My younger son and I were walking across the field to soccer practice over the weekend when he told me “Papa, I know why cartoon characters are able to walk across the chasm without falling.”
Entire books have been devoted to Crossing the Chasm, but I wanted to make sure we were both talking about the same thing.
“You mean walk off a cliff, walk on air without falling, and get to the other side?” I asked.
“Yes! Do you know how they do it?” he said, barely able to avoid giving me the truth before I gave my answer.
“How?” You have to be the straight man.
“They don’t look down!”
And because I spend most of my time in an entrepreneurial frame of reference I thought, what a great metaphor for most start-ups. If they knew how hard it would actually be and what the odds were, fewer would attempt it. Many succeed by focusing on the goal, not the risks.
Related Blog Posts
- Doug Merritt’s “Laws of Cartoon Physics” has as it’s first law: Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes over.
- Wikipedia Cartoon Physics
- Things I Have Learned from My Children
- The Likely Consequences of Entrepreneurship Require Perseverance
- Purpose, Patience, Politeness, and Prudent Risk Taking
- Cultivating Calmness in a Crisis
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