How My Dad’s Simple Rules Built a Lifetime of Character and Respect
The Character Who Taught Me Character
It’s very hard to believe that my dad died twenty-four years ago, or will have on May 12 of this year, anyway. Two dozen years, and yet I still think of him every day. Some instance or situation pops in my head, and there he is, along with it.
All these years later, three words still come to mind when I think of him – a wonderful gentleman. I wish I could take credit for it, but I can’t.
It was permeated into my brain at his funeral, as so many of his friends and even his employees used those same three words when they were offering their condolences to me: “your father was a wonderful gentleman.”
The Simple Rules That Defined His Character
One could cynically assume that it was scripted, but it wasn’t. My dad was respected and an honest man. He had many friends, many of whom were employees. They would be at the house playing bridge together a few times a month, and over on weekends for dinner.
My dad liked to grill. I remember him having numerous bags of charcoal always stored in the garage. He would grill SKOM (Some Kind of Meat) every day in the summer. That’s where he and I differed; I charcoal-grill year-round.
Even after decades in “the program,” he still considered himself an alcoholic. When he died, he had the Alcoholics Anonymous coin in his hand. It was a lesson learned.
He quit drinking back in 1959, when I was two years old, so I never knew him that way. Just because you stopped drinking, it doesn’t mean you aren’t an alcoholic.
Sobriety, Accountability, and Character
God knows, I gave him plenty of reasons to drink as I was growing up. From the broken arms to the juvenile antics, to when he finally called me over the house for that “day of reckoning” message that turned my life around, he was my father, my mentor, and my friend.
He always saw so much potential in me, even though I was a constant fuck-up, doing stupid things, acting on instinct, rather than thinking things through. It’s likely why, among my “Jeffisms,” is “think before you stink.”
He was patient with me, other than seeing the other side of his fraternity paddle a couple of times, but that was only for lying. He semi-understood the fucking up stuff as that is a “rite of adolescence,” but he would not stand for lying. Not sure what I was so afraid of in telling him the truth the first time, but me and my ass figured it out pretty quickly.
He would laughingly refer to me as his “unemployable son,” although I knew he was not laughing on the inside. It wasn’t so much that I was unemployable; I had plenty of jobs. It was just that I would quit them after a day or two. In 1978, I had 25 W-2s at year-end, none of which reported wages over $500.00.
Timing really IS everything, and when he called me over to the house for that life-changing non-religious “Come to Jesus” moment, I saw him in a new light.
It’s not like he changed or anything; it was just me realizing how much it hurt him to have to sermonize me.
Normally, five seconds in, my brain would already be in scatter mode, hearing him as background noise.
Not this time. It was obvious that he was not fucking around and was really concerned about me. I gave him the attention that his voice warranted.
Perhaps I was overcome with emotion while driving over the house, worried about him telling me he was dying. This was likely a positive thing, as it kept me listening to every word; there was no random brain scrambling going on for a change, a nice change.
Tough Love That Sparked a Career, and Character, Turnaround
I heard him so much that I was determined to fix it. And I did, finding the first warehouse job that I could. It was the fate of the Gods that I landed at a computer company, like the book says, “It Worked for Me!” But it could just as easily have been a ball-bearing manufacturer or even a coffee manufacturer. Fate works in mysterious ways.
Who knows, I could have been Howard Schultz!
It didn’t matter; my mission wasn’t landing the job; it was keeping the job long enough to make something/anything of myself.
And I did.
It did not take long for my dad to, this time laughingly, still call me his “unemployable son,” as I was making my way up the corporate ladder at several companies. I did not leave them because I was bored and quit; on the contrary, I would break the bank, and they outlined a new comp plan for the following year…Sell double this year to make what you made last year.
I didn’t care by then, as I was writing my own ticket anyway. The joy was not in making the shitload of money, after all, I earned it, but the reward was that it gave me enough to support my dad with 24-hour care nursing in our family home when his Parkinson’s Disease got worse and worse.
The joy was somewhat tempered by the fact that, although he knew I had founded my own company, he was not around to see us twenty years later as that $100M brand-name surveillance company.
I do know when he died, he was proud of me, not for the company successes, but for the man I turned out to be.
That man was him. I built a company that mirrors his, with diversity, opportunities for growth, and respect both within and outside the industry.
My dad was a man of honor; I remain committed to honoring him through my actions, not my words, and, above all, through my character. After all, I never would have this wonderful life without him kicking me in the ass. I still have the bruise. That’s okay with me.
Because my dad really was “a wonderful man.”
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To learn about this entire journey, pick up a copy of 𝙄𝙩 𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙈𝙚: 𝙈𝙮 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙞𝙯𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙊𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘽𝙪𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙎𝙪𝙘𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 today! Also available now in audiobook format!
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