If you’ve ever been in an Insight Lab with Jeff Leitner, you may have wondered just what kind of career path leads one to become the Dean of such an institution.

A recent profile on the Chicago entrepreneurial blog Technori covers the highlights, including:

Texas childhood:  “I was the guy who never overtly did anything wrong, but things seemed to be going on. I seemed to be orchestrating them. My version of being a pain in the ass was just orchestrating larger movements that were pains in the ass.”

Social worker: “I seem to be going down this pretty conventional frat boy, government, law school track and then suddenly turning and being a social worker. My friends could not figure out what the hell I was doing.”

Failed typist, successful journalist: “I walked down the hall and I enrolled in Beginning Broadcast Journalism because they didn’t ask me if I could type.”

Kibutznik: “It was amazing but it turns out I wasn’t a socialist. And neither were they. I found out that they kept sneaking things in, like TVs, which they would hide from the rest of us.”

Fearless backpacker: “I got stuck in the Paris train station because I didn’t know the word ‘sortie’ means ‘exit.’ I got lost in the Alps with a friend who as clueless as I was. I ran into all sorts of trouble on that trip that shrunk the world for me in a profound way that, I think, influenced my worldview.”

Chicago political consultant: “It was a lot of fun figuring out how to get things done in a city where I was considered an outsider and had no power or influence.”

Entrepreneur: “When I started my own business I didn’t know I had any reference points, didn’t know what I was doing, and I had no power. But what I did know was how to solve problems.”

Founder of Insight Labs: “I want to solve the hairiest problems with the most interesting people. For me, the harder it is, the more exciting it is.”

Read the piece to learn how all those pieces fit together. It’s a hell of a tale.