BY THE TIME this book is published, my final major attraction project, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, should be pretty darned close to being completed for Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World. Creating, writing, and directing the first ride ever to star Mickey, the mouse that started it all, is truly the perfect ending to my Imagineering fairy tale. It’s the best cherry I can think of to put on top of the sweetest forty-year career I never expected. Sharing the vision and leading this incredible attraction project with me from start to finish are two extraordinary colleagues who have supported me and inspired me every step of the way: Laura Alletag, who by trade is a mechanical engineer but is now our razor-sharp and fearless project manager, and Charita Carter, who started with the company in finance but is currently our talented-theater-and-art-savvy creative producer. That is so Imagineering!

When I started working on Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, my project manager, a young and brilliant up-and-comer named Nick Ross, quickly demonstrated he had the wisdom and management chops of someone twice his age. While minding the store for schedule and budget, he always put creative and story above all else because he knew that was the real value of an Imagineering project. Not yet thirty, Nick could conduct a meeting with twenty people his senior, and with all due respect to them, flat out own the room. Luigi’s was his first attraction flying solo, yet Nick was the best manager that project could have had. After the attraction was completed, I walked away feeling sorry for myself because I didn’t think I’d ever find another Nick Ross. Enter Laura Alletag, who turned out every bit as talented, every bit as wise, every bit an owner of the room, and every bit a keeper and protector of creative and story. And they say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place! What are the odds I’d hit the jackpot with the best project managers and the best project teams ever assembled on my last two attractions out of the box? Rock solid young superstars like Nick and Laura (and others like them) on my current project team give me great hope for the future. Thanks to them I will be able to sleep at night after I retire (not retire as in sleep, retire as in retire) knowing the place will be in excellent hands.

I bring up Nick, Laura, and Charita not only because I adore and admire them but because I know when they started at Imagineering they never dreamed they would be in their current roles knocking it out of the park (or should I say knocking it into the park?) while representing the very best our company has to offer. But that is the gift of Imagineering, the gift that stretches and shapes and polishes you until you fit perfectly into the setting like a precious jewel. Look, everybody, here’s the deal. Even if you think you’re small change, like I did on my first day at WED, if you truly believe in the power of your dreams, if you truly believe the only place you’re going to find success before work is in the dictionary, and if you can get up every day—and slay that fiery dragon of your fears, no matter what anyone tells you to the contrary including yourself—you can make a career out of doing what you love to do. Oh, it won’t happen overnight. But if you keep doing what you’re good at until you discover what you’re even better at, it will happen.

When I look back at my young pre-Imagineering days and think about all of the things I could have been, I feel so blessed I was drawn to the thing I should have been. I’m glad I didn’t become an animator, artist, movie director, TV writer, screenwriter, advertising copywriter, car designer, or songwriter, because when I became an Imagineer, I got to be every one of those things all wrapped up into one. I gave my focus, passion, and dedication to Walt Disney Imagineering, and in return, it gave me the gift of turning all of my interests and hidden talents into a rare and special career—and one with great and important purpose. There has not been a single day when I have not felt honored and thankful for the privilege of getting to do what I’ve been able to do all these years. Not a single day! For those of you who aspire to become an Imagineer, it is indeed a noble and worthy aspiration. But be warned the hours can be long, the pressure can be intense, the travel can be far, the work is hard, the challenges are impossible, and you will love every minute of it. I would not change a minute of it.

Thanks to Imagineering, my imagination has taken me to more places and allowed me to do more things than I could possibly imagine. I’m not a trained writer, and I never went to school with the aspiration to become one. But I’ve written everything from the drink menu at Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar to poems, plaque copy, songs, names for more stuff than I can list, scripts for TV shows, park shows, comedy shows, small and major attractions, CEO speeches, and holy blank sheet of paper—now this book. Thanks to Imagineering, I have traveled to more destinations around the world than anyone could have ever dreamed they’d go. I’ve had a Singapore sling in Singapore and cheese fondue and peppermint schnapps on a hundred-year-old ferryboat in the middle of the Rhine River under a full moon. I’ve lectured many times at the four universities I wanted to attend as a student but couldn’t afford: USC, UCLA, Chapman University, and the California Institute of the Arts. I’ve raced a Corvette, stayed awake all night in three haunted hotels, befriended a dolphin, piloted and landed a 747 (in a flight simulator in England), given a speech to an audience of seven thousand, gotten my kicks on Route 66, taken off (just barely) on a bumpy country road in a small sputtering charter plane with a farmer who wasn’t really a pilot (but pretended to be because the real pilot called in sick), walked the entire length of track at Space Mountain in the middle of the night with the lights on, played the theme song to Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree on my banjo to an audience of three hundred educators, sang and danced in a tux with dazzling showgirls in front of the Disney family and my surprised and shocked Disney leaders, learned about writing from Ray Bradbury, learned about color from John Hench, come up with ideas for attractions that were actually built in Disney parks, not gotten fired every time I should have been, watched a space shuttle launch, and hung out with astronauts, scientists, composers, celebrities, singers, and musicians and rock ’n’ rollers, many of whom I adored as a kid. And get a load of this—I’ve even held in my trembling hands George Washington’s personal diary, written in his hand during the Revolutionary War, and done so much more. Who does this stuff? It all seems so impossible. It all seems like a dream. If it is a dream, for crying out loud, don’t wake me up!

Well, the white-gloved hands on my Mickey watch are telling me it’s almost time to hang up my Imagine-Ears. These past four decades have gone by in the blink of a WDI. It seems like only yesterday I stepped into the 1401 Flower Street lobby on my first terrifying day at WED and noticed the black-and-white picture at the top of the stairs of Walt Disney at Disneyland, the magical place where washing pots and pans led me to Imagineering plots and plans. Maybe it’s my age—or that I’m getting close to enjoying my happily ever after—but these days I find myself reminiscing quite a bit about the many moments of my uncommon career, almost as if my entire Imagineering life is flashing before my eyes. I’ve been remembering and thinking about the “firsts” I experienced, like the first time I was put on hold on the phone and the hold music was a song I wrote. Or when I was in Japan for the first time and my colleague, Jim Elliott, asked a drink-stand owner for a can of Calpis, but when he said it, the L sounded like a W and I said to myself, “Holy cow! What am I getting myself into over here?” Or the first time Patty saw me on TV and exclaimed, “Hey, that’s YOU!”

I’ve been thinking especially about how strange it is that the Disney park I didn’t want to work on at first is now the one that contains the highest concentration of things I’ve worked on, including it’s tough to be a bug!, Flik’s Flyers, Heimlich’s Chew Chew Train, Francis’s Ladybug Boogie, Tuck and Roll’s Drive ’Em Buggies, Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (before it was transformed into Guardians of the Galaxy—Mission: BREAKOUT!), Toy Story Midway Mania!, Cars Land (including Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters, and Radiators Springs Racers), and how they are all on the same piece of land I used to park “Old Unreliable,” my leaky convertible, when I was a dishwasher with big dreams. All of my dreams have come true. If this isn’t the stuff of fairy tales, I don’t know what is.

With special affection, I’ve been retracing the steps I used to take when I’d run around through the confusing maze of hallways exploring and learning everything I could before my break time was over during the early design days of Epcot. I’ll never forget when I first set foot into the magical mother ship of Imagineering and marveled at the attraction posters hanging on the walls in the very place where the attractions themselves were dreamed up and designed. I never could have imagined then—seriously, not in a bazillion years—that many more posters would be added to those walls for attractions I would eventually help to dream up and design.

This morning, in my ongoing reverie, I went to the 1401 Flower Street lobby to stand at the bottom of the stairs and look at the picture of Walt Disney stepping through Sleeping Beauty Castle. “Thanks, Walt,” I whispered. “What a ride!” I stared at that picture for the longest time with heartfelt thanks to Walt for this magic journey and heartfelt thanks to God for Walt. If it weren’t for Walt Disney, there would be no Imagineers. Without the Imagineers, there would be no Disneyland. If there was no Disneyland, I would not have the loving wife I met there, my two beloved sons, my long and rewarding career as an Imagineer, or my dear friends and colleagues, my Imagineering family, past and present.

Last but not least, there would be no little guy jumping up and down at the exit to Radiator Springs Racers so excited about his experience that all he could say was “That was…that was…that was…that was…that was…I never want to leave this place!” I know how you feel, kid. I know how you feel.