So you want to start a business?

Dessert shops, Blacksmiths, and the reluctant leaders who built America.

There’s a dessert shop on a busy walking street near my house. Every few years, I watch as they shutter their windows, lock their doors, and flip the closed sign one last time.

But then something curious always happens.

Like a gumdrop phoenix, the little sweets shop comes back to life—but this time, under new ownership. When one dessert shop dies, another is reborn in its place, and the cycle continues. Year after year. Shop after shop.

I couldn’t make sense of it for the longest time, until one day I realized what was going on.

You probably have a bar, or restaurant, or shop in your town just like this.

Each time the store is reborn, the new overzealous owners rebrand, and rethink the old concept, but only just so. Full of certainty, and flush with cash, they’ll redecorate, add a bright new sign, and find the happiest pimple-faced teenagers in the city to staff the counter. These owners have better marketing, tighter accounting, and a yummier offering than anyone who previously occupied that cursed location. It seems like they know something that all those other business owners did not—and yet.

II.

What I’ve come to learn about entrepreneurship is that there are really only two ways start a business.

The first is from a place of eager ambition.

Which starts with big, bold, conviction. It starts with a vision of the world that does not exist yet, and the guts to bring it to fruition. This, by extension, means that an eager leader’s perception of the world is right, and everyone else’s is wrong. Or at least everyone else is thinking too small, or too narrow. Eager leaders, however, are not like everyone else. They’re perceptive, and tenacious, and different. So with their unique insights, they bring forth something new. Something like mochi cupcakes, or vegan doughnuts, or coffee cocktails. Wonderful products that no one asked for.

The second way to start a business is reluctantly.

Instead of seeing what others do not, reluctant leaders simply have a problem that needs solving. A small problem, a personal problem. A thorn in their side that needs removing. Maybe they’re a frequent traveler, and carrying luggage by hand is tiring. So after taking a hundred flights in a year, they finally snap, and super-glue wheels to the bottom of their bag. Maybe it stops there. But maybe on their next trip, another exhausted traveler notices how easily their bag is gliding around the airport, and makes an inquiry. Then another, and another.

III.

In 1957, Yvon Chouinardv bought an iron forge. Which was out of character for Yvon, considering he was a lazy, unemployed rock climber, who was in no way a blacksmith.

Up until then, he had been spending most of his days living out of a backpack, and scaling the peaks of Yosemite to pass the time. His life was small, his meals were small, and that’s exactly how he wanted it. There was just one problem—he was running out of gear.

At the time, Yvon was using cheap European-made pitons to climb the monstrous rock-face of El Capitan (pitons are the little metal spikes that climbers used to drill into the rock, and secure their position on the wall). A faulty piton could result in serious injury, but more often, death.

There was just one downside to the European pitons—they were all single use. This meant that hundreds of little metal spikes littered the mountainside when climbers abandoned them in the wall. Yvon, living off 50 cents a day, didn’t have the luxury of leaving his gear behind. So he bought a second-hand metal forge, and a book on blacksmithing, then he got to work.

“I made them for myself” said Yvon, “and they worked so good…that I made some for friends that I was climbing with”. In time the word spread, and everyone in town was asking for Yvon’s new, hard-steel pitons. What made them so special? They were reusable and many times stronger than their European predecessors. So he started a new routine. In the early morning hours, he would forge the new pitons, then in the afternoon he would do what he loved most—climb. Only after, with the setting sun at his back, would Yvon open up shop. Selling his reusable pitons out of the back of his car to other climbers.

“I never wanted to be a businessman”, Yvon recounted 50 years later. “Those were the days when you thought businessmen were grease balls, and that was the last thing you wanted to be.” Despite his initial reluctance, Yvon grew this little enterprise. Selling pitons, and then shirts, and pants, and a whole host of other innovative outdoor gear. His company, Patagonia, is still privately owned today, and is currently valued at over 4.5 billion dollars. Ironically, Patagonia has now become a status symbol for the exact type of eager entrepreneur that Yvon never was.

IV.

He had been fighting in one war or another for the past 30 years. Now, in 1787, after leading the U.S. to military victory, and independence from the British, George Washington could finally rest. His work was done.

He returned to his Mount Vernon estate, exhausted, and ready for the simplicity of retirement. A well-earned end, to an illustrious career.

Yet, there were whispers in the Electoral College. Whispers that Washington should lead the newly formed nation. And so, the first ever U.S. presidential campaign began. But it began not by Washington seeking out the presidency, but by the populous seeking out Washington.

A vote was taken. It was unanimous. Every single elector, from every single state, chose George Washington to be President. Riders were dispatched to deliver the news. When they found him at his estate, and relayed the message, dread filled Washington’s heart. He had no desire to lead, no desire for fame or fortune or spotlight. "Let those follow the pursuits of ambition and fame, who have a keener relish for them, or who may have more years, in store, for the enjoyment.” Washington wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette upon hearing the news of his election.

He wrote to another friend that he felt like a “culprit who is going to the place of his execution.” Duty called, and he knew that regardless of his own selfish desires, he had to respond. He could not turn his back on his country now.

Much like Yvon, Washington never wanted what destiny doled out for him. Once accepted though, he lead with grace. Masterfully organizing the new nation during its most volatile hour—setting a balanced and democratic political precedence that would be emulated for generations to come.

V.

For the longest time, I believed that the best leaders were hard charging, ambitious, and eager to take up the position. That entrepreneurs had to be bold, with a vision of the world that was hidden from the rest of us.

When I think of this type of leader—the type that can see a future that the rest of us can’t—I instantly summon the image of Steve Jobs. Yet, Jobs himself wasn’t just skeptical of this notion; he outright rejected it. “You know who the best managers are?” he asked an interviewer rhetorically, “They're the great individual contributors who never, ever want to be a manager”. They were reluctant—rather than eager—leaders.

“If you think you should be a president or a general at seven years old, there’s something wrong with you”, says the stoic writer Ryan Holiday. “You have no evidence that you’re qualified to do that.” And yet, many of us believe that we’d make a great leader, CEO, or entrepreneur, before ever doing the work required to become one.

A person that is cajoled into leadership, is a lot like an entrepreneur who is begged into business. The wind is at their backs, they already have buy-in and a firm team of supporters. Instead of playing games, and politics, and marketing themselves as the best for the job, they are called forth, from obscurity, to serve.

VI.

History is filled with these kind of reluctant leaders. At 26 years old, Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t eagerly sign up to lead the Montgomery bus boycotts (and ultimately the entire civil rights movement). Instead, he was elevated by his peers, and reluctantly answered their call.

After decades of military service, Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted nothing more than to retire to a civilian career in academia. But his character, and military acumen, was so admired by both Democrats and Republicans, that both parties insisted he run for President. Just like Washington, a political campaign by the people was launched to convince the candidate, rather than the other way around.

But today, the reluctant leader, is an increasingly rare persona; one of servile reserve.

To embody this, is to humbly admit that the world might just know better than we do. Instead of being driven by baseless ambition, politics, and public perception, we focus on the one thing we can control—the quality of our work.

The rarity of reluctant leaders in modern society, suggests one unsettling thing. We are not investing our time—and resources—in people who have proven competence. Instead, we’re getting duped by overly confident seven-year-olds who think they should be President. Ego, gall, and good marketing have convinced us that leadership is best left to the bold. When in fact, the opposite is more likely the truth. We’ve fundamentally confused the being of leadership, with the doing of leadership.

Which brings me back to the little dessert shop on my street. The reason this store—and so many more like it around the country—can’t seem to get its act together, isn’t because of their prices, or the foot traffic, or their social media strategy. Rather, it’s the simple fact that nobody is calling them forth. Nobody is asking for another dessert shop.

—Zac

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