My First Brand Partnership – LEGO And Chronicle Books

On embracing the little things.

^{The stories that glorify the grit of daily hustle.}

I dedicate this page to the little things–tidbits seemingly insignificant when cobbled together with the rest of life’s daily grind, but which forge together, in the impenetrable blackness of the subconscious which shapes our hearts, a bond as irreplaceable as the dearest friend. They deserve more praise than we could bestow in a lifetime.

Looking back, it didn’t matter so much who my first brand partnership was with. The only thing that mattered was that it happened. Sometimes if you have a crazy thing you want to do, a crazy vision, just seeing a tiny glimpse of future potential is enough to make you do it.

My first brand partnership was at age 17. My first venture into content was an Instagram page about my hobbies: collecting pop culture items like LEGO and sneakers. Isn’t that how it usually starts? A person exudes what they are passionate about. Chronicle Books, the California publishing company, partnered with The LEGO Group, the toy manufacturer, for a line of books and paper products. My brand (which by that time was more than an Instagram page) was well-positioned to market these products.

Although neither the payment nor the scope of the content was large, I credit that little brand deal for motivating me to keep one hand in the content business throughout one of the most critical periods of my life; Covid-19 had me positioning myself to outsmart prospective university choices’ underwhelming online formats, I turned down a Boston private school education in violin performance to study economics and accounting for free at a state school. All this to simply say, whenever you feel like your whole life rides on one big decision, or one big moment, remember to embrace the little things.