Well, one of the things that intrigues me about looking at the lives of people who created something

larger than life is exploring how they got there. Because you know what? Everybody has faced

challenges along the way. The difference between them and the rest of us is their ability to reinvent

themselves, to learn from the mistakes and what some would call failures, and make

something bigger and better out of it. That's the story of Walt Disney. I'm Patty Steele, from losing

his most prize creation, along with the team who helped him get there, to the birth of Mickey Mouse.

That's next on the backstory. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.

We're back with a backstory. Thomas Edison gave us a quote that always gives me hope when things aren't exactly going the way I hope they would.

He said, no activity is a failure, just an attempt to succeed.

It's all about never giving up, just not being afraid to reset your sails when the wind changes.

Okay, it's 1928. Walt Disney is sitting alone on a train out of New York City. He's staring out of

the window at the countryside rushing by.

He's exhausted, angry, and pretty much broke.

Now, keep in mind, at that moment,

there is no Walt Disney Empire, no Disneyland, no Mickey Mouse,

no billion-dollar movies or movie franchises.

He's just a 26-year-old animator who feels like his career might already

be over. And the most fascinating part of this, everything he would become was born because of the

business disaster he had just experienced. It was so devastating, it almost destroyed him. This was the

night Walt Disney almost lost everything.

Now, to understand the disaster that recreated him, we have to go back before Mickey Mouse even

existed. It's the 1920s, and animation is still pretty primitive. Cartoons are short, silent,

...