Maximum Human Potential

I'm going to issue a large post today because today I have something to say. You know how it goes: some days nada, some days your cup runneth over. Well, today my cup is sloshing right over the sides. There will be some changes coming up with Thickskin and I want you to know where they're coming from. There has been a tectonic shift in my thinking that has been rumbling beneath the surface for quite some time and I think it's safe to say that much of it began with this man:


His name is Tiesto. To be precise, his name is Tijs Verwest but he changed it to Tiesto because it "sounds more magical" and I couldn't agree more. Tiesto is the number one DJ in the world and has been three years running. For those of you not into the DJ world, keep reading, the message is worth it. For those of you who are in love with dancing and DJ's then I needn't say more. My (one-sided) love affair with Tiesto had been long running when I learned that he would be coming to LA, my then home. With no ticket to a sold-out concert, I picked up the phone and sassily called his manager directly and left this message, "Hey there, it's me. Call me back on my cell would you? I have a quick question and need to talk." I left my number and hung up. Let me just be clear: neither Tiesto, nor his manager had any clue who I was. But my gutsy moved paid off and not only did his manager call me back, he gave me VIP access to the party that night with a promise to meet Tiesto personally. Outrageously impressed with myself, I stood back and gave myself a little shock and awe in the mirror.

The promise to meet Tiesto that night went unfulfilled due to some wardrobe malfunction or the like yet the very next day ringring went my cell. "Hey there, it's me." Pause. A laugh on the other end. "See how it feels?! It's X, Tiesto's manager. Listen, he wants to meet you. There's a big press conference going on at the Mondrian hotel this afternoon. Be there at 4."

I suppose I should tell you one very important part: I had made a bag for Tiesto. It was, and still is, the coolest bloody bag I have made to date! It's made of ballistic material (what they use in bullet proof vests), stingray (the sexy and exotic underwater glider), acid washed Italian cannibal leather (a Thickskin staple and yumyum gorgeous) and a guitar strap made by Ted and Kimmi at Kepur with 300 pound alloy clips doubling for a non-gripping shoulder strap. (Tiesto with the bag below)


I shimmied my way up to the Mondrian on the Sunset strip and jumped out of my car, quite literally, with excitement coloring every step. I made my way to the front desk and asked for Tijs. I was given the inter-hotel phone by Mike, a lush bellboy, and placed my call expecting to get XYZ hager-on who would be by the phone in Tiesto's packed pressed-out hotel suite.

WRONG. "Hello?"

Oh. My. ... "Tiesto?" My heart zoomed right passed tachycardia faster than a Aston hits 0-60.

"Yes."

"It's...It's...I'm the bag girl."

"Oh yeah, Cordila! I'm on my way down."

Now you listen closely and see if you can wade past the kiddy-crush I have on a DJ to get to the nut of this story. What was said once Tiesto came down is, in itself, irrelevant. What was important is what it felt like being around him. Here was man who was at once humble and self-assured. He was (and still is) at the top of his game, yes, but more impressively is doing what he loves. I have never in my life been around someone who was truly living their maximum human potential. It was as if he was using each cell of talent, each molecule of inspiration, each breath breathed was filled with an absoluteness that he was doing what he came here to do.

I left Tiesto later that afternoon (with an invitation to his New Year's Eve party!!) and I got in my car and I sat and I sat and I sat. I wondered to myself, "Am I living my maximum human potential? If I died today could I honestly say that I saturated the fullness of each breath?" I knew the answer was no. That was three years ago and the answer is still no. But I no longer am willing to meander in the discomfort that is comfort and pleasantry. So changes are coming to Thickskin. Boy are they ever! I want to be living my maximum human potential because any less is a disservice to myself and to you.

For a long time I thought living life to your MHP (did you follow that?) meant living out loud, being bombastic and explosive and exhausting every inch of your body. Yet Tiesto was not animation and action. He was not a tazmanian devil and spinmeister spinner. Tiesto walked softly and carried a big smile. And being around him was, indeed, magical.

Four Sheets to the Wind

Every now and again I stand back from one of my bags and think, "now THERE's a darn good bag". And I feel good about myself and what I'm contributing to the world. I create bags that people carry around and they look very cool in the process, if I do say so myself. Yet I am surrounded by brilliant and creative friends who constantly show me up. The latest upset in my world of Usurpia came when my friend and Sundance producer Chad Burris pulled the rug out from underneath me with his film Four Sheets To The Wind.

Written by Sterlin Harjo, the stars, Cody Lightening (Cufe Smallhill) and Tamara Podemski (Miri Smallhill) are sublime. As two sides of the same suffering, grasping coin of identity crisis, Cufe and Miri move slowly and quietly carrying our collective scream of self-discovery. What Chad and the crew produced was a piece of art that delivered on the Great Promise of Art: to get under the skin and leave the viewer forever changed. I can't say exactly what changed in me the night I watched the film other than I recognized myself. I recognized the striving, the reaching, the hoping, the starts and stops of life.

Chad modeled for Thickskin a few months ago (here he is with the SCOUT bag in black cannibal). I remember looking at him in this shot and thinking "man is he beautiful!" Beauty is often underestimated and I'm embarrassed to admit I underestimated him. He didn't talk much about his film that day. He was happy to let the day be about Thickskin. I had no idea that he, as he lay here on my white leather lounge, had produced something that would, only a few months later, stun me with it's direct and complex beauty. Just like Chad.

Taking the Leap

This is the unsexy part. I got fired. Well, not exactly fired, but squeezed out. The kind of squeezing that includes the boss's live-in girlfriend not liking you because he likes you. It was never clear if his liking me was in "that way" but Girlfriend was not going to take any chances. So, I quit. It was really the only self-respecting thing I could do. On my way out the door, my boss told me if I left him I would never be successful again. And that was all I needed to peel away from my personalized parking space and never look back.

But now what?

One day, in my post-employed bliss, I was on the phone to said brother mentioned above and was whining something to the tune of "what the hell am I going to do now?" His simple response? "Why don't you try that leather thing?"

And so I was off to the races. From that point forward anytime my mom met with her friends and they discussed their defunct children over tea she would hold the teacup to her pursed lips and say "Cordila? Oh, she's fine. She's doing that leather thing."

Now, anyone knows that if you want to sell anything, New York is the place to shake-tail. I hopped on a flight spiriting me from LA to New York City prepared to beat the streets with my super-star-model-must-have-portfolio. I had made an appointment at a high-end showroom in SoHo (aim for the top) and flounced in carrying the portfolio in front of me like a child does her crayon drawing.

"Look!" I proudly exclaimed.

Mr. Showroom Extraordinaire was less than impressed.

"This is it?" he asked.

"Well...yeah."

"You're going to need something more than this," came is grunt reply.

"Like what?" I wanted to know.

"Like a collectione!" (and yes, he did use the Italian pronunciation).

"Right! I get it! More colors and stuff!" I valiantly spew forth.

"No. No. No. I mean other pieces."

I sat in total confusion, unbotoxed brow furrowed in deflation.

"I'm really very busy," Mr. Showroom Extraordinaire said as he backed away from what seemed to be my self-confidence going up in flames. "You might want to add bags."

And that, my dear friends, is the honest truth about how Thickskin became all about bags. My desire is to tell you that I dreamed of making bags my entire life. As a girl, I used make bags out of banana peels and lemon rinds for my dollies but alas, such is not the case. I was desperate. My back was up against the wall. I knew I was a damn good worker and had a good brain beneath my curls. In my last job, before my ungraceful exit, I had shot from assistant to vice president in record time. I learned how to run a business from the inside out. It was the trenches, but I came out victorious. And if making bags is what it would take to lift Thickskin off the ground. Then that's exactly what I would do.

In the Beginning

The task at hand, to begin my diaries to you, is a daunting one but one I face with excitement verging on unfettered gusto. We're here! You and me. We made it. Or are making it. Or are at least giving it a go. And that's what this is all about. The Effort: as the results can be both heart wrenching and ecstatic and sometimes simultaneously.

So why do this, you ask? Why diary my existence as the original "thickskinner"? Why document what could be (and often is) me falling flat on my face? To let you know that it can be done, and is being done, a thousand times a day by thousands of people. Owning your own business. Being independently "employed". Bagging the real job for one that is harder, more involved yet more rewarding than any you could ever imagine.

I'm ready, if you are, to nakedly stand before you and share my triumphs and pitfalls. Thickskin is my homage to resilience, in both people and product. And what good are we if we don't practice what we preach? It's about being impeccable with your word. And that's how it all began...

"Hi" this is Cordila Jochim. You don't know me but I have a brother who is insane looking and I know he won't call you on his own so I'll give you his number and you can call him, OK?"



Yep. That's the call I made to the Seattle Models Guild. They, in turn, called my gorgeous brother Raif who found himself in the world of modeling...and loving it. The problem was now that I got him into this, he had nothing in which to carry his photos and zed cards and, hello, if modeling isn't about the image...what is?! Problem = Solution. At least that's how I work. No worries, I, Big Sister, would buy him one. Enter Problem #2: nothing sexy in the market! I was shocked! Really, in the land of abundance you'd think someone, somewhere had come up with a modeling portfolio that was a color other than black. But, after beating the streets like a wild woman, and his birthday closing in, I had to act fast. In I trounced to Office Depot where I promptly bought your standard three-ring binder (in green plastic, if I remember correctly) and took it home.



TIP: In life you'll find the most unlikely of people will put you on a path you hadn't even imagined you'd walk down.

May everyone be so lucky to know a guy who knows a guy who may smoke a little too much but is good with leather and his hands (a winning combination). Chad introduced me to Eric who made the first Thickskin piece: an embossed crocodile portfolio crafted specially for one Raif Jochim.

And that was the beginning.