How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life

by Pat Williams

Book Overview

How to Be Like is a "character biography" series: biographies that also draw out important lessons from the life of their subjects. In this new book--by far the most exhaustive in the series--Pat Williams tackles one of the most influential people in recent history.

While many recent biographies of Walt Disney have reveled in the negative, this book takes an honest but positive look at the man behind the myth. For the first time, the book pulls...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0757302319
• ISBN13: 9780757302312
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: Health Communications
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

An amazing book on the life of Walt Disney

This book was amazing. His life is an inspiration on making dreams come true and the people who worked for him really loved and respected him. This book is for anyone, the business person, the artist, or just the fan.

Great biography and great lessons

I've enjoyed Pat Williams' spoken pearls of wisdom for years, mostly in quotes as GM of the Orlando Magic NBA team. I've also known that he's a Christian and that he and his wife have adopted about 15 children over the years. But this is the first book of his I've read and I was extremely impressed. Pat obviously admires Walt Disney deeply and figures he has many qualities worth pursuing. Pat not only brings those qualities into sharp focus so that we can apply them to our own lives, he also looks at Walt's shortcomings. No punches are pulled: Virtually every criticism people have leveled at Walt Disney is examined honestly, but a great man is still found when all is said and done. Even if this wasn't a "self-help" book, it would stand alone as a dynamite biography. Questions about Walt Disney's life that I've never seen anyone even deal with in print before were examined here in depth. Pat interviewed about 250 people and spent years probing into Walt Disney's life. The result is absolutely the best book on the man I have ever read.

Brought me to tears

The other reviews highlight some of the excellent reason to treasure this book. I'll just add that I was a really big Walt Disney fan before reading this but learned many new things about him, including details of how Walt handled his last few months. The chapters on Walt's last months were so touching and emotional this book brought me to tears. Even if you never use the lessons contained (which I think are worth lots of consideration, of course), this book is a very entertaining and touching read. Highly recommended!

The Power of One Life

Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about Walt Disney, along comes this brilliant book. How to Be Like Walt shines fresh light on the person and character of Walt Disney, a man I never knew but have loved all my life. More than that, it encourages all of us that we can be like Walt, too - if we study his life, discover what drove him, learn from his failures and examine his interactions with others. There will never be another Walt, but we can all be like Walt if we want to be. This book tells us how. He wasn't perfect - but neither are you or I. Still, as the book says, the world would be a poorer place if it hadn't been for just one Walt Disney. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mind being remembered for making my world better like he did. How to Be Like Walt tells his story through the eyes of people who knew him and loved him, people who have admired his accomplishments, and people whose lives have been shaped by the force of his personality. It's the most complete picture of Walt Disney available to date from any book. In the bargain, we get lessons to apply to our own lives. Everything to gain and nothing to lose! Read it today.

A biography with great insight into the man, Walt Disney...

As a self-help book, "How to Be Like Walt" is a powerful tool with 17 lessons exemplified by Walt Disney's life. As a biography, the book is one of the finest written about Walt Disney. Disney was a unique Hollywood success story. The squeaky-clean Disney reputation was built on a lifetime of doing good work. It's not that Disney was without fault or rough edges. But Disney was more often the victim of unscrupulous dealings rather than one who was putting a deal over on someone else. This book explores those aspects of his life, and reveals how these experiences shaped his career and led him to bigger and bigger accomplishments. Just as each of Disney's successes was based on telling a compelling story, Pat Williams and Jim Denney have told Walt's life story in a unique and interesting way. The narrative is filled with stories and challenges in Walt's life, as related by friends, family, and co-workers. The stories tell about the man, Walt Disney, more effectively than most biographies which are loaded with impersonal facts. This book provides a multifaceted look at his personality as well as his behaviors. Different people saw him in various ways; that is all fully explained and reconciled as well as can be expected of a complex, creative genius who is not easily explained. Disney was a workaholic and a taskmaster, yet he was also compassionate about his creative staff and his family. As you read the story of Walt's life, you will learn how we can adapt our lives to achieve greater creativity, success, and fulfillment. As an author who has read and written about Disney, I recommend this book as one of the best Disney resources available. Buy this book and read it several times; with the extensive details of the many Disney stories, you will find each reading reveals new insights about Disney's approach to success. -- Rich Hamilton