I first met Sid through my work in maintenance at Meadow Greens Retirement Community in Lynden, Washington. From the beginning I could tell he was a successful man. Our first connection point was that both his daughter, Julie, and I were negatively impacted by drunk drivers. Sid helped me to prepare a monthly message to those recently charged with impaired driving.
Sid has been a father figure to me and helped our family through tough times. We regularly go out for lunch where he offers me advice and wisdom. Words can’t express how special he is. I’m someone who grew up without a father and never received any guidance on taking charge of my finances. As a result, I accumulated a lot of credit card debt along with high interest car payments. Sid helped me understand how to correct my financial mistakes and, as a result, take charge of my life. He counseled me on how he would have handled my finances and helped me mange my money. Over the past few years I have not borrowed any money and my past debt is almost paid off. Like many people, my wife and I lived on our credit cards. In fact, at one time we had seven or eight different cards. As a result we struggled and were always short on cash.
Sid took me under his wing and showed me how to manage our budget. He also helped restructure our debt through low interest consolidation which allowed us to get rid of our credit cards. His plan turned everything around for us. We were no longer broke and out of money. Sid also helped us set up a monthly budget and to regularly put money into a savings account.
Did we follow his advice to the letter? Not always. Once I decided to take out a second car loan without telling him. One day over lunch I admitted my mistake. Rather than get angry he gave me a second chance. He even told a joke to relieve the tension. Through Sid’s help I’ve learned to take charge of my life. As I said, he’s been like a father to me. Beyond helping with my finances he has also been invaluable in my family and work life. Sid believes that each person should take charge of all aspects of their lives from choosing a vocation, having healthy relationships and managing finances.
—Zack DeBerry is team member of the Meadow Greens Retirement Community staff in Lynden, Washington. He serves primarily as maintenance director but has the skills to “pinch-hit” in every department.
When do career choices begin? Were there childhood clues as to what you’d become? What did you dream about when you were a kid? What were your interests? What games did you play? How did you spend your free time in the winter? What about summers? Did you read books, play games, or make sand castles?
When you were a kid how did you answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Often it’s the things that we loved as a child that give us clues to our passions. For example, my brother loved playing schoolteacher. He pretended to grade imaginary students’ work when he was growing up. What was his working lifetime career? After earning his teaching certificate he taught in a small Christian school in the state of Washington. At the same time he continued his education. His next step took him to Grand Rapids, Michigan where he accepted a position as high school teacher. Since he had a wife and small children he didn’t have the luxury of continuing his education full-time. His determination to achieve the highest level in his chosen career eventually resulted in him earning a doctorate degree in English literature and becoming a professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. Teaching students was the culmination of his childhood dreams. Never ignore your childhood interests nor the fear of making career changes no matter how old you are now.
Many experts tell us that human beings do not generally have the ability to retain memories before the age of three. However some studies reveal that this is only partially correct. Even though we do not retain memories of those earliest years, infants learn more during the first three years of of life than any subsequent three-year period thereafter. This is because what is learned during that time period is retained on a subconscious level. A question to explore is: When are the first indications of the future career orientation of a child initially discernible?
Another question is, do school grades predict future career success? I didn’t achieve good grades in many of my classes. I only received high grades when I concentrated on studying subjects I was interested in. In those subjects, even with minimum effort, I always received passing grades. When, in 2005, I was in Holland for the introduction of my book The Way it Was, which had been translated in the Dutch language, I was signing books during a promotion at Douma’s bookstore in Surhuisterveen. I signed a book for a lady who looked about my age. Obviously she knew who I was because my Dutch name was on the front cover. She seemed to be studying my face and lingered until I had a brief break. “Do you remember me?” she asked. I studied her face but no spark of recognition ignited and I had to confess that I did not remember her. She said “Sietze (my Dutch name), you and I were in the first grade together. My name was Annie Zijlstra (not her real name). Don’t you remember that our first grade teacher, Miss Schipper, always asked us to read the stories for the class?” I said, “No I don’t remember that either. Why did we have to do that?” “Oh,” she said with a sly grin which I interpreted as meaning she thought I was pretty dumb. Finally she answered my question. “Miss Schipper always asked us because we were the best readers in the class.” All I remember about my time in school is that instead of concentrating on listening and learning, I spent many class hours dreaming about other things. However, I don’t remember what I was curious about back then.
I was born on a small farm located in Opende, in the Netherlands, just on the border between the provinces of Groningen and Friesland. The year was 1930 and my early years were spent in the middle of a world-wide depression. Obviously I was unaware of the struggle for economic survival experienced by millions. However, I might have overheard snatches of conversations between my parents that subliminally conveyed to me that it wasn’t easy for them to meet their obligations. Later my mom told me that my father had started a little feed and fertilizer business during the depression. That made it possible for him to barely make it by combining his income as both a small farmer and a small business owner. Mom explained that Dad was a very proud and responsible man who didn’t want to take government hand-outs if he could possibly provide for his family himself. I have never forgotten that message of independence and responsibility. By telling me about my dad, my mother unwittingly unearthed within me a rough blueprint for my own life.
Reading must have come to me early and easily. I was probably still in first grade when I picked up a colorful little catalog with pictures of small packages of garden seeds. On the back page was an ad that grabbed my attention. “Earn money selling garden seeds to friends and neighbors.” That became my first business venture. I could earn as much as a dime on some packages of seed but most only earned me a nickel. With a dime I could buy a hundred marbles. This was during a time when most school kids played with marbles but few had money to buy them. I sold twenty marbles for three cents and made a nickel every time I sold a hundred of them. Selling marbles felt good and allowed me to have a few nickels in my pocket.
Over the years people have often asked me: “When did you become an entrepreneur, Sid?” With a grin my answer has always been: “I was born an entrepreneur even before Webster put the word in his dictionary.” Back when I sold marbles I was a little boy with no knowledge about business or entrepreneurship. However, I instinctively knew how to make a sale and earn a little money.