“I think, think, think; draw, draw, draw; write, write, write. I am an artist and an author,” Matthias said when he came home one day at the end of his first week in kindergarten. He had drawn pictures since he was three years old. But, from this moment forward, Matthias has claimed his creative space as an artist and an author.

A couple years later, I was putting him to bed one night in late March. I noticed he had paper and drawing supplies in bed with him.

“What’s that?” I asked.“It’s drawing stuff. I’m making a book for mom for Mother’s Day.”

“Really? Wow, that’s still a few weeks away, I’m impressed you’re already working on it.”

“You guys are working on Mother’s Day at the office, so I thought I would work on it too so I’ll have enough time to make the book.”

“That’s awesome. What’s the book?”

“I’m drawing super heroes. Three for every letter of the alphabet.”

“Like, super heroes we already know, or ones you’re making up?”

“I’m making up my own superheroes. It’s a surprise, don’t tell mom.” he answered.

For the next few weeks, everywhere he went he had his superhero book project with him. As Mother’s Day neared he began taking his drawing supplies to bed with him more often.“I have to keep working so I can have it ready,” he told me, sounding like a college student working on a term paper.

“Ok, you’ve been working hard. You can stay up a little late, but only one picture then you need to go to sleep,” I told him. Putting him to bed I was both worried he wasn’t getting enough sleep and proud of his dedication to the project.

As he neared completion, I came up with a what I thought a great idea, “Matthias, what if we take your drawings and get them bound and put a cover on it, so you have a real book to give Mom?”

“Yeah, Mom would like that,” he answered.

“Maybe even we could make a few copies so you have one and we can give a couple to the family? You’ve worked so hard on it, it would be cool to share it. I think they would enjoy it,” I suggested.

A couple days after Mother’s Day (like many first time authors, he missed his deadline by a few days, but it was his first effort and he was only a kid!), we headed over to Staples together to make full color copies and get a cover for his book.

“To do full color copies is ten cents per page plus ten dollars for a cover,” the Staples employee told me.

I thought about the cost, and did some quick math in my head, but decided Matthias’ work and Mother’s Day for Lisa was worth the fifty bucks. “Perfect, when will it be ready?”

“Give us 45 minutes to an hour and we’ll have them for you,” she told me.

Matthias and I decided to run over to the grocery store and get Lisa some flowers to go with her awesome Mother’s Day gift. I was feeling happy with myself. Matthias had put weeks of effort into this project. Lisa was going to love it. We would have copies for the family. This was a win for the Leonard boys.

We went back to pick it up. “Color prints, plus covers for twenty-five copies,” the employee started punching numbers into the cash register. “Eighty pages times twenty-five plus covers…”

I began reworking my mental math, “Wait, how many??” I thought to myself. “That’s not a little under fifty bucks…”

“With tax that comes to $485.32,” she said, interrupting my thoughts.

My stomach sank. In my quick head math earlier, I somehow thought the total would be around $50. I missed something. I tried to look like that was the number I expected and pulled out my debit card to pay. “Oh man, Lisa is going to kill me,” I thought now. How quickly it turns from win to loss! Hopefully she would understand since it was Matthias’s work and we were helping him become the first published author in our family—all to celebrate Lisa.  I paid and we went home. Matthias was beaming.

“Are you happy with how it turned out kiddo?”

“Yeah. Mom’s really going to like this. It looks so good.”

Super Heroes from A to Z, a compendium of seventy-eight original super heroes! The book contained not only pictures and descriptions, but he knew the back story to every character, with detail far surpassing what he put down in the book.

Iguona Guy—”Skills of ignuona. Reptile strong. Chest plate of armer.”

Nine Man—”He has 9 times the strike. Nine punches and your out. His strength comes in numbers.”

Paraliser—“If you look into his eyes you’re out. He controls day and night.”

And our family favorite. Edward, “Edward has no powers and is poor. He has no relationship with his parents.” Explains so much, doesn’t it?

We arrived home and presented the book to Lisa along with the flowers.

“Wow Matthias! I love it. You worked hard on this didn’t you? This is so amazing—I can’t believe you came up with three superheroes for every letter of the alphabet! I love it and I love you.”

“Thanks Mom. I’m happy you like it. We made extra copies so we can give it to the family too.” Lisa hugged and kissed Matthias and he ran off to the other room.

“It was a little more expensive than I thought it would be,” I said tentatively. “Somehow I miscalculated how much all the copies would be together.”

“How much was it? How much were you off?” Lisa asked, her face with a look of surprise.

“Well, I was off by a zero.”

“A zero? What do you mean?”

“I thought it was going to be around fifty bucks—kind of a splurge, but you know, it’s Matthias’ book for you. But it was…”

“It was five hundred!” Lisa interjected, her eyes wide. At the very moment I felt my stomach tense up, she laughed. “Well, the good news is, the family will love it and will be happy to get copies.”

“It’s your most expensive Mother’s Day gift ever—but at least it’s for Matthias’ work.” I suggested. “You’re worth it Baby. So is he.”

“Totally,” she said. I gave her a hug and a kiss, relieved she was happy with her gift and not upset about the money.

To this day Matthias draws and writes and creates worlds and characters who inspire and capture a sense of wonder in the world. Everywhere he goes he carries his drawing materials with him in case we have ten minutes of down time. He still creates heroes and heroines, bad guys, villains and now he’s a teenager, creepy creatures too! He has begun writing down his characters’ back stories, creating worlds and telling stories of outer space, Arthurian legends, teenage boys and more.

Every April I pull out Super Heroes from A to Z to remember those precious days, to reflect on how far he has come as an artist and a person and to see Matthias’s labor of love to celebrate his mom.

Sunday I got to live out a little dream I’ve had since I was Matthias’s age. For months I’ve been bugging my guitar teacher about how I can play music with and for other live human beings. Whether it was at my prompting, or something else, he set up a recital for his students at a local restaurant and got twelve of us out there playing for friends, family and whoever came by.

Lisa came out and brought the boys to support me. She earned wife of the year points, rallying friends of ours to come out and see me play. Matthias took a super sweet photo us and then kept shooting while she tried to get the camera back–it’s been his little joke with us since he was seven years old!

Matthias is getting so big–he looks more like the rock star with me, but I loved having him out there. The best compliment I got was him telling me he thought I sounded good. At 14 he’s prepared to tell me when something’s not good, so I’ll take it!

I was blown away, some friend gathered up their family drove 40 minutes (that’s far away here on the Central Coast of California!) to come see me and made a day of it. It’s a humbling thing to have people turn up to support and encourage you. Especially when it feels risky like playing and singing in public! I’m grateful to the five families that shared their afternoon with us.

When I started playing my set, David ran from the other side of the patio at the restaurant to come find me. So fun–he heard my voice and one of the songs I’ve been practicing at home and knew Dad was playing music! David is super musical. His favorite thing to do is play the various keyboards we have around the house. He often comes in and “joins in” when I’m playing at home.

Beach Hut Deli in Los Osos hosted us. They had great food and provided a fantastic family environment for all of us to hang out and perform our songs. The owner, Heather was super nice and supportive of us all. I love when we can support local businesses!
My teacher, Patrick Pearson, set all this up for us. Twelve of us performed, from seven to eighty years old, from beginner to some guys who shred on the guitar. I had such a blast performing with Patrick and hanging out to support my fellow students. I’ve been taking lessons for a little over a year now, and singing and playing a couple songs for and audience was definitely the next level. It’s funny how something so small can feel so big and intimidating. And yet, as evidenced by our group, it’s never too early and never too late to start. It doesn’t matter what stage of development you’re at, the more you practice and learn the better you get. There might be a bigger lesson there for all of us.

The path to your greatest success is through your greatest fear.

An imaginary force masquerading as danger, fear can hold us back, hinder our dreams, and act as an invisible barrier to the things we want. When our boys were little, we loved to read What Was I Scared Of? By Dr. Seuss. The Seussian creature main character (what is he anyway?!) strolls in the woods one evening when he shockingly encounters a Pair of Pale Green Pants with Nobody Inside Them. Not given to fear, our hero tells us, he is understandably shaken up by this aberrant creature floating before him. Then the PGPWNIT move, “They kind of started jumping. And then my heart, I must admit, It kind of started thumping.” Still unafraid, our hero runs. Don’t judge. I don’t know about you, but if I met a pair of floating pants jumping up and down in a dark wood, I would run too! And it doesn’t end there. The pants nearly run him over while buying Grin-itch spinach in Gin-itch. Again, he encounters the pants on Roover River fishing for Doubt Trout. By now our hero is willing to admit he’s frightened—screaming and running away as fast as he can. Who can blame him? Are the PGPWNIT stalking him? Everywhere he turns the PGPWNIT show up. So, he hides. In a Brickel bush. For two days. The only reason he finally comes out of hiding—a nagging errand on his to do list. He has to “pick a peck of Snide in a dark and gloomy Snide-field.” We’ve all been there.

Picking snide, his body shaking, confronting his fears, he summons his courage,

I said, “I do not fear pants

With nobody inside them.”

I said, I said, and said, those words.

I said them. But I lied them.

And then it happens—he reaches into a snide bush and touches the pants!

I yelled for help.

I screamed, I shrieked.

I howled, I yowled. I cried,

“Oh save me from these pale green pants

With nobody inside!”

In the midst of his shrieking terror, face to face with his greatest fear, he realizes the PGPWNIT are as afraid of him as he is of them! The pants are shaking and trembling as much as he is. Realizing the fear is in his head not the PGPWNIT, he decides to embrace them and they “become friends, meeting often, never shaking or trembling, but smiling and saying ‘Hi.’”

I love What Was I Scared Of? for the way it illustrates how we make up stories about people and our circumstances and let our minds get carried away—especially when we don’t understand something. I remember my big writing project from seventh grade, the Last Chance project. We had to write a story about our class taking a space ship to another planet and what we would do to create a new civilization. I did not understand the assignment. And it was huge for our grade. I spent a lot of time and energy avoiding the paper. It was my own PGPWNIT. Eventually, I sat down, read the assignment and start writing. We didn’t become fast friends that Last Chance project and I, but I did complete it and survived the experience.

I am continually learning to recognize when something scares me—especially something I need or want to do and to face it like those PGPWNIT. In my mid 30’s I decided I wanted to get a doctoral degree in theology. Despite my transition from ministry to business in the middle of the program, I saw it through, got through my dissertation and earned the degree. At 40 I realized I needed to exercise regularly to be there for my kids and Lisa. I joined a gym with a built-in accountability system of appointments to help me show up. I’m proud to say I’ve consistently worked out 4-5 times per week for four years. This past year I embraced my life-long love of music and started guitar and bass lessons. I’m not great, but I enjoy playing. Many times over the past decade in business, when things seemed scary, dark, uncertain, instead of shying away, I faced my deep fears and found a way forward. One of the scariest things I’ve done recently is to reach out to a group of guys I know in my gym class to grab a beer together. Men typically are not as good at getting together as our wives. And, I have faced the daily realities of raising a son with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome–his surgeries, his extra care, and the scares of nearly losing him to illness.

In each and every case, I looked my metaphorical PGPWNIT in the eyes and,

I said, “I do not fear pants

With nobody inside them.”

I said, I said, and said, those words.

I said them. But I lied them.

My heart thumping, screaming and shrieking inside, I went to the gym for the first time. I applied and interviewed for my doctoral program and finished my dissertation (It felt like my Last Chance paper all over again in my 30’s). Feeling like a fraud I showed up for my first guitar lesson. Feeling like I was high school boy asking a girl on a first date I asked the guys, “Hey, you guys think you’d ever be interested to grab a beer together?” They said yes! And, engulfed in fear, I have shown up for my family and my son to face the realities of Cornelia de Lange Syndrome.

I don’t know what your PGPWNIT is. Maybe it’s a dream, a project at work, a hobby you want to take up, or even the fears around facing a chronic illness. You probably have your own PGPWNIT following you around your Grin-itch village where you live. Danger is real. Fear is in your head. The path to your greatest success is through your greatest fear. Turn and engage your fear. Take a step toward your dream. Start your hobby. Show up for yourself, or your loved one, facing illness.  After all, your PGPWNIT and you just might become friends, meeting often, never shaking or trembling, but simply smiling and saying hi.

The path to your greatest success is through your greatest fear. What fear do you need to face?

I was angry. Who in the world did this guy think this he was? Lisa and I were already three hours into our four hour journey to UCLA to meet with David’s heart surgeon about his upcoming surgery. Our boys, David and Matthias, were in the back seat of the car and we were well into the trip when the office called. The woman on the phone informed Lisa the surgeon cancelled our appointment as he didn’t come into the office today. Really? Who schedules a pre-operation appointment and then waits to cancel with the patient at noon on the day of the appointment? David was going in for open heart surgery to repair a cushion defect and defective valve—one of his medical conditions resulting from Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. You could say we were a little anxious. I decided then and there I was going to give this surgeon a piece of my mind when we saw him the following week at the newly made appointment time.

The following week we again loaded up the car for the four hour journey from our home down to UCLA. This time, we called the office multiple times to verify the appointment before we got on the road. A week had passed since the enraging phone call, so I had to remind myself how mad I was at this surgeon. I had never met him before, but after his shenanigans the week before, I questioned whether this guy was responsible enough to handle my son’s heart surgery. After all, if he can’t keep his schedule straight, how can he be any good as a surgeon?

We waited in the office and finally were taken back into the consult rooms. A nurse came in and took David’s height, weight and blood pressure. Then we waited. I didn’t feel angry anymore about the cancellation a week earlier, so I had to work to be ready to confront the surgeon when the time came for me to voice my irritation over his lack of consideration and potential lack of competence. It’s hard to be angry when you’re in a reasonably good mood, so I had work at it a bit. At least I was stressed by the very nature of the visit, so that gave me a little negativity to draw on.

The moment of truth arrived. The surgeon knocked and entered the room. They say you never have a second chance at a first impression. In his case, my first impression has lasted in my mind for many years. As he stepped into the room I noticed his scrubs—not uncommon for surgeons to wear around the hospital between surgeries. But my eyes were immediately drawn to his white tennis shoes—out of date, funky soles, neither utilitarian nor stylish. They are the type of shoe hipsters began wearing ironically a few years later—which did not make them hip at the time. Then my eyes were drawn to his mussed, bouffant hairstyle. Truthfully he had probably come from surgery, having removed his surgical cap his hair showing the signs of a morning spent saving another child’s life. Of course, that wasn’t the narrative in my head when I saw Dr. Cardio Surgeon. To me, his hair and his shoes were further signs this was not the guy to handle my son’s heart.

And then there was his awkward manner. As he entered, he looked like a junior high actor unsure of how to move across the stage, unsure of what to do with his hands while people watched him. Each step was functional with a touch of conscious effort to get him from the doorway to the chair where he eventually sat down. I continued to build my case against him. He had offended me and was showing clear signs of incompetence in my mind.

He introduced himself and performed a rote reviewed of David’s case. He transitioned without so much as a breath into the procedure. With technical jargon I can no longer remember, he described how he would make a cut down the front of David’s chest and divide the breastbone to reach the heart. They would connect him to a heart-lung machine to pump his blood and act as his lungs during the surgery so he could remove David’s heart. He would need to enter the heart and patch the ventricular septal defect (holes in the wall of David’s heart). Then he would put everything back together and close him up. Imagine if Mr. Spock (the original Leonard Nimoy Spock, not Zachary Quinto’s Spock) explained precisely how he was going to open up your seven year old’s chest and repair his heart and you may have some idea what it was like, though Dr. Cario Surgeon lacked Spock’s human touch.

Then he asked if we had any questions. We asked a number of clarifying questions—mostly “Are you really hooking David up to machines to breathe and circulate his blood while you remove his heart?!” in different forms. We asked him how difficult this surgery was for him. He rated it a two out of ten. To us it felt like an eleven. In the midst of this meeting, I realized it would be no use to point out Dr. Cardio Surgeon’s offense at cancelling our appointment last minute. Like Darth Vader, he was “more machine now than man.” I am confident he would have listened and heard my complaint. I am confident the human subtleties of slight would not have computed for him.

A few weeks later, it was time for Halloween and David’s surgery. We spent the anxious hours of the surgery distracting ourselves around the UCLA campus from the stressful reality of David lying in an operating room with chest opened. When he finished the surgery and came to give us his post-op report, we were so elated and relieved the surgery was successful, Lisa couldn’t help but reach out and touch his arm in gratitude. He looked down at her hand and then up at her. He didn’t move other than slowly connecting the hand on his shoulder to its owner. His face didn’t change, he barely moved a muscle, but he simultaneously looked surprised by the contact and like he understood this is a positive gesture. We spent more time with Dr. Cardio Surgeon over the next couple weeks as David recovered in the hospital. Without fail, every other time we saw him, Dr. Cardio Surgeon had at least two other doctors with him. Often they did more talking than he did. He seemed to prefer to do rounds when people were less likely to be around.

Along the way, Lisa’s sister researched Dr. Cardio Surgeon and found he is among the best pediatric cardio thoracic surgeons in the world. He is a world class expert with world class skill. I could have made a big deal and even insisted on another surgeon to operate on our beloved David. Ultimately, who would I rather have open my son’s chest and handle his heart? Someone who’s polite, has his schedule dialed in and wears nice clothes? No way. I’ll take Dr. Cardio Surgeon every time.

We have faced a lot of things since this surgery. Our boys have been sick. Our business had a drastic downturn and we almost closed it down. We’ve experienced intense, rocky relationships with vendors and business associates. Our marriage came close to imploding. And more. Very little of any of these stresses compares with the stress of this experience, knowing someone holds your child’s heart in their hands. Watching David’s surgery, his determination and resilience in recovering, puts many things in life into perspective. And there is no one I would rather have holding David’s heart than Dr. Cardio Surgeon. It goes to show, while you may only have one chance to make a first impression, first impressions are often wrong. Who else have I misjudged? The barista I thought slighted me, who was simply coping with her breakup the night before? The quiet employee I overlooked because I failed to see her consistent and great work? The friend I falsely believed didn’t want to listen to my struggles? Sometimes the person we see as our enemy turns out to be our ally and the best person for the job.

We have long dreamed of the opportunity to craft our product in a sustainable way while creating jobs in the U.S. This year, with the support of you, our loyal customers, we have been able to secure a facility and a team with decades of experience in handcrafting quality product. This facility will allow us to create new manufacturing jobs and carry forward our vision of creating handmade, meaningful product to share a message of hope. We are humbled and thrilled to have this opportunity and we know we wouldn’t be in this position without you, our community.

Early in 2017 the opportunity arose for Lisa and me to purchase Bob Siemon Designs. Founded in 1970 out of the back of Bob’s van, Bob Siemon Designs is recognized as the Christian retail industry’s leading jewelry designer and manufacturer. Since the purchase, we’ve founded Leonard Craft Co and set up shop in a 5 acre, 80,000 square foot building in Santa Ana, California where we now design and handcraft product for Bob Siemon Designs, Stephen David Leonard and Lisa Leonard Designs for worldwide distribution. We are tremendously grateful to invest in American manufacturing in our home state of California. As I’ve written about before, I believe in business as a vehicle to add value to the world rather than taking it.

Lisa and I just returned home from a fantastic visit to Leonard Craft Co. We saw the infectious joy of our team as we are now in the throes of the Christmas Season. This time of year is busy for us as we handcraft each piece, fulfill orders and respond to customer needs. It’s our favorite time of year as we experience the buzz of excitement for the Christmas Season. I am always humbled to have the privilege to participate in people’s Christmas celebrations by being a part of the creation of their meaningful and personal gifts.
Over the years, leading Lisa Leonard Designs, and now Stephen David Leonard, I have heard stories of necklaces and rings and cuffs representing newborn babies, lost loved ones and newfound hope and inspiration. Not long ago I met a woman at a conference I was attending who happened to be wearing a necklace from Lisa Leonard Designs. She told me how this necklace was a precious reminder to her of her family. Her sister gave her the necklace after she lost her third child. The necklace was hand stamped with her family’s names—hers, her husband and their three children. As she shared her journey, the woman gently and unknowingly touched the necklace almost as a physical connection to her children. I have heard these stories from our customer service representatives and handcrafters while they work diligently to get an order to a customer in time for Christmas, or a wedding, a funeral, or a celebration. Our people care so much and it truly touches our hearts to hear how much these pieces are loved and cherished.
All in all, 2017 has been an exciting year for us. Thanks to the support of customers like you, we are building Lisa Leonard Designs, Stephen David Leonard, Bob Siemon Designs and Leonard Craft Co. to sustain quality, handmade, American manufacturing. Lisa and I are committed to create product to inspire you in your journey—to live brave, risk and step into the life God created you to live.

Do you have a necklace or ring that inspired you? I’d love to hear!