The Formula for Success

On December 16, 1954, Dr. Tracy Hall stared at the gigantic machine he had built and wondered, “Would it finally work?” All his colleagues had left for the Christmas holiday, but Tracy had stayed behind in the lab to give the mass of steel tubes and wires one last try. Years of hard work, study, and dogged determination had all led to this moment, but would it fail like all the others?

Born in Ogden, UT, in 1919, Howard “Tracy” Hall wanted to grow up and be just like his hero, Thomas Edison. After serving in the Navy in WWII and completing his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Utah in 1948, Hall’s dreams came true when he was hired by General Electric to work on the secretive “Project Super Pressure”. The goal? To create diamonds… in a lab.

Since the 1797 discovery that diamonds are pure carbon, alchemists, chemists, and outright charlatans had tried (and failed) to create the captivating crystals. However at the height of the nuclear age, such dreams were finally within reach. If successful, a host of industrial capabilities like drilling, semi-conductors, and life-saving medical devices would be opened. The only problem was… it was explosively dangerous.

First, was the heat. In order to get carbon right in the goldilocks zone, it required temperatures upwards of 1600°C, or about a third of the temperature of the surface of the sun. Next time you burn that pizza in the oven, imagine cranking it 7 times hotter.

I’d like some genuine lava with my thin crust Hawaiian, please. Technically, it’s more authentic!

But generating heat was the easy part. It also took pressure. About 100,000 atmospheres per square inch to be precise. For context, if you took an African bull elephant at an average weight of about 5 tons, and stacked 207,000 additional elephants on top of that one…you would then come close to the per square inch pressure needed to melt carbon into diamonds.

For the vertically curious among you, that many elephants would equal around 1,540 Empire State Buildings in height, or just enough to stretch end to end from Los Angeles to Tucson, or London to Frankfurt. That’s a lot of Dumbos for just 1 diamond.

So Tracy Hall got to work. With the help of an onsite machinist working after hours, he eventually created his own “diamond press” out of 100% tungsten carbide. He assembled all the tubes and wires and began testing. After weeks of rocky starts on December 16, 1954, Tracy Hall, by himself, ran the test one final time. Did it work?

As the machine cooled, Tracy opened the chamber and later said, “My hands began to tremble; my heart beat rapidly; my knees weakened and no longer gave support. My eyes had caught the flashing light from dozens of tiny . . . crystals. I knew that diamonds had finally been made by man.” He said.

(Dr. Hall with his press. Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The only problem was, no one believed him. Only after instructing his coworkers on exactly what to do, (and by leaving the building to prove he wasn’t involved) did General Electric officials finally believe him when they too recreated the process.

Sadly, despite his triumph, Hall’s days in GE’s labs were numbered. As his achievement rapidly made headlines around the world, GE’s intellectual property and business leaders didn’t give Hall the credit he deserved, and GE went on to make millions with his work. Their thanks to Tracy? A $10 Savings bond.

One year after his momentous discovery, he left GE and found himself teaching at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT where he would spend the rest of his career. There he rebuilt a new tetrahedral press that cleverly skirted GE’s intellectual property restrictions, and started MegaDiamond, a synthetic diamond manufacturer in 1966.

What does Dr. Hall’s story have to do with influence and success?

While there are many lessons, I think one of them is that Dr. Hall showed us that success is the combination of several things… which isolated by themselves… aren’t worth very much. Here’s what I mean:

Carbon + Heat + Pressure = Diamonds

Any one of these things, by themselves, are worthless. Carbon is everywhere, heat is replicable, and pressure? You probably feel it every day. But combined in the right amounts? You’ve got diamonds.

(Dr. Hall with his newly designed press, courtesy of Legacybooks)

Similarly, I’ve discovered that the formula for success is:

Delivering Value To Others + Increasing Your Skills + Persistence = Success

Just like carbon on its own isn’t worth very much, delivering value to others without skills or persistence isn’t worth much either. You may have a solution… but if you don’t do it skillfully, or persistently, it doesn’t matter. The same goes with increasing your skills. You may be skilled… but if you aren’t persistent, and aren’t delivering value in a meaningful way… it doesn’t matter. And lastly, if you skillfully offer an amazing solution, but are not persistent? Others will pass you by.

However when Value, Skills, and Persistence are combined? You’ll get diamonds.

Which is the secret of Dr. Hall. He didn’t invent Carbon, Heat, or Pressure. Rather, his genius was finding a way to hold them all together in the same space (for a long enough time) to reach his goal.

· What about you? Are you skillfully and persistently spinning your wheels? Look for ways to increase the value you offer to others.

· Maybe you have an idea that is valuable, have what it takes to deliver it well, but are struggling to make it happen. Look for ways to be more persistent.

· Or is it possible you serve people in a way that makes a difference but want to upgrade how you do it? Look for ways to level up your skillset from others who are doing it better.

Despite his world changing achievements, Dr. Tracy Hall returned to his roots and spent his final years tending to his fruit orchard in Payson, UT, before he passed away in 2008, at the age of 88. Upon his passing, Robert M. Hazen of George Mason University said Hall should have received a Nobel Prize for his creation of diamonds.

That makes sense and may be true.

However, I feel Dr. Hall’s true legacy can be found in how he persevered and continued to find better ways to succeed despite all the obstacles thrown at him. And like Dr. Hall, when you combine meaningfully serving others with skills and persistence in the same way?

You’ll get diamonds, too.

Christian

(Check out Dr. Hall’s Diamond press displayed outside his former home today)

CHRISTIAN HANSEN has gone behind the scenes in some of the biggest organizations in the world to find out the reasons why some people get chosen and why others don’t. As the #1 bestselling and LinkedIn Top Ten ranked author of “The Influence Mindset: The Art & Science of Getting People to Choose You” Christian helps teams and organizations who want to stand out and be the obvious choice. With degrees from Brigham Young University and The London School of Economics, he’s helped thousands of individuals position and sell themselves. A fan of international communication, history, and choral music, he currently lives in Utah with his wife. Reach him at: TheChristianHansen.com