I'm Inspired

Klaus Obermeyer is about to turn 95 years old. He maintains a very active lifestyle, skis fast and long every day that there is snow, and swims a mile everyday for pure relaxation.

He is also the founder of the Sport Obermeyer, a company he started in 1947 after he got tired of losing ski students. The story is that as a young ski instructor, he would start the week with 10 students. By the end of the week, the students would have dwindled down to one or two simply because they were freezing to death in their wool suits and leather boots. One day he got creative, as entrepreneurs do, and he pulled the goose-down comforter off his bed, cut it up and made a jacket. Gary Cooper, one his students bought it for $250. That was a lot of money in the day! Other celebrity clients wanted them too, and after he finally got so exhausted sewing them by hand, especially after a long day of teaching students to ski I would imagine, he asked a friend with a pillow factory to help out. A company was born and today sells between $30 to $40 million annually.

When asked about the secret to his personal longevity and the success of his company, he sums it up by saying ATTITUDE. In his personal life, he maintains a balance of working out physically and mentally. In business, he requires his employees to spend the morning on the slopes and not come in until after lunch if there is more than six inches of fresh snow overnight.

His advice for someone starting a company is to try and make a living at whatever you have the most interest and talent for, so that whatever your work, it will always be a pleasure.

Fortunately for me, I love what I do, so everyday is a pleasure. Hope you will do the same. Life is too short being miserable at what you do.

xo, jan