Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
Snow White’s Personality
Walt Disney took a huge chance on Snow White. The studio was making a guaranteed $30,000 on each short animation they created but the Disney folk wanted to create a cartoon feature.
Nobody had ever done that before – create a cartoon feature. And they needed a monumental sum of money to make it happen.
When others might have cowered to the ‘never been dones’ and other such ‘naysayers’ Walt Disney called the idea of Snow White “Old Man Opportunity.”
Related: Lessons Learned about Life at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco | Introduction
“Why should we let a few little dollars jeopardize our chances?”
Where others would realize they need a million dollars to do the project right, but settle on $500,000 because the risk is too great and hope for the best … Disney said, “So slap as big a mortgage on everything we got and let’s go after this thing in the right manner.”
Too often we are afraid of risk. And when we do take a risk, we don’t take a big enough risk … because we are afraid of risk.
When Old Man Opportunity knocks, Disney says, “Don’t let the jingle of a few pennies drown out his knock.”
I don’t know how to not be afraid. To not be afraid of risk.
Daddy says to take chances. To keep trying. To fail sometimes, but to keep trying. And more often than not you will succeed. Then when you succeed you begin to build confidence so you can try something bigger … and fail sometimes and succeed sometimes.
Trying is the key. Failing is the key. Not giving up is a key. Learning from failures and trying again and again is the key to not being afraid of risk.
Being afraid is normal. Not giving up takes courage.
Who’s afraid of risk now?
Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.
