“When I had to quit AT&T and go out on my own, that was one heck of a mountain to climb!”

The one shared fact about all entrepreneurs: they all decided to start their own business by launching a new product or service.

 

On my REACH OR MISS podcast where I interview successful entrepreneurs, I have a last unique (not to say weird) question; ‘my mountain question’. It goes like that:

Q: Because we believe that the best way for entrepreneurs to get fast, big, and sustainable success is by leading your (new) market category, and the entire entrepreneurial journey reminds me of mountaineering or conquering the mountain, I want to ask you if there is a mountain you dream of climbing or a mountain you have already climbed (and I’m talking about a physical mountain, literally a mountain)?

 

It’s definitely a strange question; I added it to the interview after my podcast was launched, and this is the only question that I let my interviewees skip.

Many of my guests love this question and find a truly cool story to tell me about their ‘mountain experience’ or a mountain story about someone they know.

A few of them choose to tell their own metaphor about climbing a mountain.

And less than a handful (by now) ask me to skip these question “I’m not an outdoor person I’m an indoor person say these heavy geeks..”

 

The story of my last guest was unique since she had for many years a senior position at AT&T Bell lab. Yes, you are right, it is the famous Bell that invented the phone.

I think you’ll find her story exciting, inspiring and educating.

 

Deb’s career and entrepreneurships’ development

I asked Deb to share with us the story of establishing her entrepreneurship

• “It started with growing up in the Northeast: New Jersey and New York City. Deb told me, I went to Brown and then to Bell Lab, which was the think tank for AT&T.
• I was 20 when I graduated and went there. I got paid to play and experiment with ideas.
• I had fantastic bosses and amazing mentors. They were all males, and they did everything to help me succeed.
• Later, my husband, who was a physics professor, got a job and we had to move to Chicago. My bosses did everything to ensure that I would keep working there. So, I flew all the time. Then, when we had children, my bosses helped me keep working from home.
• After my second daughter was born, it was too depressing to keep working for AT&T. They weren’t going in the right direction. My husband thought I should open my own business for strategy and innovation, which was what I actually did at Bell Lab. He really encouraged me, which was typical of him but not typical of our generation at that time.
• And so I was out on my own. I opened my practice focusing on strategy and innovation.”

What Deb is passionate about?

• “There are two parts to that answer. The first part is my ‘work’ work, the paying kind, in which I’m working with mid- to large-sized companies, helping them discover where they want to be in three to five years and how they can get there.
• I help them encourage or enhance themselves if they already have a culture of innovation, or think outside the box—think of the old differently. To me, it starts with the customer, client, or end user (depending on what words they use).
• The second part is that I mentor and advise students at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where I went to school. Working with these brilliant kids keeps me young mentally. It keeps me learning, keeps me challenged. If I can keep up with them, I’ll have no problem keeping up with my clients.
• My students study engineering, biology, chemistry, math, English, education—totally across the board. I mentor them and sometimes I also teach them. Then I get to introduce my clients to really cool kids, which helps them get interesting perspectives. Plus, I help my students find really interesting internships and jobs.
• It’s a nice symbiotic relationship. It all works really well for me.”

The 3 tenets Deb lives by

• “There are three tenets I live my life by. These three tenets apply to my work life, my personal life, and my mentoring.
• There are three kinds of phrases: The first is not mine; it’s from a Jewish theologian and philosopher called Martin Buber: (I–It) and (I–Thou): “I” is I, meaning the person, while “It” means “Do I view the other person, or nature, as a function versus as a relationship?” “I-Thou” means that the other is a “thou”. They are not an objective; they are a person with a relationship, with a life.
• For me, it’s a key to how to view your customers internally or externally, because it’s all about them, it’s not about you.
• The second is: Rush to discover, don’t rush to solve. If you look at the world, at least the Western world, whenever you see a problem, you immediately try to fix it. You don’t try to find out why that’s a problem and what that means. You just try to fix it without knowing many things you probably should.
• And the last is: Your entire life, your approach to things should be: Experiment, Learn, Apply and Iterate. That’s how I live my life.
• I’m insatiably curious, which is a good thing but can also be a frustrating thing. I just really love learning … and then I try to discover patterns.”

Deb’s biggest success during her entrepreneurial journey

Since Deb was so successful at the Bell Lab, I asked her for her most significant achievement as an entrepreneur

• “I have a client that I’d been working with for 15 years. They’re in manufacturing. They were about $400 million when we started and they’re about $1.5 billion now! Probably over 60% of that is from organic growth, in a commodity market.
• They are the coolest people. They think unlike anybody else in their industry and that’s why they’ve been able to grow in a commoditized market.
• We listen to each other and we have a great, trusting relationship. They’ve been able to pull the best out of me and I’ve been able to pull the best out of them.”

So what was Deb’s answer to my mountain question:

“That would be going out on my own. When I had to quit AT&T and go out on my own, that was one heck of a mountain to climb!”

 

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