Thanks, Dad

What I learned about being a man from my father.

Stick to it

I’ll save the wheel barrow story for another time, but suffice to say my father somehow managed to teach a lazy kid how to persevere. I don’t know how it finally sunk in, but it did. If it’s worth doing, then it needs to be done. Sometimes you can convince someone to help you, sometimes not. But you stick with it. No one else can take on your responsibilities for you. Break your task into small pieces, but do them all. One after the other. It’s the only way to get it done.

Do what you say you’re going to do

This is different than just sticking to it. Sticking to it is just doing what you think is important. Doing what you say you are going to do is something else entirely. It’s following through on your commitments. It has an element of sticking to it, but it takes the commitment from being a personal one, and being true to yourself, and expands it to being true to those around you. Tell someone you’re going to do something, and you better prove yourself right. If you don’t, you’ve proven instead that you cannot be trusted.

Say what you are going to do

Transparency.

It’s all the rage today, what with Obama talking about new regulations for financial institutions, and companies being so open to their stock holders that they cannot be held accountable when they goof up because, hey, they told you so.

This is different. This is being honest about your intent. Wearing your intentions on your sleeve means you never catch anyone by surprise, because hey, once you say you’re going to do something, people get used to you doing it.

There’s a lot more I learned from my father, but these are three of the big ones. I don’t know how hard he worked to teach me these things, but I know I was a bit of a rebel, so for these lessons to have sunk in is quite the accomplishment.

Thanks, Dad. Love you.

James