There are career changes, and then there is leaving fifteen years as a pastor to make whiskey.
For Matt Estrin, founder of 477 Distilling, the distance between those two worlds may not be as great as it seems. For fifteen years, Estrin served as a music pastor. He loved the work. The hospital visits. The weddings. The counseling. Standing on stage with his guitar while a thousand people sang along. He believed in what he was doing.
But underneath a life he genuinely loved was something he couldn't ignore.
“Deep down, I knew I was built to create something, to own something,” Estrin writes. “I was born to be The Owner.”
Eventually, he listened. A passion for whiskey became the beginning of an entirely different life, one that would lead Estrin into entrepreneurship and eventually seven businesses. Along the way came 477 Distilling, an axe throwing bar, a cocktail bar and a gourmet waffle restaurant.
Each venture brought new risks, responsibilities and plenty to figure out along the way. There was no clean path from ministry to entrepreneurship and certainly no guarantee that taking the leap would work.
On paper, it makes for a great story. Living it was messier.
That experience eventually became I Know the Owner, a book that pulls back the curtain on what ownership actually looks like once the excitement of starting something meets the reality of running it.
“I wrote this book because I wanted to tell the real story of entrepreneurship,” Estrin says. “The ups, the downs, the funny stories, the failures, and the lessons learned.”
His path may be unusual, but the feeling behind it isn't. There are people sitting in offices, driving home from work or lying awake at night with an idea they cannot shake. They don't necessarily dislike the life they have. They simply know there is something in them asking to be built.
Estrin knows that feeling because he lived it.
Seven businesses have also taught him that ownership isn't freedom from hard things. There are employees depending on you, money on the line, mistakes, uncertainty and decisions that have to be made before you know how they will turn out.
Entrepreneurship is often told backward, once the risk has paid off and the hardest moments have become good stories. Estrin is willing to tell the part that comes before that too.
Perhaps becoming “The Owner” was never about having all the answers. Maybe it is about taking the risk, learning when things don't go according to plan and continuing to build anyway.
For Estrin, that leap took him from holy water to happy hour.
And for anyone wondering if they could build something of their own, his story leaves behind a simple thought:
Sometimes the idea you can't shake is worth listening to.
“Sometimes you can love the life you've built and still know there is something else in you asking to be built.”