charlie brown cash man
3 things I tell myself as I start my business
“Good grief!” - Charlie Brown
I can see the worn white tile floor of the old A&P supermarket. Long gone. Demolished ages ago. I was there with my dad. Thursday evening. On one of his infamous discount-meat-runs! ‘Look at all that steak! 50% off!’ The memory is vivid. It was the day Charles Schulz died. The creator of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. He was seventy-seven years old. Wildly successful. Syndicated globally.
And as we approached the check-out, with hands full of cold packaged meat, my dad piped up, ‘You know what I heard?’ he said. He always had the pulse on the daily dish. Talk radio his pipeline. CFRB - 1010 in the know! ‘Charles Schulz made over a billion dollars on his cartoons!’
Cartoons. Comics. Movies. Merch.
1 BILLION DOLLARS worth (!!!)
My dad turned to me.
‘You could do that son.’
I was in grade ten. Gangling. Goofy. A pie-in-the-sky angsty dreamer. A puree of naivety and eagerness. The idea was inspirational! Write. Draw. Create. Sell. Make money. The kind of life - even at 15 - that I longed to live. Creative freedom. Creative sustainability. Creative success!
The idea struck. Stuck. Seeded.
Germinated over weeks and months. And months turned to years. And years turned to decades. The idea still in ground. Never sprouted.
It seemed so simple at 15 years old. Make stuff and share it with the world. But I could have never imagined the challenges, inner hurdles, blockades, insecurities, holdbacks, holdups, and hesitancies that I would face just starting ANYTHING. Let alone a billion dollar empire!
I have found it to be far easier to stay in harbour. Never leave port. To give up before I even started. How does the saying go? ‘It’s better to not try - than to try - and fail.’ (There is no such saying. I just made it up!)
But no more.
Not this time.
Now is the moment.
Whether I am ready or not.
This week I launched my first real product: STORY-IN-A-BOX. A DIY story kit complete with prompts, supplies, and ideas to help craft a unique and imaginative story. ‘Passion Meets Process!’ That’s what I’m selling. I want to share my passion for storytelling along with an easy-to-follow process of putting a story together.
And after all these years of waiting, I am finally going for it.
And here’s what I’ve learned so far. Three things I tell myself when I want to run back to safe harbour:
YOU CAN FAIL. You can fail. You can lose money. Loose contacts. Drop contracts. Make mistakes. Make bad choices. Botch deliveries. Miscalculate shipping costs. You can totally suck! Do you know why?
YOU CAN TRY AGAIN. Failing isn’t the end. Failing doesn’t mean the end. There’s no catastrophe or disaster in failing. Even catastrophes and disasters aren’t the end. In fact, failing is necessary! You learn an awful lot from failing. It isn’t personal. It’s not an indictment of your humanity or identity or self-worth. Do you know why?
PEOPLE COME FIRST. Nothing is more important than people. Not people-as-products. Or clients. Or consumers. People-as-people. Your kids, friends, family, strangers, neighbours at the door. Those fly-by interruptions always interrupt your flow. Nothing is more important than people: including YOU. You are allowed to fail and try again because your humanity is more important than any business venture.
I’m one product in. It looks so lonely on my website (www.chasinglion.com/shop). But I couldn’t be more excited.
Here’s you Charlie Brown Cash Man.
You old blockhead.
-amos
