Build-A-Bear CEO Sharon Price-John on Why Defining Values is Key to Achieving Goals

Early in her career, Sharon Price-John literally put pen to paper and wrote what she dubbed her “price values.” AKA: the qualities that guided her in work and life. She reasoned that if she had time to write a grocery list, she could take a second to define what was important to her. Sharon says that although her price values have inevitably evolved as she got older, her values made the path to achieving her goals a lot clearer.

In this episode of 9 to 5ish, Sharon shares: 

• The brownie points she scored from her kids being a toy company exec

• Why she follows the age-old advice “love what you do” 

• What influenced the changes to her “price values” list

• How she managed to bring Build-A-Bear its three most profitable years ever after COVID

• The difficulties of succeeding a founder-led business, and how she overcame them

On Why Trying Something is Better than Doing Nothing

Sharon: You just gotta get that in your head and say, “I'm going to lean into this with the best information that I have, bringing the team along, listening to people's opinions and taking that big step forward,” particularly if you can work your way through thinking about what's the downside. There's usually so little downside of trying to move something forward. 

On the Trait that Opened Doors for Her 

Sharon: Live your life with intelligence and have that intellectual curiosity. Be willing to learn, be willing to be wrong. Just because you're wrong doesn't mean you're not intelligent. That's actually a sign of intelligence, when you're willing to lean in and go, “Now, what am I missing here?” I do have a gift of creativity, maybe communication. So always bring your gift to the problem and your gift to the solution. I never wanted to be in a place where creativity is not valued. That's probably one of the reasons I leaned toward [the toy industry] because I'm an artist first, a creative first, a writer first that almost accidentally became a CEO in so many ways. 

On Why She Says You Must “Love What You Do” 

Sharon: I've gone back and read my book…one of the things that I've noticed after reading it again is how many times I say, “[I did it] because I thought that was fun. Because I thought that sounded fun.” And that's sort of what you have to do. Whenever you're in that moment – and that sounds so trite – but the truth is, it's this process of just getting really quiet and imagining yourself in that situation and saying, “is this a good feeling or is that a bad feeling? Is that a burden or is that exciting?” Because I think where people get sideways sometimes in life is: it’s gonna be busy no matter what. You're gonna have to work no matter what. Stuff's gonna happen. But at the end of the day, if you love what you do, it is not exhausting. It is exhilarating.

Listen and subscribe to our podcast from your mobile device: Apple podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher