Inspiration for the Sole

This week Tami and I met Brian Adams, the director of the Scleroderma Foundation and his receptionist, Joanne, who suffers from the awful disease, and suddenly my microcosm expanded beyond my petty ambitions and I became acutely aware of the reason Tami and I started this business in the first place. We wanted to do something meaningful.

"The Scleroderma Foundation" it sounds so imposing. The website is sleek. The organization is the preeminent foundation for raising money and supporting families who suffer from this disease. But pull back the curtain, and voila, Wizard of Oz foolery, behind the illusion is a single overworked man and his receptionist in a half painted office in Culver City with a couple of salvaged desks. Two mere mortals racing against time to fund research to help thousands of sufferers and their families.

Tami and I were introduced to the Scleroderma Foundation because one of Tami's friends has a daughter, Lexi, who was diagnosed with systemic scleroderma when she was fifteen. For those of you unfamiliar with scleroderma, it is a chronic condition that causes inflammation and thickening of the skin. The disease is progressive and debilitating and there is no cure. But until I walked into that ragtag office and met Joanne, who unlike Lexi is in the later stages of the disease, I hadn't made the visceral connection between the foundation raising money and what the money is needed for.

You see, I forgot.

I forgot that I am one of the lucky ones.

And I forgot what it’s like to be one of the unlucky ones.

Eight years ago, my daughter, who was five at the time, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, an almost always fatal kidney cancer.

But I am one of the lucky ones. They were mistaken. Six days after the initial diagnosis, the death sentence was reversed. It turned out that my daughter actually had Wilm’s tumor, a kidney cancer with a 95% survival rate.

She is now thirteen, and minus one kidney, perfectly healthy.

I am one of the lucky ones. Not only was hers the "good" cancer, it was also one of the cancers that had been figured out in the last thirty years. A generation earlier and she wouldn't have survived.

I wonder if thirty years ago there was a Brian and a Joanne in a half painted office pounding the pavement for research funds so my daughter could live.

Shoe accessories. It's a small idea. Very small indeed, only a little over an inch tall and wide, but sell enough of them and perhaps a grant gets funded that unlocks a cure. The LiveStrong bracelet was the brainchild of an advertising agency who asked Nike to manufacture yellow silicone wristbands and sell them in their outlets to raise money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. The bands sell for $5 apiece, and since 2004, 70 million have been sold. That's a lot of money going toward the fight against cancer, a lot of hope for a lot of people, a lot of daughters like my own possibly saved. All from a small idea someone had about wearing yellow.

Soaring with Angels

Hello again, I just returned from the Angels game with my daughter, and light up the halo, it was a blowout for the home team who has had a season plagued with setbacks.  They are now two games up in the win/loss column and seven and a half games behind Texas - insurmountable odds most would say.

I disagree. Most teams - stick a fork in them, they're done - but these are the Angels, the comeback kids, Scioscia's boys, and the way they played tonight showed the never-quit heart they're famous for. Other teams might be counting them out, sports reporters might be counting them out, some of their fans might even be counting them out, but what's most important is that they're not counting themselves out.

And this is where I believe success lies - audaciousness - belief in oneself even against enormous odds. Because someone does win, someone does become Carrie Underwood, J.K. Rowlings, Kendry Morales - and their stories are amazing because of the audacity each of them had to believe that a country farmgirl, a welfare mom, a Cuban refugee, could become a superstar, a bestselling author, an all star baseball player - that a team seven and a half games behind the imperious Rangers can still win the pennant.

So, why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because Grafeeti isn't my first venture - I've had a dozen others, a dozen other attempts to do something bigger than plodding forward in my daily routine. Some attempts have been moderately successful, others have failed, and so when Tami and I decided to dip our toes into entrepreneurialism again, I was tentative. My husband wondered, "Not again. What this time? How much is this going to cost?" And self doubt shadowed my enthusiasm and dampened the youthful audacity that drove me head on into my earlier ventures.

So tonight as I watched rookie Bobby Wilson, a catcher who was only in the lineup to relieve Jeff Mathis, hit two homers and drive in five runs to inch the Angels back into contention, and as I watched Hideki Matsui, a craggy veteran who's having his worst season ever, go four for four, I got inspired. I said to myself, "Who'd have thunk?" But that's the whole point.  No one would have thunk the old man and the young kid would come through, except for them, and in the end, that's all that really mattered. The only thing that counted was that they stepped to the plate and swung for the fences. 

I always tell my kids, "Shoot for the moon and you might just hit a star" and "You can't win if you don't play."  Mom rhetoric we all learn in Good Parenting 101. But why is that advice reserved for our youth? Why when a forty-something decides to become a rock star or an Olympian - or two moms decide to make a difference in the world with shoe accessories - does it seem kooky or indulgent? True, the odds become increasingly stacked against us as we get older, as success and stardom smiles brighter on youth, but is there any harm in stepping to the plate and taking a swing?

My life is blessed - I am an architect, an author, a mother and a wife. I live in a beautiful home, I am healthy, I have friends and family who love me. I don't need to do this. There is a greater chance of failure than success. I could end up embarrassed and having to explain my failure when people ask me about the shoe charm business I started a few years back.

But I've decided to step to the plate and take a swing. The climb is exhilarating, if we succeed, I will leave a deeper imprint in my wake, and although it needs a good dusting, my audaciousness still exists and is thrilled to be roused from a long hibernation. Perhaps my lasso won't capture the moon, but tonight on the wings of Angels I soared toward the stars, and for a moment believed, as I used to when I was a child, that anything, everything, anything is possible.

Knocking on Doors

Hello, this is my first blog so I will bring you up to speed quickly. My name is Suzanne, and a year ago, my girlfriend, Tami, and I decided it was time to do something meaningful with our lives (beyond our beautiful five children, who now in their teenage years are anxious to no longer be the single focus of their mothers' attention). So combining our talents of architect, graphic designer, author, marketing manager and salesperson, we developed a shoe accessory company called Grafeeti.

We have a very symbiotic partnership - TC is very social and great with people, while I on the other hand am a creative hermit who would rather sit here chatting to nobody in cyberspace than go for coffee with another living organism.

Our business got off to a great start. Within a month we had developed our first product, a line of pewter shoe charms engraved with West African tribal symbols designed to inspire the wearer. A percent of the proceeds was earmarked for Hope for West Africa, a foundation working to eradicate AIDS. The product was designed specifically for Tilly's, a west coast retailer with whom TC had a connection.  The buyers were reluctant, but the foot in the door technique worked, and after a month of pursuit, they put us on their e-commerce site. The product was developed for the Vans, Converse wearing crowd and can be worn on hoodies, sneakers, cleats, board shorts or any other shoelace that needs inspiration.

We launched a grass roots campaign to let our friends know the product was there, and leave it to love, support and ideas came streaming in. Since we obviously couldn't expect our limited supply of supporters to continue to purchase Grafeeti from Tilly's in order to make us appear successful, we decided we needed to expand our horizons.

The Tilly's e-experience brought to light two aspects of our product we hadn't originally recognized.  First, we realized that the product is extremely flexible. A friend asked us for some custom Grafeeti and in two weeks she had 40 lacrosse charms for her team. The second was, we realized how powerful e-commerce can be.

Back to our mission - partner with organizations to raise money for worthy causes while providing quality products that express the sole. We started a campaign focused on non-profits, specifically run/walk organizations (how perfect, right? - inspirational shoe charms for run/walk participants trying to make a difference). The idea is a Grafeeti e-flyer is sent along with the run/walk information. A participant clicks on the e-flyer to go to a website where they can purchase Grafeeti that commemorates their participation. Twenty-five percent of the proceeds goes to the organization.

We've now knocked on twenty-three organizations' doors (called, navigated the labyrinth of each organization to find the right contact, created custom proposals for each foundation, filled out sponsorship forms, followed up, followed up, followed up) and finally some doors are beginning to creak open. It's been a slow process, (Thomas Edison was right, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."), but we keep plugging, because to be honest, I love it. Hope is a powerful high.  Since we started this venture, each night I go to sleep thinking about the possibilities of tomorrow.

Next week, we have several presentations lined up and fingers crossed that the foundations we are meeting with will share our enthusiasm and vision.  Also in the next couple of months we are launching our first two campaigns, the first with the National Junior Basketball League and the second with the Scleroderma Foundation.

A year has been invested, three hundred and sixty-five days of ideas pursued, a stronger friendship with a good friend forged, experience gained, and tomorrow... tomorrow more doors will open and we will change the world.