A Gentleman in Bath
In 1979, James Dyson's life seemed, by most measures, a disaster. He had no job, no income, a mortgage on a dilapidated house near Bath, and three young children to support.
Every day, he walked to a shed in the garden, where he worked tirelessly on a seemingly futile idea: the bagless vacuum cleaner.
A licensing deal with a U.S. company gave him another decade of runway, which he used to invent and bring to market his first cyclone vacuum cleaner: the DC01, launched in 1993.
Fourteen years spent in the wilderness - five of them teetering on the edge of poverty - doesn't seem like anyone's idea of fun.
Yet, in his autobiography, Dyson describes that period in a surprising way: idyllic. The years filled with nappies, leaking ceilings, and relentless failure, he insists, were the best of his life.
This isn’t what we might expect to hear. The values of patience, compounding, and long-term vision are often celebrated in building great things - just look at the company Dyson built.
