Michael D. Eisner, CAMP: Life, Leadership, and Why You Never Stop Paddling
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens.
[0:03]Thanks for listening to Totally Butte,
[0:05]the show where I get to talk to all my favorite authors,
[0:08]and you get to hear from them, too.
[0:11]Today, I am so excited to be talking to Michael Eisner.
[0:15]I'll read you a little bit about him now.
[0:18]Michael D Eisner has been a leader in the entertainment
[0:21]industry for more than half a century,
[0:24]beginning his career at ABC, becoming president,
[0:27]a Paramount Pictures in 1976,
[0:30]and then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
[0:32]of the Walt Disney Company in 1984,
[0:35]serving in the role for the next 21 years.
[0:38]In 2005, Eisner founded tour non-tech, tour non-tech,
[0:44]an entertainment company that today owns
[0:46]Portsmouth football club, and has a large and growing
[0:49]television division.
[0:50]He and his wife Jane founded the Eisner Foundation
[0:53]in 1996.
[0:55]His book is Camp Life Leadership,
[0:57]and why you should you never stop paddling.
[1:01]Welcome.
[1:02]Thank you.
[1:03]Thank you.
[1:07]Camp, this is amazing.
[1:08]Thank you for taking us into your whole experience.
[1:12]You, the multi-generational camp of your family
[1:15]and reminding us about the joys of being outdoors
[1:19]and being in a found community.
[1:21]So thank you.
[1:22]Well, I appreciate being here.
[1:25]A lot of people have gone to camp.
[1:27]A lot of people feel love of it, youthful strength,
[1:32]growth, and all that.
[1:33]And I just thought this would be a good subject
[1:37]to go back and think about.
[1:39]And my kids, my grandchildren, my father, my grandfather,
[1:45]we've all been in this oldest camp,
[1:47]gone to this oldest camp in the world, I guess,
[1:50]especially in America.
[1:51]And it just seemed like it was important.
[1:58]And I'm not sure why.
[1:59]I still don't know why.
[2:01]I hear a lot of, I've been involved with children's programming
[2:05]at ABC, and obviously at Disney.
[2:08]I hear a lot of read a lot about childhood education,
[2:12]creativity, things you've talked about a lot.
[2:16]And I go back and think about what it was in my childhood
[2:22]that I gravitated toward creativity, toward leadership,
[2:27]God knows what, why.
[2:30]What does a canoe trip have to do with that?
[2:32]What does free time have to do with that?
[2:36]And I think it has a lot to do with it.
[2:39]So I found myself, actually, I'd done some other books,
[2:48]one with a co-writer, which I thought was somewhat mediocre.
[2:54]I'm used to being an editor in demanding perfection,
[2:57]whether it's movies or television or publishing.
[3:02]And I did a book with a co-writer of a theme.
[3:05]And I thought it was OK.
[3:09]But then, I mean, what did everybody else think?
[3:13]I don't know, God.
[3:14]OK, nevermind.
[3:15]No, no, it is.
[3:16]It is actually going to keep going.
[3:17]No, it actually got good reviews, not great reviews,
[3:25]not horrible reviews, which is the worst place to be.
[3:27]But it got reviews.
[3:28]Yeah, but that's the worst.
[3:29]The worst place to be in entertainment is in the middle.
[3:33]If somebody tells you that movie is awful, it's awful.
[3:38]If somebody tell you that movie is fantastic, you run to it.
[3:43]If somebody says that movie was OK, it was good.
[3:46]Not so good.
[3:49]I felt that.
[3:49]So when I decided that I wanted to write this book about camp,
[3:55]I asked friends of mine, I want to find somebody that
[4:00]is not famous to work with.
[4:03]I want to find somebody where this would be an exciting project
[4:07]for them.
[4:08]And I wanted to have a contest.
[4:12]And so all my friends, people at Disney,
[4:14]and other places, had tentacles to schools, so forth.
[4:21]And I read about, I don't know how I'm getting into this,
[4:24]there's nothing in there.
[4:25]There's a hell of a bit to know what the book,
[4:27]because Aaron Cohen is helping me write this book.
[4:30]And I found Aaron by reading an essay he wrote
[4:35]about going to a met game at Harvard,
[4:38]going to a met game for his birthday
[4:41]since he was like five years old every year.
[4:44]And it was so well written and so insightful
[4:49]about a little thing, going to a met game on a birthday
[4:54]that that was the guy.
[4:56]And so Aaron spent a lot of time at QAiden.
[5:00]Aaron became practically a camper.
[5:01]He wasn't that much older than the campers and the staff.
[5:06]And we had a good time doing this.
[5:07]And there was a lot of history there.
[5:09]A lot of things were unique, a lot of tripping
[5:12]in the wilderness, self-reliance, a lot of Waldenish
[5:17]and kind of things going through big headwinds and canoes,
[5:22]long hiking trips, sleeping in a wet from the rain
[5:27]to make it clear, sleeping bags.
[5:31]And what did that teach you?
[5:33]And what did you learn?
[5:34]And did you think you were learning anything,
[5:36]which of course you didn't?
[5:39]And I just was something I wanted to do.
[5:42]And then, well, 15 years later,
[5:48]we started publishing company at Disney,
[5:50]called Hyperion.
[5:52]And I get a call from a daughter of a staffman I'd had
[5:58]when I was 10.
[6:00]Now,
[6:02]the staffman was 70 years.
[6:03]70, yeah, a counselor, right?
[6:05]And key weight and easy language.
[6:07]Which now speaks, thanks to the book.
[6:09]We have our own language, which has been adapted
[6:12]since you can't use some of the words that you used then
[6:18]that had Native American connotations.
[6:20]So Trump would actually let you go back probably,
[6:23]but forget that.
[6:25]Why did I say that?
[6:27]I'm in trouble and I haven't five minutes into this.
[6:30]I'm already in trouble.
[6:33]Anyway, so I got this call from this daughter
[6:37]of this staffman who I kind of remembered
[6:41]from 70 years earlier.
[6:43]And she sent me a picture and there's a picture of me
[6:46]with three other kids in a tent.
[6:49]And this staffman who looked like he was James Dean.
[6:53]I kind of remembered that.
[6:55]She said he's written 16 books this man
[6:59]and nobody has read one, not one, even his family.
[7:04]And he now read the year starting this publishing company
[7:08]called Hyperion.
[7:09]Would you read a book?
[7:11]I said absolutely.
[7:14]I said send me a couple and they never came.
[7:19]Ever and I forgot about it.
[7:21]Now we're 20 years later, 30 years later.
[7:25]And the other daughter calls me and says,
[7:28]you know, dad, he's now 89.
[7:33]And he thinks it would be time for you to maybe read a book.
[7:37]I said, what happened the last 20 or 30 years?
[7:40]Well, he was embarrassed.
[7:41]He knew you were busy, whatever.
[7:43]So I said send me a book.
[7:46]Just one, send me one book.
[7:49]He sends me a book called The Game.
[7:53]And I assumed it would be awful
[7:54]like all unsolicited material is.
[7:58]I was shocked it wasn't on, you know,
[8:01]three line paper written in man writing.
[8:03]It was actually typed, not computer, but typed.
[8:08]And I read it.
[8:09]And I could not put it down.
[8:11]It was fantastic.
[8:13]So I thought, oh, I just wanna be nice to this camp,
[8:17]this counselor of mine.
[8:18]So I gave it to my wife, said, you read this.
[8:21]And she confirmed, as she has done over some 50 ideas
[8:27]that I'm either completely nuts or on the right track,
[8:30]she said it's very good.
[8:31]So I called back and said, we'll make it.
[8:34]And he said, what do you mean, you'll make it?
[8:36]I said, yeah, I'll buy the book.
[8:40]We then went and wrote eight scripts
[8:42]to be serialized, event television series.
[8:48]It's a, it's a, I won't go through the whole thing,
[8:50]but it's an epic story involved a lot of Japanese
[8:55]in the internment camp and Vietnam and Indochina
[8:58]and, and, you know, helicopters.
[9:01]I mean, I couldn't put it down, as I said.
[9:04]So we've now written the eight scripts.
[9:08]We're ready to get into the process
[9:11]of having somebody agree with me.
[9:13]It was easier when I was the boss,
[9:15]but maybe I can still get him to agree with me.
[9:19]And we're on track.
[9:20]And then I got a call that he's going to be 90 something
[9:25]and he's got a birthday and I go to meet him.
[9:29]So now I haven't seen him since I'm 10.
[9:32]And if you've seen Dead So, Poets Society,
[9:34]which has been in my mind since we made it
[9:38]because at camp, there are always pictures from 1923,
[9:44]1934 from my father, from all the other people
[9:48]of this camp.
[9:49]And they all look vital and athletic
[9:54]and the most important youth of their life.
[10:00]And now they're not and I was obsessed with that and we made dead pose society, so I've been obsessed with this idea of
[10:09]Carbidea favorite movies. You like it? Oh my god. One of my favorites. Well the whole idea
[10:14]season day do it while you're you can and so
[10:22]We came to the conclusion that we would do this and so I I wanted to meet him and we drove up to coast of California
[10:29]Yeah, and we met him. He left a
[10:35]Urgent can not urge you care. See you care. We had lunch and
[10:39]It was great. He remembered everything. He was the most I heard from the camp later
[10:45]Then he was the best storyteller they'd ever had at the camp around campfires and he was
[10:51]He was he flew helicopters. He was in Vietnam. He was everything
[10:56]He now wants to build a pyramid in Texas at 95
[11:01]So we then took a picture at the end
[11:04]and he had
[11:05]The hit the paddle which helps them stand actually that age the same paddle that he decorated
[11:13]in the picture
[11:14]from 1950
[11:17]So all of that
[11:19]Came together and when somebody called me and said would you do a reissue of the book?
[11:24]Because camps like it, you know, I don't know what they do and
[11:29]Because of this guy and I want to write about this
[11:34]I made that the epilogue of the of the new addition
[11:37]so that drove me into
[11:40]Going back to camp now. I do have grandchildren of the camp and I still go there and the son of the
[11:46]Of the owner of the camp who went to camp with my father
[11:49]Still runs it. So there's a lot of emotion in this camp
[11:53]My parents had a house in Vermont. We always went to them
[11:56]Before we went to camp. We always stopped at McDonald for the last meal
[12:02]It's part of my DNA so I wrote it and I enjoyed by the way
[12:07]I really enjoyed that. I've spent
[12:10]Most of my career writing emails before that memos
[12:15]Annual reports. I wrote I guess 20 some my years of annual reports at Disney
[12:22]Never the way in annual reported ever been written before
[12:25]One of them I finally my mother told me you write about your family. You write about your father
[12:30]You write about your grandparents. You write about camp in the annual report. You've never written about me
[12:36]So the next year's annual report my mother was all through it
[12:40]so so I liked I liked the process
[12:44]And I've learned a lot by doing it with other people. I've learned about doing it myself
[12:54]Again, I
[12:56]Was an English major, but I never took a writing course
[13:00]So I'm pretty good in punctuation
[13:03]Because I learned that from Alan Stevenson on 78th Street. So I know where the commas go
[13:08]but I have no idea
[13:11]You know whether their past tense or current present tense when you write I can't I'm actually writing
[13:17]I know it's not about this in novel, which I'm having a good time. I can't remember the names of my characters
[13:23]You know, I'll write on a in February when I get back to an April
[13:27]I have to go back and read what the characters names are where they're from
[13:32]It's hard
[13:34]Much easier being an editor. Yeah, I mean about your own less
[13:39]we had also you can you can say
[13:42]To whomever you're dealing with a director or producer or writer
[13:46]Good bad. I'm bored. It's not funny. It's not sad. I have no emotion
[13:51]Uh
[13:52]When you write yourself you turn to your wife and you say is it sad is that funny is there any emotion?
[13:57]It's very different being an editor, which is what my life was about
[14:02]Whether it was a theme park or whether it was a movie or a television show or now a
[14:08]You know a soccer team in Europe or whatever
[14:13]That's easy
[14:14]compared to actually doing it
[14:17]I mean I had many meetings
[14:19]with comedy writers
[14:21]Doing you know
[14:24]Half-out TV shows for ABC or whatever
[14:27]And I would say
[14:30]You know, this isn't funny and then the writer would say
[14:34]Well
[14:35]How do I make it funny and I would say if I could make it funny
[14:39]I wouldn't be doing the job. I'm doing. I'd be doing the job. You're doing that's the big money being the writer
[14:45]You know royalties and all that
[14:47]Not that I had a rough time, but anyway
[14:51]Anyway, I don't think it's anything. It's fine. It's all good
[14:54]I didn't come from Connecticut
[14:59]Never mind
[15:02]I'm not in this book
[15:06]The
[15:08]So that's that's how I got into it. I don't know
[15:11]You asked me one question. I went on forever, but that's great. That's great
[15:15]Would you mind if I read a little bit from the end of it about
[15:18]The importance of keep paddling and all that
[15:23]Because I do think that whether you go to camp or you don't go to camp or any of it the message you have
[15:29]And the joy and the things you've learned are applicable to anyone in any circumstance
[15:35]Through these messages. So you wrote we all paddle through pleasures in our lives marriage success and children
[15:42]And we all paddle through some storm through storms as well facing economic difficulties fighting off
[15:48]Adversities stumbling through unpleasant relationships struggling with disease moving on from deaths in our families
[15:54]How we deal with these kinds of disruptions in life
[15:57]How we find the strength to get through those times
[15:59]How we persevere
[16:01]It's all a mark of who a person is and a person finds their oars
[16:05]Their tool to paddle through it all early on during early childhood development in their formative days
[16:11]Early education and early play is important
[16:14]And there's no better place to acquire and develop the tools to fend off the hard times than summer camp
[16:20]Sure camp is not the only way to find one's path in life
[16:23]But for me it provided tools that have been honed by generations of campers including my father, my son's
[16:29]Pepe and Q and now in the years since the summer I reconnected with camp
[16:32]My five out of nine grandchildren who have gone to QA then and song it D1
[16:38]Amazing
[16:39]Well, it's true. I mean, I wrote it to it. I think it's true
[16:43]The thing is that
[16:46]You learn several things
[16:49]You learn teamwork and you learn leadership
[16:54]When you're on a trip and QA does is mostly about
[16:59]wilderness tripping although they do have tennis and all that stuff and you're
[17:05]In a canoe and their headwinds and it's five o'clock and you're trying to get to a campsite
[17:12]And at the campsite you got to pitch the tent
[17:15]Make the dinner get the firewood and all that stuff and clean up
[17:19]And you say to your staff and they're only two staff how far and they say two miles and you know it's five
[17:27]And you just keep paddling and you get there and when you get there
[17:32]You have to work as a team
[17:35]They're they're eight kids for a most trips for groups of two and two
[17:43]Initially when you get the campsite pitch the tents other two
[17:48]And their team get the firewood another two make the dinner and the last two clean up and if it's not all working and there's one kid who's you know
[17:59]Home sick happens or other things like that not feeling well it all falls apart and you learn
[18:06]At camp without knowing you're learning it
[18:08]That you got to you got to work together and you also learn
[18:14]And maybe it's genetic. Maybe it's not. I don't know
[18:16]There are some people that are born as leaders
[18:19]That are they they like doing that that like telling other people to do and other people that are followers
[18:25]But they all are part of a team
[18:27]So so you kind of learn that
[18:30]You also learn when you get
[18:32]To a river after a rainstorm
[18:34]In the middle of nowhere
[18:37]How do you get across the river because you have to cross the river
[18:40]And that's not paddling but that's getting across you have to learn
[18:45]I can remember in the Adirondacks once there was so many black
[18:49]Flies that we ate our dinner lying in the river with just our heads
[18:55]So we could breathe so we could eat so we weren't eating alive
[18:59]That's a good reason to be California by the way those up. They're not there
[19:04]So I do think
[19:07]There are a lot of kids that prefer
[19:09]You know the baseball and the the tennis and the capture the flag
[19:15]But they still
[19:16]Each month to one trip and there are a lot of kids that just like the tripping better
[19:22]But all in all you're away from home
[19:26]Many times for the first time
[19:28]You don't have your parents today. They don't have their cell phones
[19:33]And you you persevere
[19:36]And the one thing I heard earlier in one of your interviews is
[19:41]At this camp there is a lot of free time
[19:45]And in the free time
[19:47]You make your friends you do all these free time kinds of things you there's a creativity that is created because it's free time
[19:57]Most of the stuff is coordinated
[20:00]There is a schedule.
[20:02]But the free time is important.
[20:04]Anyway, I enjoyed it.
[20:11]I will say that when I, I don't know if you ever saw a diner,
[20:15]the movie diner, where a part of the movie was with a spouse
[20:21]trying to find out whether you were compatible
[20:24]and going to a sporting event.
[20:26]So I did two things with my wife who's there.
[20:29]And it is 58 years later.
[20:33]The camping, well, I did the baseball thing.
[20:36]I took a Yankee game and figured
[20:39]that we were going to be sports fanatics together.
[20:42]And she did the crossword puzzle
[20:44]during the entire game.
[20:46]And I knew that was hopeless.
[20:47]But I decided we were going to camping trip.
[20:51]This is before we were married.
[20:53]I thought, no, this is going to be romantic.
[20:56]I would say that was a third of my motive,
[20:59]growing to two thirds.
[21:00]But anyway, that was my motive.
[21:01]And so we went up to camp, to QA in.
[21:04]And I got the backpack.
[21:06]I went to Abercrombie and Fish
[21:07]and got the reflector oven to make the silver cake,
[21:10]which I was pretty good at.
[21:12]And we took off in the Adirondacks.
[21:17]And forget the fact of the first two days
[21:21]going through the mud and of those ladders.
[21:24]And she was carrying 30 pounds and complaining,
[21:28]not too much.
[21:30]And in the third day, I won't go on too long,
[21:33]we got accosted by a bear.
[21:37]And we spent eight hours literally thinking we were going to die.
[21:43]And we connected with two guys we met on the trail.
[21:46]And we finally joined together in a lean two with no front.
[21:52]So there were three of us and her.
[21:55]And we went to bed as soon as it got dark.
[22:02]And the bear kept going around the lean two.
[22:08]At one point, the bear was in the lean two.
[22:13]I had my eyes closed.
[22:15]Jane was the farthest left, then me, then the two guys.
[22:19]And the bear was in the lean two.
[22:22]And I heard my eyes were closed.
[22:23]And I heard sniffing like a dog.
[22:26]But it was like in super sound.
[22:28]It was like a giant.
[22:30]And the bear was trying to get the food which we tied to the roof.
[22:35]And he was right above me.
[22:37]The guy next to me takes a hatchet.
[22:42]And I'm thinking, this is not a good idea.
[22:43]So I stopped that.
[22:45]The big guy, I mean, really big guy, was asleep.
[22:50]He couldn't handle it at all.
[22:53]I was petrified.
[22:58]Also, at certain points, we all got four got together.
[23:02]And how to walk around if we had to do what you have to do
[23:05]in the wilderness.
[23:07]So I'm with my fiance.
[23:09]That's not so romantic, right?
[23:11]So the whole thing is not great.
[23:14]She stayed up all night, banging pots and pans,
[23:18]keeping the fire going, keeping the bear away,
[23:22]agreed in the morning to walk out, nine miles.
[23:26]I wouldn't throw out the reflector oven.
[23:29]I wouldn't throw out the backpack.
[23:30]She kept saying, why are you saving this?
[23:32]Because I just bought it at Abercrombie & Fisher.
[23:36]That solidified our relationship.
[23:39]I knew there is no storm that I couldn't paddle through
[23:42]as long as she was in the bow or the stern.
[23:45]So that is part of my campaign experience.
[23:53]And it's all true, right, Jane?
[23:54]All of it.
[23:56]Yes.
[23:58]I exaggerated it a little bit in the book.
[24:00]But it's true what I said today.
[24:03]Actually, you wrote so beautifully about your wife
[24:05]in the book all throughout.
[24:07]It's really quite heartwarming and really a role model.
[24:11]What is the secret to longevity of a marriage?
[24:15]Guy, who knows?
[24:17]I know.
[24:18]Paddle, you're right, right.
[24:21]No, and when you're working in the media,
[24:26]I'm sure it's true when you're working anywhere.
[24:28]There are people that are rooting for you.
[24:33]There are people that are rooting you ground
[24:36]so they can take your office.
[24:40]There are competitors.
[24:42]There are people that are not always completely honest.
[24:47]And it's good to have somebody with you
[24:49]who can keep you focused and not
[24:53]let those things drive you crazy.
[24:55]Because those are the kinds of things
[24:57]that you do have to paddle through.
[25:00]And even though a lot of people have very successful lives,
[25:05]they've been successful in business,
[25:08]they have good families and all that,
[25:09]there are interruptions that are difficult to handle.
[25:14]And you just have to keep going.
[25:17]You were talking on another interview
[25:19]about what is true and what isn't true in a book,
[25:21]which I thought was interesting.
[25:23]All of you are interviews are interesting.
[25:25]But I was thinking, everything in my book
[25:27]is true except one thing.
[25:30]My best friend, actually, he is deceased,
[25:34]but his wife is here.
[25:35]We grew up together, we went to camp together.
[25:39]I went one year before he did.
[25:41]And I was a big shot, because I
[25:44]had done it one year before he did,
[25:46]because his mother wouldn't let him go,
[25:48]because his father died in World War II,
[25:50]and she wanted him home, finally.
[25:52]We talked him into it.
[25:53]And the way we talked him into it
[25:54]was that we were going to go to the reunion
[25:56]at the St. George Hotel in Brooklyn,
[25:59]where Keyway didn't had its reunion.
[26:01]So I'm 10 or 9 or 10, so I've got he's one year older.
[26:08]And I take him to reunion and we go in
[26:12]and there are all these kids around
[26:13]and we go into the banquet hall.
[26:15]And they do the song before breakfast.
[26:20]And I'm singing wildly, but it's not familiar,
[26:22]but I'm still singing.
[26:24]They then have a prayer, which I don't remember,
[26:26]then being a prayer.
[26:28]And we sit down and we're this,
[26:30]and the next thing I know,
[26:32]the director of the camp comes in and pulls us out.
[26:36]I'm at the wrong reunion.
[26:37]I take him to the wrong reunion, and I'm so proud.
[26:42]Anyway, we went to camp together for a long time.
[26:44]I was a pretty good tennis player at that age.
[26:48]He was two, but as I grew taller,
[26:53]I grew more awkward, so my tennis started to fail.
[26:57]He grew better, so we played in the tennis tournament.
[27:01]We got in the finals of the tennis tournament
[27:02]for the whole camp.
[27:04]And I was ahead way ahead and blew it, and he won.
[27:09]And in the book, I couldn't really remember the story accurately.
[27:15]I think it was an honest mistake in the book I won.
[27:18]And he said to me, Michael, you did not win.
[27:23]And I said, John, when you write a book, you can win.
[27:26]So that was the one thing that was not true.
[27:31]Michael, thank you so much for coming on.
[27:33]Thank you for being here, and thank you for camp.
[27:37]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[27:40]formerly Momstone, I have time to read books.
[27:42]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[27:46]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.
[27:50]Thanks so much.
[27:51]Oh, and bye the books.