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Did you know that Walt Disney, James Cash Penney (JCPenney), Doris Christopher (The Pampered Chef) and Ray Kroc (McDonald's) all used a key component of Recycle Your Income to help finance their businesses?

With summer coming to an end some 13 million people visited the Walt Disney owned parks in the last three months. Most children and adults love to visit the land of enchantment or “Disney Land”.  After a day of meeting well loved Heroes and Heroines, riding the roller coasters and feasting on cotton candy and popcorn, it’s easy to fall in love with the world of Disney.

Many people do not know the sacrifices and hard times the founder, Walt Disney, experienced while trying to make his passionate ideas a reality. His story is almost too hard to believe. One of their most popular characters was stolen by another studio. Their best animator jumped ship. Their studio was chronically understaffed and almost always in debt. In fact, Walt Disney struggled financially for years on the brink of bankruptcy.

Fast-forward to the early 1950s. The only amusement parks in the entire country were horrifically dilapidated places peppered with rusting, creaky rides and known only for their filthy restrooms and the drunks that always hung around. Walt dreamed instead of an immaculately clean amusement park filled with imaginative rides — a place where families weren’t afraid to eat the food. Everyone to whom he presented his idea thought he was crazy — and told him so.

Even his brother Roy — also his business partner and financial manager — told him it couldn’t be done. Determined to achieve his dream, Walt had no choice but to move ahead on his own. Turned down by traditional financing, he emptied his savings account, sold his vacation home in Palm Springs, and recruited the help of a few employees who shared his vision. Then, he used a stategy that allowed him access to cash without relying on outside sources of financing and allowed him to pay it back when and how he wanted.  If this sounds familiar, then you are a student of Recycle Your Income because this is what we teach our clients to do. (Roy later admitted he had no idea where Walt’s money was coming from, but decided not to ask.)

Disneyland opened on September 8, 1955, with 18 attractions. It welcomed half a million visitors in the first month it was open. By the end of its first year, it had hosted more than 3.5 million guests. Less than three years later, it welcomed its 10 millionth visitor — a number that exceeded well-known national landmarks like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

Adapted from Catherine and Rich Greene, The Man Behind the Magic:  The Story of Walt Disney (NY:Viking Penguin 1991)