In 1912, an anonymous, Brooklyn-born naturalist moved to Labrador, Canada, to pursue opportunities in the fur trade. Three years after his arrival, he was joined by his wife and, soon thereafter, a son. As a way to pass time and to provide food for his family, he learned to ice-fish from the local Inuit. Temperatures in the region hovered near forty degrees below zero, causing the fish that he pulled from Muddy Bay to quickly freeze upon being caught. This seafood, when thawed weeks or sometimes months later, tasted both fresh and delicious- far more so than the soggy, tasteless frozen meals that they were used to consuming.
Upon returning to the United States, the naturalist oversaw experiments which demonstrated that food that was “flash-frozen” had ice crystals much smaller than food that was slowly cooled. It was as a result of these experiments that Clarence Birdseye founded his eponymous company and went on to enormous success.
What Clarence Birdseye’s Curiosity Can Teach Entrepreneurs
In his fascinating book, Range, David Epstein discusses the concept of interdisciplinary studies and the incredible impact that wide-ranging curiosity can have on one’s success. Birdseye’s accumulated curiosity brought together studies in biology from Amherst College and his work as a naturalist. He spent time befriending and learning from the Inuit. And, since he was a young boy trapping and selling animals, the tinkerer had an underlying entrepreneurial spirit. As Steven Johnson says in “How We Got to Now,” he brought together “the network of interests and influences” common in many successful people. Individually, none of these interests would have led to the creation of a company that would sell for $22 million in 1929. Instead, Birdseye exemplified the successful entrepreneurs who, as Johnson says, “worked at the margins of their official fields or at the intersection point between very different disciplines.” It’s this ability to synthesize multiple hobbies, pursuits, and interests that can create an intellectual Cambrian Explosion that gives rise to ideas, innovations, and opportunities that might otherwise never have existed.
Learning With the Person You Want to Become in Mind
We live in a world offering an almost inexhaustible supply of extraordinary books, essays, podcasts, films, and intellectual experiences. Personally, I subscribe to twenty-one separate podcasts and three different newspapers. My email delivers four newsletters to my inbox every morning. And, there always seems to be a small trove of books screaming for my attention. The question that I continually wrestle with is what to consume. For somebody who is perpetually curious, I’ve had to become more discerning about where to spend my time.
At the heart of my decision-making is the desire to invest in the person I want to become. That allows me to ask the question, “Will this audiobook, article, or podcast benefit me a year from now?” Often, the answer is obvious. There’s a direct throughline between my desire to grow my brokerage, Elysian Homes, and anything having to do with management, strategy, technology, and customer service.
However, curiosity does sometimes get the better of me and, in the past year, I’ve found myself exploring the essays of John Green and Malcolm Gladwell, the Broad Street Pump and the rise of epidemiology, and the causes of the stock market crash in 1929. My interest in politics, geopolitics, business, technology, and society is sated by listening to Pivot podcast and Derek Thompson’s Plain English. Remarkably, I’ve found that, by deliberately exposing myself to unfamiliar disciplines, perspectives, and ways of thinking, I’ve been able to cultivate the conditions from which unexpected insights emerge. This has been instrumental in helping me to recognize the limitations of the real estate industry and how the business of helping clients buy and sell houses could evolve.
Seeing New Possibilities in the Business of Real Estate
I’m continually surprised by the number of real estate brokerages that remain committed to operating as if it were the year 1995. Their social media presence is haphazard or mostly absent. Marketing campaigns are overly reliant on print media. A one-size-fits-all approach to personal, transformative mentoring often occurs in a classroom with twenty other agents. Yet, this is a model that still works; commission splits are lucrative enough to sustain these companies financially. In short, it’s hard to argue with their success.
In 2023, after spending decades in the trenches selling real estate, I began to crave a greater intellectual challenge. I had seen up close the business traditions, customs, and practices that didn’t need fixing but could benefit from a more modern and strategic approach. Dissatisfaction with the status quo, however, will only take you so far.
I can’t draw a straight line from a particular book or podcast to the creation of Elysian. I do, however, think that exploring a wide range of subjects quietly provided me with the tools to recognize patterns. Subconsciously, I seemed to tie together disparate thoughts and ideas which had been lying fallow in my mind. Ideas from the fields of technology, food service, education, marketing, and entrepreneurship coalesced and led to the formation of an innovative approach to the business of real estate.
Building Elysian Homes Around What Agents Need
That broader perspective helped shape a business designed around what agents need to do their best work. Recognizing that the best use of an agent’s time is cultivating new relationships and nurturing old, we’ve taken virtually all administrative tasks off of a salesperson’s plate. Understanding that we live in an attention economy, we’ve supplemented still images with video, reels, and podcasts. Realizing that agents are primarily focused on their income has allowed us to harness technology that creates efficiencies which are then passed along to the agent’s bottom line. Moreover, the use of AI removes administrative friction, giving our team more time to perform work that requires human judgment, creativity, and personal connection.
Why Intellectual Curiosity Is Essential to Leadership
As Elysian becomes more successful, I feel an increasing responsibility to expand my knowledge, capabilities, and understanding of the world. Intellectual curiosity isn’t simply a personal pleasure; it’s increasingly essential to my effectiveness as a CEO and leader. The world is changing quickly and so is the industry that I’ve worked in for the past thirty-six years. Rather than succumb to the innovator’s dilemma, I’ll continue to follow the example of Clarence Birdseye, recognizing that the ideas most likely to shape Elysian’s future may come from places that have seemingly nothing to do with real estate. One of the greatest lessons I’ve absorbed is that some of the most valuable things we learn are those whose usefulness we cannot yet imagine.