If you have ever spent any time with me you have probably heard my story about the character signatures at Disney World.  When my kids were younger they were huge Disney fans, as most kids are.  Over the years we have spent many days in Disney World and Disneyland and on all the Disney Cruise Ships.

However, for this story I am going to go way back to when my kids were 3 and 5.  They were both crazy about meeting the Disney Characters at the Parks and on the ships.  We spent countless hours in-line waiting for a few minutes with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and all the rest of their pals.

As we were packing up to head home from one of our early trips I was carefully putting the kids autograph books into a bag so that they wouldn’t get beat up on the road trip home.  As I was putting one of the books away a slip of what I thought was paper fell out of the back of the book onto the hotel room floor.

I had no idea what it was.  When I picked it up I realized that it was a page of stickers of the various character signatures.  Looking at the stickers my first thought was this is weird.  Why would they do that.  When I opened the autograph book I was amazed that the signatures signed by the characters were identical matches to the stickers.

I was totally blown away!!!  Disney is famous for their attention to detail and focus on creating magic but to me this was just totally over the top.  In order to be Mickey Mouse, you had to learn to sign your name the way Mickey Mouse does!!!  Every kid no matter what park or cruise ship who got a Mickey Mouse autograph got the same signature!

The lesson here? Each and every one of us is responsible for creating experiences for others. Whether you are a parent, an employee, an entrepreneur or a leader, you have the opportunity to create amazing experiences for those around you.  What small ways can you create magic for those in your life that they will remember forever?  Sometimes the biggest impact can come from the smallest detail (like the character signatures).  

It is really easy to move through life on cruise control, or focused on our own “stuff”.  I would encourage you to slow down and take some time to see how you can create some magic of your own within your circle of influence.

Now my kids are 17 and 19 so we have not spent much time in character lines in the last few years so I cannot say 100% if this tradition continues.   One of these days I will go wait in line to get my picture with and an autograph from Goofy (my personal favorite) and pull out one of the kids old autograph books to see if the signature still match all these year later.  I sure hope it still does!