“This was given to me, because that was going to kill me,” entrepreneur Lee Janik told me.

“That” was the job of owning and running a construction company he started in Ohio in the mid-2000s.

“This” was the sacred experience of fly fishing, and ultimately building a multinational craft rod-making company.

SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/GettyImages)

“It’s like going to church.” That’s how Janik describes fly fishing, his passion, which nursed him through the Great Recession as his commercial real estate development and construction company hung on for dear life.  

The company survived, and ultimately thrived, but his therapeutic hobby grew into something more. At the moment, “this” has evolved into Clutch Fly Rods, the company Janik founded selling high-end fly rods that is fast becoming a disruptor in its space.