FormFire Glassworks

Photo Discovery Channel

The Harris family, Deadliest Catch fans and Discovery channel have lost a larger-than-life character, Captain Phil Harris. Captain Phil passed away from a stroke on Tuesday, according to his sons Jake and Josh, who also star on the show. But for those who watched the show, that gruff, tattooed, chain-smoking man was also an amazing leader and true-to-his-values father. He took responsibility for his actions, and expected no less from his crew and kids. He was the embodiment of perseverance, clinging tenaciously to the fishing life he had always known while doing what he could to deal with mounting health problems.

Perseverance is a quality that we hope for in ourselves and try to instill in our children. In the world of the home-based business, it is a must. You can’t throw in the towel if everything doesn’t go exactly the way you envisioned. You figure out your mistaken premises, make a few shifts, and try again. For example, I started out my glass business as an Etsy-based collection of decent beads I had made - many styles and types, just whatever I had that I could photo decently. As I started working on my modern transparent pieces, I realized that although these other loose beads were selling, this was not the direction I wanted for the long term. That sea change shifted me into a focus on my current work, which then brought me quite a bit of press. I then found that I was spending so much time online trying to drum up business that my family though I was attached to the computer - another shift was in order. I am now concentrating on getting my work into gallery and B+M settings on a consignment basis, so that the marketing end of things gets taken up by someone else, and I can focus on making my jewelry. Perseverance is moving forward - not always in a straight line, not without making refinements. This is not a bulldozer that clears a path, but a stream that finds its path as it moves along.