Jim

One day, while going through some family heirlooms, Jim Koch found a trunk that had old scraps of paper with beer recipes scribbled on them.

At that time, Jim felt as if American beer was just "water that could hold a head" and expensive imported beers were often stale by the time they made it to the shelves. He thought, Americans were paying good money for inferior beer.

That epiphany spawned what is now the Boston Beer Company, a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and the venerable Samuel Adams Beer brand.

Once he perfected his first beer recipe, and felt as if it was market-ready, he hit a legal hurdle. By law, beer had to be sold to a wholesaler before it could then go to retailers and consumers.

There were only 5 wholesalers in Boston at the time, and none of them wanted anything to do with Jim's non-traditional domestic beer.

Instead of accepting their no's, he went out and got his own wholesaler's license so he could get his beer to retailers.

Life gave him lemons and he turned them into a delicious Summer Ale.

It's easy to accept a "no" and back off of an idea out of respect for the gatekeeper.

What we can learn from Jim is that the path forward is not always linear, and sometimes, we have to make our own path along the way.