Well, my day started with breakfast in bed - it's probably the last time, as all the little birds are leaving the nest. It was a great breakfast. We drove over to Indianapolis to celebrate Father's Day with the first man I met and the greatest man I have ever known. We just got back home about an hour ago and celebrated with a special dinner of homemade banana cream pie (boy, was it good). I decided to go "Classic Dad" and wear my dress socks with my flip flops. Really it is a good look!
In all seriousness, today is a day that we celebrate Fathers everywhere. I was lucky to have one of the best. I've talked about a few of the lessons he taught me over the years in previous posts. There is something really special and unique about fatherly advice, and in many ways, I am who I am today as a result of it. I will leave you with a few of my favorites - those timeless lessons about leadership learned from my Dad:
1. Never stop learning. Dad was an organic chemist and retired over 10 years ago from a large pharmaceutical company. He worked there for over 30 years, and I can truly say that he loved his job. Actually, for him it wasn't a job, it was his passion. Yet even though he has retired, and he probably doesn't have to, he continues to read about organic chemistry (much to all of his grandkids' amazement). He never stopped learning. He taught me to always work hard at learning. It's a worthwhile investment of time and energy. The day you stop learning is the day you stop improving yourself, and the day you stop improving is the day you should stop being a leader. Leaders never stop learning.
2. Always take care of those you love. Dad loved being an organic chemist, but he never let it interfere with being a husband and father. He always put the needs of his family above everything else. Being a leader is sort of like that too - you should always put the needs of your team above your own personal goals and aspirations. Leaders take care of their teams.
3. Never give up. The Boy Scouts of America played an important role in my father's development, in my development, and my son's development. Both my son and I are proud Eagle Scouts. Dad never got the chance, because he didn't know how to swim, and his family couldn't afford swimming lessons. I was still fairly young, but I remember when Dad went to the local high school to take swim lessons. He learned how to swim. He never gave up. He stood there proudly when I earned my Eagle Scout and when my son earned his. We shared it with him. It was his as much as it was ours. Leaders never give up.
4. If you do your best and learn what you can, the grades don't matter. I remember bringing home my first bad report card (it was really bad) following the Spring semester of my second year in college. Dad's first question - "Did you do your best?" I had to be honest. I didn't give it my best, and I knew I could do better. But what he said next was even more important, "If you learned something, that's all that matters." Dad felt that as long as I was doing my best, I would learn what I needed to learn to be the best person that I could be. That's all that mattered to him. Leaders always give it their best effort and take every opportunity to learn.
5. Making homemade ice cream requires patience, but it's worth it. I don't know how many times we made homemade ice cream when I was a kid, but it seemed like we did it a lot. I used to sit outside with my Dad and watch him patiently add ice and salt to the ice cream machine. It used to spin and spin and spin. It went on forever. Spin and spin. Add more salt and ice. Spin and spin. Add more salt and ice. He told me to be patient. All good things come to those who wait. And when the machine finally stopped spinning, he would give me a taste. "See, what did I tell you?" It was definitely worth it. Leaders know the wait is worth it.
Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there. But most of all, Happy Father's Day to my Dad, who taught me to be a father. He also taught me to be a leader. I guess Fathers are like that.
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