By Eric B. Schultz
We sometimes associate successful entrepreneurs with a flash of brilliance, a moment when some earthshaking product suddenly crystallizes in their minds.
In the summer of 1895, for example, King Gillette found his heavy, forged razor too dull to use. He wrote: “As I stood there with the razor in my hand, my eyes resting on it as lightly as a bird settling down on its nest—the Gillette razor was born. I saw it all in a moment.”
What Gillette saw “in a moment” would take six years of arduous fits and starts to become a prototype, and longer than that to become his successful disposable razor. Yet, if we take him at his word, who wouldn’t welcome such a flash of brilliance just once in his or her career?
Take heart. My research suggests that transformative moments do occur for most entrepreneurs, but in a different way than King Gillette’s experience in the summer of 1895.
Moments of clarity
When entrepreneurs are “struck by lightning,” it’s rarely because they see a fully formed disposable razor, a Ford Model T, or an iPhone in their minds. Instead, they are more likely to have their moment of clarity unfold around something just as profound but less tangible. Perhaps it’s some undiscovered passion, or a new direction their work might take. Maybe it’s a glimpse into their future. And sometimes this turning point is less pleasant than a bird settling down in its nest.
For Jean Brownhill, CEO of Sweeten, such a moment occurred during the terrorist attack on 9/11. “I was coming across the Manhattan Bridge on the train,” Brownhill recalls, “and we could see the first building on fire. Then we watched the second plane hit . . . And I’m sitting in a steel tube that I can’t get out of.”
Trained as an architect, Brownhill had spent years learning how to construct buildings. “You have no idea,” she says, “why anybody would want to take them down. You have no idea the kind of economics or political conditions that brought this attack about. And so,” she adds, “I decided that I needed to understand about money and power.”
This quest would mean immersing herself in the study of economics and politics, a self-education that would lead her away from architecture to life as an entrepreneur focused on building community.
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Alfred Sloan is another entrepreneur who recalled an unpleasant but career-changing moment of clarity. Before becoming CEO of General Motors, Sloan owned Hyatt Roller Bearing Company, a supplier of ball bearings to the emerging automotive industry. One of Sloan’s customers was Henry Leland, a cantankerous entrepreneur with a genius for mechanization. Leland had built power looms for the textile industry, firearms at the Colt revolver factory, and had now launched an automobile line, one he had decided to call “Cadillac.”
Leland ordered Sloan to his office in Detroit. There, the angry carmaker measured several Hyatt bearings with a micrometer and blasted his young, embarrassed supplier. “You must grind your bearings,” Leland commanded Sloan. “Even though you make thousands, the first and the last should be precisely alike.”
Sloan later wrote, “I was an engineer and a manufacturer, and I considered myself conscientious. But after I had said good-bye to Mr. Leland, I began to see things differently.” It was a moment of clarity for the future CEO of GM: “I was determined to be as fanatical as he in obtaining precision in our work. An entirely different standard had been established for Hyatt Roller Bearings” which, in time, would become a gospel that Sloan evangelized across the automotive world.
Small and personal
Sometimes, an entrepreneur’s moment of clarity is small and personal, as in the case of activist attorney Emily Rochon. Early in her career, Rochon accepted an internship in Washington, D.C., for Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization.
When a bill came up in the Senate, the organization needed a Rhode Islander to lobby the Ocean State’s senator, Lincoln Chaffee. “I was the only Rhode Islander that they could find,” Rochon recalls. “They dragged me up to the Capitol, the first time I had ever been there and the first time I had ever lobbied. The moment I walked into that building, tears filled my eyes,” she laughs, “and I thought, ‘This is the work I need to do for the rest of my life.’”
With knees shaking, she met with Senator Chaffee, “who was lovely to me, such a nice guy. So I thought, ‘OK, I know what I want to do now: I want to be a policy person, and I want to be an advocate.’”
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Kate Cincotta, co-founder of Saha Global, had her moment of clarity as an undergrad at the University of Virginia when a vacation week in Mexico suddenly fell through. She says, “I had another friend who was going on this service trip to Nicaragua, so I just tagged along.”
The trip changed the career path of Cincotta, trained as an aeronautical engineer hoping to work for NASA. Today, Saha Global has sponsored more than 500 women entrepreneurs in rural Northern Region Ghana who have launched nearly 200 businesses providing clean water to some 100,000 people.
And how about the story of musician and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of the hit musical Hamilton? Like Cincotta, Miranda was heading on vacation when he purchased a copy of Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda began Googling to see who had already set Hamilton’s colorful life to music. Surprising to him—but probably to nobody else—the coast was clear. It was a moment of clarity that would change musical theater.
Gillette was lucky enough to envision his final product, but Brownhill sensed the need for new knowledge, Sloan for obsessive quality, and Cincotta the opportunity to serve others.
Have you had your moment of clarity? It might take the shape of a fully formed product, but more likely it will appear as some small self truth that is suddenly and unexpectedly revealed in the form of an angry customer, an unexpected meeting, or a missed vacation. Watch carefully; if you are open to the moment, it can change things forever.
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