Crossing the Chasm Using Cartoon Physics
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 acceleration 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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