Train Hobby Births Disneyland

Ben Wilson shares how Walt Disney's obsession with model trains led to the creation of Disneyland during a period when his animation studio was stagnating.

"The only time Walt Disney slowed down in his career was for about a decade. Walt loved working on new things, but everyone convinced him 'You have this enormous multimillion dollar animation studio now, you just need to be working on pumping out more full length animations.'

When he did that, the whole thing kind of went downhill. Then he goes crazy and starts obsessing over little toy trains. Those model trains then get bigger and bigger and becomes Disneyland. That's when he comes out of his funk and starts innovating again.

The paradox is don't let anyone convince you that you need to be working on the reasonable thing. You need to follow your unreasonable passions because somehow great things are going to come out of that."