The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, right through a difficult time. Competition was more intense than ever and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger—think global—and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.

Today, Disney is the largest, most admired media company on the earth, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Under Iger’s leadership, Disney’s value grew nearly five times what it was, making Iger one of the innovating and successful CEOs of our era.

In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned even as running Disney and leading its 220,000-plus employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including:

• Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best conceivable outcome and focus on that, fairly than give in to pessimism and blaming.
• Courage. Leaders need to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity.
• Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale.
• Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them.

This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It’s also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has turn out to be the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the

“The ideas in this book strike me as universal” Iger writes. “Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more expectantly themselves, as they navigate their professional and even personal lives.”