Now I don’t know if you’re the kind of person that makes huge decisions that your whole future depends on, but it can be a very scary proposition.  Some people know that feeling when they quit a nice comfortable job in order to open their own business.  They don’t know if the business will make it or not. Or it may be some other decision in your life that can have that same effect.
     I do know one man who did it, and he did it more than just about any person I know.   He hung his future, and his company’s fortunes on a single project more than once and scared not only himself, but nearly everyone in his company, especially his brother.   Then imagine that you complete the project and upon revealing it to your market, it appears to be a total and complete flop!  That’s what happened.  And it appeared that, for all intents and purposes, the company was dead in the water.  
     Now I won’t keep you in suspense too long, the man was Walt Disney,  and the company - well, you can guess can’t you?  Sure!  For those of you who don’t know, Walt was one of the most creative men in the world, he was also a huge gambler.  Not the Las Vegas kind of gambler, but he gambled on huge projects that could easily and several times nearly did put the Disney company under.  
     The first big gamble was a feature length cartoon called Snow White.  A full length cartoon movie had never been done before and no one - and I mean no one - thought it would work.  Not only that, but it cost millions to produce and Walt didn’t have millions at the time.  He was mortgaged and borrowed to the hilt to make that movie.  
     So just imagine his horror and surprise when in its initial showing, its preview, about halfway into the movie, better than 80 percent of the audience suddenly stood up and walked out of the theater.  Walt was devastated!  Brother Roy was sure it was the end.  The movie was a flop.  What could be worse?    The next thing to happen was Walt laid off the entire staff and Roy started making plans to sell off as much property as he could and try and settle the millions of dollars in debt that Walt owed.   Within two weeks, the boys had made arrangements for the sale of the studios and were looking for work themselves. 
    And that’s when a group of young people walked up to Walt on the street in the middle of the day and said something remarkable.  They wanted to see the rest of the movie.  You see, that first preview of Snow White was shown one evening,  free to anyone who wanted to see it.  And unbeknownst to Walt and Roy, the audience was loaded with college kids, who were out on the town with little or no money.  When they heard there was a free movie, they went.  But about halfway through, they had to leave.   But they loved what they had seen up to that point and wanted to see the rest of the movie. 
     Yes!  It’s a Little Known Fact that one of the most successful movies, studios, and men almost didn’t happen at all, because of a college dorm curfew!

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