In the 1950s, Walt Disney sat on a park bench watching his daughters playing and thought “… there should be something built where the parents and the children could have fun together.” His answer was a family amusement park.

The vision was clear to him. It eluded everyone else. Amusements in that day were nasty places: Run down and, usually, run out of town by the local authorities because of their dishonest games.

Walt presented his idea to some close associates. They were dismissive. Wife Lilly, in her blunt fashion said what everyone else thought. “Why do you want to build an amusement park? They're so dirty, " she asked.

Brother Roy wasn’t much help either. He refused to gamble the corporation’s money. “We’re in the motion-picture business. We’re in the animated-film business,” he explained. “We don’t know anything about this amusement business.”

Walt also talked to every carnival amusement operator he could find. They were unanimous: it would fail.

• There needed to be many entrances, not one.
• There was too may areas that would not generate revenue.
• There wouldn’t be enough ride capacity.
• The rides would cost too much to build.
• Ride maintenance would be exorbitant.
• No one would care about ride themeing.
• You needed carny games to be financially stable.
• Clean cut looking people do not work in carnies.
• It would be impossible to keep the place clean.

But Walt, never one to accept a ‘No’ answer, followed his instinct. Once Disneyland opened people realized that, as always, Walt was right. Disneyland was an immediate success. 50,000 people visited on opening day. By 2016, over 600 million people have visited the park. And the Partners statue in this snap honors walt's creation.

Life is sometimes like this. People, with the best of intentions, tell you you can’t do something you believe you can. They may believe in you, but their vision is limited by the world they already know. The challenge in any business is to spot the need before anyone else knows that need exists.

There are several points to learn from Walt’s experience.

• Don’t worry too much about what people think.
• Focus instead on what those people would say if they saw that idea work in practice.
• Once you get an idea, do as much research as possible.
• Proceed with the idea only if, and when, you have clearly thought it through.
• When you are sure the idea will work,  go all in. Then, relax and enjoy the ride.

Walt Disney didn’t just see what was needed. He aggressively explored the need. He asked colleagues, experts, and, with his own eyes, did on-the-ground research. When he proceeded, he knew what he was doing. Walt once explained, “Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done, and done right.” The answer is not to have an idea, but to ‘dog it.” That’s when success happens. Who knows. Perhaps you’ll even get your own statue.