GEW: On the Road – Tarah’s Highlights from Calgary

For Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) this week, we have sent three ambassadors across the country to report live from the road as they visit Canadian entrepreneurs, small business, community partners in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and attend GEW events. On Tuesday, Tarah was on the road in Calgary, Alberta for the day. Here is a recap of her day on the road and some of the ah-ha moments she had along the way.

Tarah’s day started at the Futurpreneur Calgary offices before she headed for breakfast at a good ol’ west coast restaurant, White Spot.

Following breakfast, Tarah headed with Futurpreneur Business Development Manager, Chris, to Float Life, a float centre that offers float therapy, where Tarah spoke with Co-Founder, Dustin Ryan about why they decided to go into the “floating” business.

Tarah’s Key Takeaway: Walking into FloatLife and first thing I noticed was that Co-Founder, Dustin Ryan, was not wearing shoes or socks, he was barefoot, which totally depicted the vibe of the space. I loved learning that they actually started the floating company as a result of his co-founder hearing about the phenomenon of floating back in 2011 on a variety of different podcasts—and so they thought they would try it out. He recommends first-time floaters do 2-3 90 minute floats a week for a couple weeks. I have to say my fav takeaway from chatting with Dustin was learning that he is an avid podcast enthusiast and loves listening to many podcasts, including that of Lewis Howes, author of The School of Greatness—which is on my book wish list, as well as serial entrepreneur James Altucher. His advice for wannabe entrepreneurs: “Continuously learn! There are no road blocks!”

Next stop on her Calgary adventure was visiting James Dobbin, Founder of Gummi Boutique, where she chatted with him about why he left his accounting job to open a candy store.

Tarah’s Key Takeaway: Hitting up the Gummi Boutique and seeing all the nostalgic and hilarious candies and treats that you can buy. My fave include the seasoned larvet, chocolate covered gummi worms and the comedic breath spray’s and chewing gum—which I picked up for my girlfriends as fun stocking stuffers.

While on a sugar high from the visit to Gummi Boutique, Tarah stopped Solo, The Dental Hygiene Spa where she chatted with entrepreneur, Melissa Parcels.

Tarah’s Key Takeaway: Chatting with Melissa I discovered that she is passionate about people and the relationships she has with each of her clients and/or students. In addition to founding Solo, Melissa is also the Founder of M. Dent Services, a dental administration program where she teaches students the fundamentals of dental administration. M. Dent services has a 98% placement rate, and Melissa advises she regularly gets calls from dentists in her community looking to hire future graduates. A firm believer in loving what you do, a common thread with many of the entrepreneurs I have chatted with thus far, Melissa is passionate about helping her student’s find their own career joy, and will go to no ends to make sure the graduates of her program are happy and being fulfilled at their place of work. Up next for Melissa is an initiative she dubbed “project big dream”, so keep your eyes peeled for Solo and M-Dents because I have a feeling this is just the beginning for this young, driven entrepreneur.

Finally, Tarah’s day ended at the Entrepeer Experience hosted by The Keg and Futurpreneur Canada. At Entrepeer, Tarah had the chance to speak with Rob Horricks, Founder of Blush Lane Organics and Futurpreneur mentor.

Tarah’s Key Takeaway: Chatting with entrepreneur and mentor, Rob Horricks, about his organic farming business, Blush Lane Organic Farming who for the past 3 years have been on the Profit 500 list. Passionate about farming and being connected to the earth, Rob often encourages friends and family staying with him on the farm to stay a couple days and go work in the fields, he swears, you will never complain about the price of tomatoes again.

Tarah had a great day exploring the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Calgary but her biggest takeaway was a quote by Robert Horrick of Blush Lane Organic Farming: “You have two ways of looking at life, through a lens of fear or a lens of love and you have got to get rid of the fear and look at it through a lens of love! You’ve got to take chances and you have to make yourself vulnerable.”

Follow along with Tarah’s adventures in Montreal, Quebec today (November 18^th) on Twitter at @FuturpreneurQC.