Young: Entrepreneurs: Love what you do, do what you love

If you want to make a difference in the world, the single most important thing you can do is consciously and deliberately choose to do work that feel passionate about.

No other choice can have a greater impact on your life.

I have often reiterated in my columns that an entrepreneur is a person, not a business.

A person can behave entrepreneurial in attitude and behaviour with the entrepreneurial mindset entrenched in their character.

With this in mind, I am very pleased this week to highlight the entrepreneurship storyline of a personal friend who, with his wife Joan, grew up in the same farming community as my wife in central Saskatchewan.

It’s an entrepreneurial story because Dave Meidl eventually believed that he could accomplish almost anything he set his mind to with the innovative and creative skills he was blessed with.

Meidl shared with me that he didn’t begin his educational journey with that belief. In fact, after some years of trial and error, it took a Roman Catholic priest while he was in Grade 12 to convince young Dave to believe in himself, that he could achieve something.

While Meidl struggled for years with the math sciences previously, in Grade 12 he graduated with an 89 per cent mark in Algebra.

His marks gained him entrance to university where he completed his degree in education.

During his Grade 12 year, Meidl met his love Joan, who was on the path herself towards studying to become a nurse, and they eventually married

Meidl grew up in a rural setting with his father and his father’s brother living on farm acreages literally side by side raising 10 children into the world between the two families.

Needless to say, large gardens, milk cows and raising livestock while driving trucks was the example to raise such large rural families during those earlier years.

During his school years, Meidl learned some of the trades skills that have honed his long-standing talents and knowledge that he has grown so fond of throughout the years and career stops.

He had spent time as a mechanic in the potash industry in Saskatchewan, nurturing his love for tools right to this very day.

After receiving his education degree and beginning the entry into secondary school teaching, Meidl discovered, during his first and only year of teaching, that the system of teaching young minds was not what he had envisioned and hoped.

He felt the education system of the day could do so much more to ensure a more complete development of the student.

Unfortunately, his career path in teaching was not meant to be so Meidl decided to pursue other career options.

He had experience in the sales field while performing some part-time work selling vacuums to pay the bills during his university days.

So, always enjoying working with his hands filled with tools of all types, Meidl purchased a Snap-On-Tool franchise and began to assemble his innovative sales and planning strategies that he holds so importantly to this day.

After three enjoyable years traveling the countryside, Meidl, who has always believed that life unfolds its secrets to us for a reason, decided that he was ready for the next plateau.

He was then offered a position with Allis-Chalmers farm manufacturing company that was short-lived when fate brought the company to closure.

During Meidl’s travels in southern Alberta and British Columbia during this period with Allis-Chalmers, he discovered the Okanagan Valley and was amazed at the effect the visual landscape had on his soul. He began a mindset to eventually bring his family to our beloved valley.

During the late 1970s and early ‘80s, Meidl enjoyed yet again some value-added addition to his innovative and creative mindset as a budding personal entrepreneur.

Meidl worked as a construction welder and in the insurance industry, in the latter rising to district manager for Co-operators Insurance in slightly over one year, quite unheard of at the time.

Through the many career excursions the Meidls embarked, almost all required a move of some sort.

Dave was strongly feeling a need to be home for their two children and his wife far more regularly than history offered.

In 1992, Meidl’s younger brother Randy had acquired a Honda automobile dealership in Saskatoon and was doing very well.

The two brothers had always remained close and Randy began a series of telephone calls to Dave seeking the latter’s interest in joining him in managing auto dealerships as Randy discovered an opportunity to take over a Nissan dealership close to his Honda operation.

Dave balked at leaving his insurance management position in Sherwood Park, Alta., as he loved the customer interaction, the industry and every evening he could be home with the family.

Randy relentlessly pursued Dave’s interest until finally the decision was made.

The couple decided to go back to their roots in Saskatchewan as Meidl began a significant part of his life journey as the general manager of the Nissan dealership, partnering with his brother as a venture “team” for 18 enjoyable years.

The brothers had an understanding that Dave would eventually leave the auto industry and go to the Okanagan in a state of semi-retirement in his late 50s or early 60s.

Hence in 2008, Joan and Dave bought their retirement home in West Kelowna, their children now successfully building their own lives.

So now, the final chapter begins…Over the past dozen or so years, Meidl’s hobby has been woodworking and a love for tools he believes he acquired during the years operating a Snap-On Tool franchise business.

He thought that maybe he would commence a self-employed venture repairing and creating with wood products.

But before it could occur, the notion it hit him hard that he loved creating with wood so much for his psyche, that he felt that to do that for money would erase the vast enjoyment from working with wood for himself.

So, Meidl decided to start up a window coverings business because with 16 physical moves in their married life, Meidl figured he paid out more dollars in total than the cost of his first house.

Do you believe?

Still, it gives me great joy to see and listen to the gratification the Meidls feel arriving at this plateau in their lives.

With the years of orchestrated career stops along the way, Dave has evolved to become a genuine entrepreneurial spirit and you may learn about his current adventure in his window covering enterprise at the.blind.spot@shaw.ca where you will discover the company website and its products. Have fun!

Joel Young is an entrepreneurial leadership coach, educator and founder of Okanagan Valley Entrepreneurs Society

eagleyoung@shaw.ca