06/ 01/ 2005
by Rex Hammock
David Letterman’s “Brush with Greatness” is a long-running feature in which a member of his studio audience shares a recollection of a chance encounter with a celebrity. The show’s writers then offer a fictitious sequel to the encounter, enhancing the celebrity sighting into a dramatic and humorous event.
For this issue of MyBUSINESS, we looked for small-business owners whose brushes with greatness actually did result in dramatic chains of events. With no PR strategists or publicists, these small-business owners were discovered through rather random, chance encounters—brushes with greatness. Yet from those encounters came the type of business results the rest of us can only imagine—and envy.
From having one’s product unexpectedly touted on a national TV talk show to having one’s restaurant serve as a setting in a best-selling novel and then later in an Oscar-winning movie, our accidental celebrities featured in “The Business Side of Fame” on page 28 discovered both the ups and downs of life-changing instant fame.
In the article “The Good Life” on page 36, we take a look at another type of life-changing event in the lives of the featured small-business owners. However, these small-business owners are using their entrepreneurial talents to change the lives of others. Blessed with the skills necessary to successfully launch and run their own businesses, they are now applying those skills to helping change their communities—and the world—in a wide variety of ways. These social entrepreneurs provide inspiring examples of the way small-business owners, even those who may not be aware they are doing it, are having a positive effect on the lives of others.
As always, we found the small-business owners we met preparing this issue to be our own personal brushes with greatness.
