| If you could sit down with someone very | | | | He was a quiet man, almost stern in demeanor. A |
| successful and pick their brain-what would you | | | | true Victorian gentleman that rather intimidated |
| ask? | | | | the little girl who would perch on the sofa beside |
| As a child, I knew of a man who was born in the | | | | his rocking chair in the farmhouse he had built with |
| latter part of the last century who fit that | | | | his own two hands. But that all changed years |
| criterion. He was the youngest child of a woman | | | | later, when she was a grown woman with a life |
| whose husband died when he was a baby. He and | | | | of her own, and she found the Valentines he had |
| his brothers moved from England as young men | | | | sent to his love back in England as he struggled to |
| and homesteaded land in Alberta. He married a | | | | make a home for them on the wide open Prairie. |
| woman he had known in the old country that had | | | | He worked hard, even taking a job in a lumber |
| traveled to join him in a new country. She was a | | | | camp for the winters to make ends meet (he |
| midwife whose father was a doctor back in | | | | was the cook and his bread was absolutely the |
| England. Anyway, during the Depression, when | | | | best). He deeply loved that woman who was |
| everyone else was going broke around him, he | | | | considered above his class in England and it came |
| became a millionaire. | | | | through in the tender words he wrote in beautiful |
| The million dollars he made in the 1930s came | | | | script on the cards. |
| from the sale of work horses to farmers and | | | | But the message here for modern women in |
| trades people. Huge, big Morgan horses. He had | | | | business is this: he never did anything by half |
| been told that he was foolish to keep raising | | | | measures. If he committed to something then he |
| these magnificent animals when fuel-driven | | | | saw it through and did it to perfection. Nothing |
| machines began to appear on the farms in the | | | | less would do. |
| 20s and money was to be made on homesteads | | | | Another message he passed along was to believe |
| now well established with second generation | | | | in himself and what he was doing. When others |
| families. But he kept on doing it because he was | | | | were so busy enjoying the good times that they |
| aware that fortunes can change. So when nobody | | | | were blind to the other side of economic booms, |
| could afford the fuel and parts for their new | | | | he kept his own counsel and created something |
| tractors, they came to him to buy horses for | | | | that would withstand economic decline. He saw |
| their traditional equipment. | | | | trends in both directions. And he understood there |
| I have often said I would love to sit down and | | | | are opportunities in good times and bad times-- |
| talk to him now. Ask him what his mindset was | | | | change is opportunity. |
| to be successful when all around him was failure | | | | Is he a mentor? Absolutely. His knowledge and |
| and heartbreak. The lessons he learned from | | | | business sense have survived him. Just one |
| mistakes he had made, as well as the triumphs he | | | | question-- if you could sit down to tea, what |
| had experienced along the way. | | | | would you ask? |