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

Just finished "The Ride of a Lifetime " by Robert Iger. It’s an insightful look into leadership, decision-making, innovation and creativity at the highest levels of business.

I appreciated the candid perspective on Iger’s rise through the media industry during one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. The stories surrounding the Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Fox acquisitions were fascinating, as examples of vision, relationship-building, patience, and conviction under pressure.

What stands out most for me is his transformational leadership style. He repeatedly emphasizes integrity, curiosity, optimism, fairness, and the willingness to take calculated risks, a philosophy that helped reinvigorate one of America’s most treasured and nostalgic companies while still respecting the legacy that made Disney iconic in the first place.

I've already recommended this to several CEO friends. A highly engaging memoir from one of the most influential business leaders of the modern era. Check it out!

I usually start my reviews from the CONs, but there is little to be choosy about here.

The only drawback is there are not a lot of business lessons in the book. It's a great read, but I have only 11 highlights and notes. So, I didn't learn a lot.

Oh, and despite all the challenges, the whole story felt a bit lukewarm. Maybe Mr. Iger always calls every a**hole a "strong personality", or maybe he is just nice to the core? Well, it didn't feel very authentic.

On the other hand, maybe the life in the 0.01% earners in the world is so nice, how would I know?

PROS

1. Great Read.

"The Ride of a Lifetime" reads amazingly well. I wolfed it.

It reads like a fast-paced thriller, but a one that actually happened and described from the first-person perspective.

My guess is Mr. Inger had a world-class ghostwriter ;) If not, then hats off to him; he would probably made more money as a writer than the CEO of Disney.

I haven't enjoyed a book to this degree in a long time. I read it like I read the best fiction- almost in one sitting, and putting my whole life on hold to finish the book.

2. A Sneak-Peek into the Billion-Dollar World.

I've lived on this planet over 41 years and I haven't bumped yet into a person who earns billions of dollars, or the one who signs billion-dollar deals. This book was my next-to-best experience.

I appreciate the author let me into his world and showed me around a bit. Steve Jobs, George Lucas... Now, I feel like I interacted with them.

3. Business Lessons.

"The Ride of a Lifetime" reads as a thriller, sprinkles some celebrity's names along the way, but it still is a business book.

My takeaways were few and far between, yet each time they were significant. Let's go over a few of them:

"Don't let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decisions."

We are emotional beings and most of emotions are related to our ego. It's enough to just take a step back and assess the situation to notice extraordinary solutions.

It applies as to life decisions as aptly as to business decisions.

"Long shots aren't usually as long as they seem."

You never know till you try. NEVER!

"What people think of you, they will think of your company."

It was the hurdle between Disney and Pixar in the first place. The two CEOs didn't think of themselves too high. So, there was no space for doing business. The shift of the relationship was possible only with the personal changes.

"Each deal depended on building trust with a single controlling entity."

Well, in plain English: with a single person. Relationships are paramount in business. In fact, it's the 80% of the business. And the fabric of each relationship is always the mutual trust.

And a couple of lessons from between the lines:

1. "Stay humble; be persistent."

Just being humble and making decisions with a clear head would've been worthless without perseverance. The grit of Robert Inger demonstrated throughout his career is simply superb.

2. "Emotions, emotions, emotions."

When the author described the biggest deals which build the power of Disney as it is now (Pixar, Marvel, LucasArts), he was all about navigating the emotions of the other man. There are some business considerations sprinkled over his narration, but the main thing was always considering the other person's emotions.

LucasArts was the legacy for George Lucas. It couldn't be treat as a common business decision. Yes, Inger had to consider the financial aspect, but even the price Lucas obtained was the result of how much George identified with his universe than an effect of logical calculations.

Once Robert built a rapport with Steve, the deal between Pixar and Disney was almost seamless.

Emotions are paramount, too.

Summary

"The Ride of a Lifetime" is a fascinating read AND you can learn something from it in the by-the-way manner.

The insight into the lives of the most powerful people in the world was an icing on the cake.

During my lecture, I really liked the author as a person. Reading his story I appreciated how he found a balance between remaining a human being and becoming the top corpo official at the same time.

The subtitle of this book promises “Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO Of the Walt Disney Company.” You’ll get those, but there’s a lot more. The lessons learned go all the way back to Bob Iger’s childhood and his time at college. They include his time at ABC, which began in 1974. 

In other words, there’s a lot more to this book than the title would imply, and the title implies a lot. Bob Iger shares his goal for the book in the Prologue. 

“If you run a business or manage a team or collaborate with others in pursuit of a common goal, this book might be helpful to you. My experiences from day one have all been in the media and entertainment world, but these strike me as universal ideas: about fostering risk taking and creativity; about building a culture of trust; about fueling a deep and abiding curiosity in oneself and inspiring that in the people around you; about embracing change rather than living in denial of it; and about operating, always, with integrity and honesty in the world, even when that means facing things that are difficult to face.”

There’s a lot for you in this book, if you’re a leader, someone responsible for the performance of a group. You’ll learn some lessons by reading Iger’s story. Other lessons are written out more explicitly. It’s a great combination.

You get to watch Bob Iger develop. His core values stay essentially the same as his skills develop and his challenges increase. He learns from many mentors. He takes good things from each one and gives them all credit. 

The story makes it all easy and compelling reading. And he shares explicit lessons in two places in the book. Iger sketches “10 principles that strike me as necessary to true leadership” in the Prologue. After the end of the book, there’s a section titled “Lessons to Lead By.” 

This is a great book. You will learn from the story and from Bob Iger’s life and example. And you’ll learn from explicit lessons that he lays out. 

I highlight interesting things and important learnings in every book that I read. Good books have lots of highlights. Great books have mind-jarring highlights. They’re the kind where you stop reading the book, put it down, and ponder what you just read. There was at least one mind-jarring highlight for me in every chapter. 

Bottom Line

If you’re a leader or you want to be, buy The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO Of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger and read it. You’ll absorb lessons from the interesting story that is Bob Iger’s life. You’ll also learn from the explicit lessons.

This is a great book to get at the airport or read before bed. He's a strong communicator, making some pretty complex ideas accessible for all readers. But if you're thinking about this book *solely* because you love visiting Disney World, you know all the words to the early 90s Disney films, you just love Disney, this probably isn't the book you're looking for. This is a memoir of a wildly successful person in business with some leadership and organization lessons sprinkled in.

Personally, I wish it got even denser and deeper, but this is more of a high level overview memoir with some broad lessons to take away.

I wish we heard more about Iger's missteps and mistakes over the years and the lessons learned from those. As it stands, the book is a bit of a "Look at how great I am" recap. Off hand, the only even partial mistake he admits to is wishing he had given Lucas more of a heads up that they were not going to use his treatments for the new trilogy. I'm sure I'm missing one or two other items, but overall it was a lot of stories about vision, being ahead of the curve, taking bold risks, and using billions of dollars to buy stuff.

Three of the major business stories include major acquisitions, which while really interesting, are not exactly applicable to the average reader. That said, you could apply some of Iger's approaches at integrating companies on the smaller scale. For example, if getting a new direct report who had been elsewhere in the organization, overseeing a new department, or working to combine two units within an organization.

While my notes above probably read as overly critical, overall, I've found the book to be interesting, tough to put down, and even inspiring at times.

I love this book. A great one to learn about leadership. The story of his friendship with Jobs is so touching.

The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger offers invaluable insights into leadership, business strategy, and personal growth. Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned over his 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at how he led Disney through incredible challenges and transformed the company into the entertainment giant it is today.

What I found most inspiring was Iger’s emphasis on the importance of innovation, integrity, and trust in leadership. He reveals how staying true to your values and taking calculated risks can lead to monumental success. The book is filled with personal stories and practical advice that can be applied in any leadership role, whether in business or other fields.

The Ride of a Lifetime is a must-read for anyone interested in leadership, business strategy, or the entertainment industry.

One of the best books on leadership I’ve ever read. Lots of tears reading about his journey and a reminder to dream big and work hard- you are capable of having a life where you inspire while living out your wildest dream 🥹

This is a fabulous book!

Not only is it: “Lessons learned from 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company”, it is his underlying philosophy which stood him well. And it includes the background of what was going on so you get the full flavor of the situation. Also, and extremely important, is the very human emotions (that we all have, but some people are able to delude themselves to believe that they don’t) that he had during several of the very stressful situations that he encountered.

The book cover lists the eight “principles that are necessary for true leadership” and the book explores and documents how these principles guided him.

For example, “thoroughness” is well illustrated in the preface, on pages x through xiv. On these pages are described the events, emotions, concern for his employees safety and well-coordinated efforts of the Disney World staff when a mass murder occurred June 12, 1998, just 15 miles from Disney World. In particular, when it was discovered that the original target of the mass murderer, was Disney World.

“Focus” which also includes “find another way” was displayed on pages 18 & 19 when the 1979 World Table Tennis Championship would be held in North Korea, which was under “strict U.S. sanctions against doing any business with North Korea.” This was while he worked for ABC Sports and long before Iger worked at Disney. Robert Iger found a legal way to ENTER North Korea

and cover this sporting event.

“Integrity” is illustrated one pages 19 & 20 where he failed to get coverage of a major sports event and the next morning, the boss (Mr. Roone) asked, “Who was at fault?”. Bob Iger raised his hand and you can read what happened on page 20.

“Courage” on page 34 was displayed while he was still at ABC Sports when he was offered a significant promotion and he objected, saying “I don’t know that part of the business.” Those offering the position to him said, “You’ll be great.” And he was.

He takes you through the mechanics of his success and the emotions and self-control including when on, pages xiv through xix also he relates that in Shanghai China, the night before Disney to open the Disney theme park and escort high Chinese officials through parts of the park and also meet with the press, Robert Iger was told that an alligator had attacked a child at Disney World. Read how he handled himself and how he and his staff handled this tragedy of the alligator attack and the good front he made in front of his Shanghai guests.

There are more than 200 pages in the book. I hope you enjoy it and learn from it.

I enjoyed this book as I continued to discover how his intelligence, integrity and very human philosophy, carried him to his success and how he handled setbacks.

It’s a fun book to read with lots of stories “Disney” style. Interesting to see how patience and boldness played a huge role in all his career.

Easy to understand- and super logical way of thinking. Thank you Bob for this wonderful book! I learned a lot from you.

Ottimo libro

Kitabın boyutu, tasarımı ve dili oldukça iyi.

My favorite business book of the past many years. I love that Iger's journey is more 'tradional' than the other books you see in the market of incredible leaders that created outstanding products and companies. His journey seems more related therefore the learnings more applicable in my opinion.

On top of that I'm a big Disney fan and loved how the different transactions that led to the empire that it is Disney today we're made. Fantastic book!