An Overnight Success

It’s hard to turn on the TV these days…unless there’s a good game on, or a Seinfeld episode.

Everything seems to be a reality based contest show.  And they are unwatchable.

Mostly, I think I just don’t have any patience or sympathy for many of these ‘contestants’ looking to make it big overnight.  The 16 year old high school student whose lifelong dream is to be a singer.  Lifelong dream?  You’re 16!  First you need to feel the pain of life.

Yea, I know.  I’m turning into an old curmudgeon.

But then I hear a great interview while listening to Howard Stern and it gives me hope that there are people out there willing to put in the time and effort.  Bobby Moynihan was his guest.  He is a Saturday Night Live cast member.  And then you hear his story.  Yes, he was a lifelong fan of SNL, but in order to even get an audition, he prepared himself by acting with the Upright Citizens Brigade for nearly 10 years.  Yes, it took him 10 years to finally achieve his goal.  An overnight success, 10 years in the making.

Of course it always comes back to me and to Snoloha.  Of course it does, why else am I writing this.

Yogi Berra famously said “when you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

There have been many forks in the road as I’ve navigated this entrepreneurial path.  Some have turned out as expected….and others have been dead ends and cliffs.

But the one thing that always stays consistent is the emotional connection and the feeling that folks have with the brand, AND my very original concept and idea for the brand remains in tact.  I’ve tinkered with the original plan, and each ‘tinkering’ has failed.  Each time that I ignored my intuition in order to ‘be open-minded and give it a shot’…my intuition ended up being right.

What scares the hell out of me is

“They’re tryin’ to drink all the punches 
They all may lose their lunches 
Tryin’ to cram lost years into five or six days 
Seems that blind ambition erased their intuition 
Plowin’ straight ahead come what may” – Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle

It’s a long, hard and rough road building a brand from scratch based on a made up word and a very unique concept.  But I can’t imagine trying to find an easier route that takes me to a place where 20 years from now I’m trying to cram lost years into 5 or 6 days, wishing I would have followed my intuition instead.

I’m looking forward to being an overnight success, someday.