My Dad was the Captain; and the sign on the wall said, “The Captains Word is Law”. But if you were to believe that he was a hard man you would be wrong. He could be tough. He could be tough on his kids, tough in business; yet he had a soft heart.
He set high expectations of people. By in large they lived up to his expectations through his own shear determination. He got more out of people through his knowledge that they would do the right thing. But every once in a while we would let him down, and I think that hurt us more than him.
My Dad set the standard for intellectual honesty. He knew himself and his own imperfections. I have chased my own desire for intellectual honesty my whole life and have failed miserably. I know how difficult it is. But there is one more thing; he had the self-discipline to improve those areas of his life that he felt he needed to improve on. When he needed to learn something, he learned it.
He always said the greatest danger in business was ego. It gets in the way of all kinds of decisions. Fits in the same discussion as intellectual honesty, but is a bit different. Keeping an ego in check is a humble understanding of your place in the universe. We live on a small planet in a large universe for a moment in time. Pretty humbling if you think of it. He is a humble man with an ego in check.
As a father he was always there. I was not usually smart enough to go to him for advice, but when I did he had a way of making something I thought was pretty complex; pretty simple. His support was unwavering.
He is 86 years old and still the same guy.
I make him out to be pretty perfect kind of guy. He wasn’t. Not point in going into his weaknesses, he knows them and that’s enough.
I wish I could have been half the Dad he is. I love him very much.
No comments:
Post a Comment