The Ride of a Lifetime

Quick Background

This is the story of how an ordinary dude from Brooklyn became the CEO of the largest media company in the world. From befriending Steve Jobs to buying Pixar, Marvel & Star Wars, each chapter follows Bob Iger's masterful rise to the top of the Disney's media empire.

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You should read this book if...

• You enjoy biographies about business leaders
• You're passionate about the media & entertainment industry
• You want to learn new leadership tactics from the best in the game

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3 Big Ideas

1) Always trust your instinct, even when the data tells you otherwise.

When Bob Iger came on as CEO, Disney's animation department was everything.

The only problem was... it was in the gutter.

This little company called Pixar (led by some guy named Steve Jobs) was eating everyone's lunch.

So Iger came up with a crazy idea...

Instead of competing with Pixar, he would simply buy them.

But, on paper, buying Pixar made absolutely no sense.

Due to its recent successes, Pixar was deemed "overvalued."

The Disney board couldn't rationalize this multi-billion dollar risk.

But after one visit to Pixar's headquarters, Bob's instinct became even stronger about the deal.

He didn't care what the numbers said. He went ahead and bought it anyway.

And as any movie-goer would know, Disney-Pixar became a historical business success.

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2) 3 Priorities... that's all you need to transform a business.

Bob Iger treated his journey to becoming CEO as a political campaign.

He even hired a political campaign advisor named Scott Miller to help him define his "campaign strategy."

In their first meeting, Miller asked Iger, "What will be your strategic priorities?"

Bob started naming 5 or 6 priorities, when Miller shook his head and said, "Stop talking."

"Once you have that many of them, they're no longer priorities... You only get 3."

So after the meeting with Scott, Iger started communicating his 3 clear, strategic priorities.

Not only did the simple trifecta lead him to convincing the Board to give him the job as CEO...

they guided every decision within the company for the next decade!

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3) Optimism is the most important leadership quality.

Iger attributes optimism as the most important leadership quality one could have.

"Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists," he says.

It's funny, because some challenges he faces in the book make you feel so anxious that you want to vomit.

But he had this incredible ability to remain calm in the face of any storm.

"It's not about saying things are good when they're not," Iger says,

"it's about believing in your and others' abilities to make things better."