As you already know, Tommywants will be attending the upcoming Surf Expo in Orlando, FL August 20-22.  We have been eagerly anticipating this show for months, and are coming down the stretch until our departure on the 17th.  We have a lot riding on this show, and I’m sure it will be a success!

For the past few weeks, we have been busy making preparations for the show.  First on the list was to tackle the 145 page buyer list for the show in order to compile a targeted buyer list.  I am happy to report that I’m finally finished.  All told, I have compiled 8 pages of buyers!  From this list, I had to choose just 50 to send postcards to (the “fantastic fifty” so to speak).  We have also been busy brainstorming ideas for new product for Spring/Summer 10’.  We are excited to be offering our new short britches, a.k.a. “Buccaneer Britches.”  Our new britches will be a bermuda style twill short offered in Khaki and Sand (cuter names will be forthcoming), and will be available for both “He-Crabs” and “She-Crabs.”  For Spring/Summer 10’ we will also be offering our Sunwashed Red and Snow Crab White colors for the girls polos.  For the boys, we are adding Morey Green!  Finally, we’ve been ordering mannequins and garment racks, and getting artwork ready for our aprons (yes, I said aprons).

Tommywants is obviously a coastal-inspired brand, so we had this idea to create a “fish market” theme for our flagship retail store “Tommywants Fresh Market” (thinking BIG…I know!).  So, to play off this theme, we are having fish market aprons screen printed with our crab and some other artwork (cute, I think) for the show.  We are also making signs (the ones you see in the fish case) hand-written in magic marker with the “market price!”  Hopefully people will “get it.”  All this talk of seafood is making me hungry.  I see a fire, crab, and cold beverages in my future.  Until then, keep…

Swimming against the tide,
Capt. Tommy

Like most adolescents, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I “grew up!”  I did know however, that I did not want a job that involved “manual labor!  I figured this out while visiting my mother one hot summer in Seymour, Indiana.  My mom and step-father lived on a few acres, which was surrounded with a wooden horse fence.  My step-father reasoned that if he forced me to paint this horse fence with a little paintbrush and some tar, I would so detest manual labor that I would grow up to be a doctor or lawyer or such!  Well, his plan worked (sort of – more on this in a later post).  As they wished, I graduated from high school and entered college where I proceeded to major in criminal justice.

I quickly realized that if I wanted to make any money at all, I had to go to law school (prison guards and police officers don’t make very much).  And so, that’s exactly what I did.  For me, law school was a turning point in my life.  I always figured I was fairly smart, but I never really applied myself.  Well, in law school, you have no choice but apply yourself.  For the first time in my life I was really tested.  The workload was enormous…the amount of reading, copious.  By the time I was done, I felt like a different person.  Think of it like boot camp for your mind.  I began thinking on a whole other level.  I was more analytical, and to my surprise creative!

After law school, I did what most law school graduates do, I took the bar exam and got a job practicing law in a private practice.  You would think that I would be happy right?  I had achieved everything that I had set out to do.  I persevered through seven years of school (all while being married I might add), and attained a coveted place among the four pillar professions.  But something wasn’t right…I wasn’t happy.  Soon after my employment as an associate attorney I began reading biographies of leading entrepreneurs.  One of the earliest of which was Sharing the Wealth: My Story, by Alex Spanos.  After reading this book, something happened inside of me.  It was like a lightbulb went off or something.  I became fascinated with this idea that you could take a risk, dare to dream, and build something of lasting importance.  And you could do all of this while having fun!  I had always been somewhat introspective, but after law school and after I began reading stories of successful entrepreneurs I began wondering what my place was in this world.  I began asking myself what the limits of my human potential were?

And so, with the switch now “ON,” I set out determined to find my calling…my business.  I began keeping a journal of business ideas (someday, after I’ve made it, I’ll share some of them with you…pretty funny stuff).  Some were good, some were not; but all were creative.  This was when I really began to realize that I was a creative person.  For the first time in my life I thought of myself as creative – and I thrived on it!  And then, it happened…my “aha moment!”  I have already written on this a bit in the past, so I’ll leave it for a later post.  Until then, keep…

Swimming against the tide,
Capt. Tommy

June 17, 2009

Recently, I sat down with an old friend that I haven’t seen in close to fifteen years.  We reconnected via Facebook and Twitter this past year.  Somewhat of a social media junkie, he graciously dispensed some advice regarding increasing brand awareness among the various networking mediums.  He said the companies that are so endearing are the ones that never boast of themselves, but that provide their customers/fans with interesting and meaningful material.

So, armed with this advice, I’ve decided to provide others with a rare glimpse of a day-dreaming attorney who traded partnership for entrepreneurship.  What will follow in the coming weeks will be small snapshots of otherwise lengthy chapters of a book entitled Swimming Against the Tide, from Partnership to Entrepreneurship.  It would be my hope that the material to come may be of some inspiration to those that are contemplating their launch on the voyage to the privileged life.  We’ll talk soon.  In the meantime, keep the faith that you will prevail while confronting the most brutal facts of reality; and, keep swimming against the tide!

Capt. Tommy

From Earnshaws Magazine
July  2009

Link to the Article