade, was the one who finagled the loans, took out the mortgages, and begged and borrowed from relatives when Walt told him how much his next idea or initiative was going to cost.

Did Roy like it? Heck no! Being frugal by nature, he often fought with Walt tooth-and-nail, claiming how they couldn’t possibly incur any more debt. It got to the point where the two brothers wouldn’t talk for weeks at a time, instead sending handwritten notes to each other from their separate offices in Disney studios when they needed to communicate.

But through it all, Roy loved and believed in his brother and somehow made it happen.

To simply say that Roy was good with money would be like saying Michelangelo was good with paints. No way. Roy was nothing less than a master negotiator to be able to pull off the deals he did to keep the fledging Disney company afloat.

Through it all, Roy proved that principles of negotiating go far beyond simply haggling over money and shaking hands over an agreed amount. It’s a mindset. It’s problem solving. It’s the ability to endear your self to another in order to bring about favorable results. It’s about understanding people’s true interests and finding a common ground.

If you’d like to acquire some of these high level, business-building negotiating principles that Roy Disney employed, then I strongly suggest that you take advantage of an opportunity to learn from the best negotiator in the world. Register now for Herb Cohen’s only New Jersey appearance at Move Ahead 1’s business development seminar on Thursday, September 18, 2008.

There’s one other quote of Walt’s that stuck with me from my trip. It’s on a sign in the “One Man’s Dream” attraction. It reads: “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Okay. I quit talking. Now you begin doing.