Imagining Your Career
Imagine arising one morning realizing you were heading to your dream job, not simply slogging into a day’s work just to pay the rent or mortgage and put food on the table. Imagine such a morning becoming the dawn of a career path you’ve envisioned and steered yourself toward for years, now becoming real in a few hours. In May of 1988, I was fortunate to have experienced such a morning. I want to share the experience with you because I believe a similar story can happen to anyone willing to envision and pursue their goal.
Winding through the tree-draped streets of Glendale, California to collaborate with some of the world’s most talented artists, designers, engineers, architects, technicians, managers and administrators, I recalled the creative self-confidence my mentor, Gary Stadler, had shared with me in the early 1980s.
Gary Stadler at the drawing board in his San Diego shop office, 1983.
With Gary’s guidance, I had learned to machine a wide array of metals and plastics, assemble hand-made electronic circuit boards, and design + make laser light show optical systems years before personal laptop computers, digital devices and apps existed. Bringing the fruits of our labor to market in the entertainment and corporate theater industries, I developed the skills to design, organize, program and perform diverse theatrical productions across the U.S. and in several foreign cities, all the while running a profitable business. Together, Gary and I forged an eclectic friendship as we explored and discovered exciting creative/technical paths fueled from our passion-driven curiosities.
Back in Glendale, I pulled off Flower Street and approached a guard gate where my Walt Disney Imagineering photo ID was presented to a smiling, uniformed man who waved me through - into the place where every Disney theme park had been designed from the early 1950s onward. I knew this place well, learning what had been created within from a couple of obscure library books and magazines checked out as a kid - many years before the internet. I realized I never would have experienced this tangible moment had it not been for someone providing me with guidance and confidence to make it real. That someone in large part, was mentor Gary.
Booklets, TV programs, and a 1963 edition of National Geographic magazine illuminated details of Disneyland. Images ©Disney and ©National Geographic Society
My initial Disney theme park encounter was Disneyland® itself on a sweltering June morning in 1968, a mere 18 months after Walt Disney’s passing. At the age of ten, something clicked in my consciousness, something I’ll never forget; the realization adults – including Walt himself - had created the then 12-year old park. Later that summer afternoon, following a journey into the realm of the atom in Adventure Thru Inner Space, an intuition made it clear I would someday become a Disney Imagineer. Two decades later, the premonition - driven by an internal passion and years of hands-on experimentation - became reality.
Concept illustrations and a photo within Adventure Thru Inner Space - the Tomorrowland attraction which sparked my career dream in 1968. Images ©Disney
I write this more than fifty years after deciding what my career would be because I believe we all have a spark within ourselves able to bring forth wholehearted fulfillment, resulting in productive, pleasurable lives. However, we all need a passion catalyst, a mentor, a coach -- guiding encouragement from someone who has trekked the trail ahead. Someone who listens to our dreams and is there to say: “Yes, your vision and passion are real and will shape your future if you so choose."
I’ve produced a 19-minute video describing how one might imagine their career based on my creative design and production perspective, since that’s the core of my professional journey. The ideas expressed derive from the realms of laser light shows, live/traditional theater, special events and venues, corporate/industrial theater, and world-class theme parks. I made the video because I see everyone as some form of a 'creative,' possessing untapped potential. Whichever creative direction you may be considering for your career or life, you can discover perspectives in the video on how to develop your passion and interests.
Within the video presentation you’ll learn a bit more about Walt Disney Imagineering, known in the themed entertainment industry as WDI. As an example of someone’s potential, a high school friend friend of mine once mentioned how he foresaw me becoming an Imagineer someday, thinking he could never attain such a goal, even though he was teaching himself computer coding after work each day. I recall his passion for that - a foreign world to me. His new skills made the print shop he oversaw operate more efficiently as computers entered the printing industry across the 1980s.
Fast forward roughly a decade, and following my years of encouragement. The same friend became an Imagineer in the same Glendale complex I was based out of, welcomed into the Information Technology division, crafting computer systems for Disney park attractions. On a personal note, he also met his future wife there!
A concept illustration of Shanghai Disneyland, a 963 acre (1.5 sq mi) theme park park created by by Walt Disney Imagineering. Open since the summer of 2016, the park area is eleven times larger than the original Disneyland Park in Anaheim, CA. Illustration ©Disney
WDI literally builds small cities which the world calls theme parks. The people inside WDI apply their diverse talents to elegantly solve complex problems - driven from unique ways of envisioning solutions. Accountants, schedulers, coordinators, managers, environmental scientists, robotics experts, landscape designers, lighting artists, sculptors, computer scientists and technicians, logistics analysts, and many others contribute in their own special way to manifest what become magical, functional Disney environments. Disney Imagineers dream, envision, plan and build spaces we want to be in.
Cities and urban projects around the world can benefit from how Imagineers create. Rather than think outside the box, Imagineers step outside the room the box is in - to explore beyond and sometimes, over the edge. As Benjamin Franklin once recognized, “If everyone is thinking the same, then no one is thinking.” Innovators think outside the box. Disruptors challenge paradigms. Imagineers create and build elegant solutions.
Land planners and real estate developers can apply Imagineering magic to their own environmental, building, housing, recreation, and urban renewal projects. Transportation engineers can learn from the ways Disney parks move hundreds of thousands of people every day - in many cases, without automobiles. Teachers can illuminate students through the application of story techniques used throughout Disney parks. Imagine STEM lessons as adventures where the learner discovers along emotionally engaging paths every day, in the same way guests explore a Disney theme park.
Our world is not as we continue to see it. Our world can be as we make it. With each decision and action, we participate in the making of tomorrow. No one is too busy to begin their most important journey right now.
I invite you to consider your own professional path, and how to empower your career dreams to come true. Embark on a course to improve our shared world, the lives of others, and yours all at once. Don’t stop outside the box.
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