Six Life Lessons from your Dad

Good luck tomorrow on your first day of school, Danielle's senior year and Jonathan's freshman year at the University of Missouri.  I love you both and am bursting with pride about your accomplishments and potential to make a contribution in the world.  I am also pleased that you live in the same city, Columbia, and hope that you can continue to be a source of strength for each other.
 
As I close my eyes, the years melt away, and I can see myself at your ages, 21 and 18, on my college campus: walking to class, browsing in the book store, engaged with friends, playing sports, studying late at night, and just being inspired by the motivated and talented people surrounding me.  You are so fortunate now.
 
But the time between being a college student and being the parent of college students passes so quickly.  To help you use your time well, I have compiled a list of life lessons.  It draws upon my interactions with many people.  It draws upon my many failures, as well as my successes.  
 
Everyone deserves respect and compassion as a human being. But my hope is that as you meet new people, especially people with whom you may become close or intimate, you can use it to sort out who you can trust.  As your grandfather drove me to college in 1976, he tried to do something similar by quoting Shakespeare [1].  But his advice was over my head.  So I will try to be more practical with you two.  In a few years, perhaps you can do even better?
 

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Rod Zimmerman is the president of Dynalivery Corporation, a software development firm specializing in reporting and printing software, with customers in 11 countries. He graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a Bachelors degree in Computer and Communications Sciences in 1981. He is the father of two college age children. He writes as a hobby and as an occasional free-lance project.  He is an avid news reader and has recently taken up Nintendo Wii Bowling with a high game of 258 out of 300 pins.  He is a big believer in internships, having worked himself as a college summer intern many years ago in government, university research, and private industry.  In his career, he has served as a mentor to more than 20 summer interns and professionals.  This article summarizes much of what he has learned from his many, generous mentors and friends.

 

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FAQ-1. How can parents best be friends of their children?

"I am your friend, as well as your father" is an underlying theme of the entire letter. It does not mean that parents should be peers or buddies of their children. It is more leadership by example. It means keeping the best interests of late adolescent or adult children in mind, restraint by progressively speaking in terms of suggestions instead of orders as children get older, being open to children sometimes mentoring parents, making fair compromises when you can't please everyone, avoid pitting family members against each other, and especially offering help without controlling, puppet strings. The key is for parents to act as loyal friends in good times, so that later, when a child may really need a parent's help (or vice versa), they can ask for it comfortably, promptly, and without drama. In fact, this idea may apply more broadly than to just parents and children. Years ago when I asked a peer friend for help, his first words were, "I am glad that you were comfortable asking me."

FAQ-2. Is early qualification of new people in your life practical?

Do we need to be involved with someone for a long time before we can answer these questions?  If so, does it make it impractical to ask them early in a relationship, either yourself, or through trusted friends? This is a common response I receive and also a bit hard for people to articulate. The reasons seem to fall into these categories:

1) Respecting a supernatural influence guiding us to new people.
2) Guarding against arrogance in asking these questions too toughly, conflicting with a belief in being open to new people, ideas, and ways of experiencing life.
3) Fear of being alone due to having few, special social or business opportunities.
4) Discomfort in the possible implication that had we (or our parents) been more selective, our children (or we ourselves) would not have been born, or entered into some special relationship.
5) Greater power in cultivating a larger personal network, to reach more people and what they know, including the contacts of your contacts, or to have people be your contact - regardless of your opinion of the intermediate people. (See social networking web sites like MySpace or Facebook where people may list huge numbers of friends.)

I take these points seriously and suggest that if we are to apply these Life Lessons effectively, we should apply them humbly, as follows: Proceed slowly in new relationships, allow the truth to naturally emerge, as is the custom in some cultures. Be friends first. Recognize that we will never know someone else completely. But if we pay attention to small signs, we can learn enough to make good, early choices. Be brave in asking the questions, and be patient in waiting for people who give us the answers that we need. And remember that none of us are perfect. A good match may be someone whose foibles are merely complementary to our own.

FAQ-3.  Is there a conflict between cautious intimacy with victims of abuse (life lesson #1) and helping others (life lesson #3)?

Some readers told me that they had been abused as young children but through therapy and friendship, they made progress in overcoming it.  But had they been shunned, they may have not recovered.  At the same time, they wanted their own children to be highly selective in who they chose as friends!  Some readers suggested that my words about victims of abuse such as "Watch out ..." were too strong or did not account for the possibility of successful therapy.  Others suggested that I keep the wording I had or make it even stronger. I put much thought into striking a reasonable balance. Please refer to these points in the letter (emphasis added):

Everyone deserves respect and compassion as a human being.   [Introduction & Conclusion]

Unless they are making peace with it as adults,
their unresolved anger at being hurt by a protector could turn into rage ... [Life Lessons #1]

Be open to the possibility of growth.  [Life Lessons #6]

Be careful in applying these life lessons not to dismiss people.   [Conclusion]


The life lessons are consistent with each other, as long we temper caution with compassion.

FAQ-4.  How can you help people believe in you?

In my late 20's, I worked with an executive of a technology company in California. His company competed in a hyper-growth market where it needed to more than double in annual revenues for five consecutive years to remain credible - a tall order.  The pace in his office was furious, with more opportunities than time to fairly consider them.  He was desperate to add new employees to whom he could delegate part of his crushing workload.  But at the same time, he was selective in his hiring, preferring people who could stand up for themselves in a highly competitive and sometimes unfair world.  So he often tested new employees, until they proved themselves. The first few times an employee would enter his office to pitch a proposal, he would reject it - regardless of its merits!  His initial test for assessing whether a creative idea could grow into a practical proposal was whether the advocate had the courage to return to his office a second time, with an improved proposal, and fight for it.

He explained his strategy as follows:

Ideas don't run by themselves.  They need execution by committed people.  So lets look at the advocate.  Are they strong enough to overcome the inevitable setbacks in business (and in life) that may cause others to quit?

This story divided my reviewers, some of whom said that this executive was a bully, while others said that he was a tough mentor, training his team like a sports coach who makes practice harder than games.  But in any event, you will encounter people who view the world through a prism of relentless competition and need to be ready.

You can help people believe in you by holding your fire until your audience is ready to listen, being clear about your values, acting consistently within your roles, communicating in terms of contributions to common goals, fighting persistently when you strongly believe in your cause, and showing that you can compete.