Having these first 4 bags on hand creates a new opportunity… Something that we couldn’t do before. We’re finally able to show our work. For all this time that we’ve been working on Badass Backpacks, we’ve not had very many days with an actual backpack, one of OUR backpacks, in our hands — one that we can show to people when we get a chance to talk about our project.
I spent the early part of Saturday this weekend at the 2015 Austin Walk for Apraxia… We were there as part of “Team Cole” – (Eric and his wife Haley were the top fundraising team for the event — WAY TO GO ERIC!!!) I met a new person at the event, Robert. He had heard that Eric was working on Badass Backpacks, but “he hadn’t had a chance to see one yet”. 🙂 Well, yes, that’s due mostly to the fact that even WE ourselves hadn’t seen one until recently. (reference below posts about our first 4 bags) Our first design, our first fully baked pattern, constructed using printed fabric, as part of an official production run. It’s here. It’s ready to be shown to the world… and as excited as I am, I continue to be very freaked out by this moment of sharing.
I posted earlier about Derek Sivers’ call to action: to be careful about “talking” up your goals as if it’s stuff that’s already complete. A warning worth heeding. But when you finally reach the finish line… when you have a product that you intend to start selling — well, this is different. This is precisely the time when I feel that I SHOULD talk about what we’re doing!
So there we were, at Eric’s house, after a beautiful morning in the park — a lunch party with Team Cole, and this new follower named Robert. Robert’s enthusiasm to ask me questions about Badass Backpacks warmed my heart. I love talking about this project. And with my children draped all over me, heavily interrupting our conversation, Robert stood patiently with a smile and with excitement as he rattled through questions about all of it. And Eric’s bag (bag #3) is sitting right there. “This is it. This is our first bag.” The fear I held with me in that conversation was, of course, completely misguided. Robert smiled and talked with excitement as he held the bag, thought about the bag, and asked questions about the bag. A quick thank you here to Robert — I don’t think he realizes that he is one of the very first people outside of my team to see the bag — and he’s certainly the first to persevere through such a long and tedious conversation about what it is that we want to create… I left Eric’s party with a grin. And a huge weight beginning to be lifted. It’s time to start sharing more about this bag. And all my fears that people will not like it, or my fears that people will notice all of the features that we wanted to fit into this bag that we weren’t able to make happen, or my fears that people will think I’m crazy… are all a little bit silly.
In Seth Godin’s book, The Icarus Deception, he begs of the reader to consider having the courage to make something, and to then have the guts to say, “here, I made this”. I have been propelled through my journey to make this first bag by that call to action — When I read this post of Seth’s (shortly after having finished The Icarus Deception) I became even more excited… 2+ years later, now I’m in a new place, preparing to launch. And now the words that Seth uses seem spot on: “difficult, scary, frightening”. Or the words that Hugh uses (referenced here): “This is it… is terrifying” — uhm, yes, exactly.
But I have to get over that. Time to step into it — time to leap. Time to share: because it’s ready.
