A few weeks ago, I had the great privilege of attending a class in the entrepreneurship program at Trent University, taught by Professor Cammie Jaquays.

The students in the course were given an assignment in which they were to apply the principles for starting a new business as set out by Prof. John W. Mullins in his book entitled “The New Business Roadtest” to the process that I followed in creating one of the first spas for men in the world, as chronicled in my book entitled “Don’t Let Your Dream Business Turn Into a Nightmare”.

The students were divided into six groups, each of which made a PowerPoint presentation in which they considered such questions as “What did Mr. Stransman miss?”, “Why did this business not succeed?”, “Did this venture have a chance of success?” and so forth.

It was a fascinating evening, and I learned a lot from the students, and hope that they learned something from me.
Afterwards, I received the following comment from Prof, Jaquays, for which I am very grateful and of which I am extremely proud:

“The students enjoyed the experience of having you come to the classroom, the exercise, analyzing your book and creating the feasibility study. What was most enjoyable, and what I appreciate the most, was the time and effort you took to attend the night of presentations. The students so appreciated the fact that you were there for questions and input. These students are in their 3rd and 4th year, so the ability to bring the ‘real’ world to their studies was a great experience”.

I was also very pleased to receive a note from student Nathan Hogle, who said “Your book was great. I enjoyed reading it. It was a really easy read.”

When I sat down to write my cautionary tale for entrepreneurs, I never imagined myself in front of a class of students studying entrepreneurship at the university level, but you just never know what can happen when you write something from the heart.

I hope to have many more such experiences in the future.