Recorded Wednesday, June 17, 2020.
This week’s episode is based on a blog post I published earlier this year with the same title, Quotes from my Father. You can find the original post below.
I figured that, in honour of Father’s Day, I would turn that post into a podcast so the busy Dads out there could listen while getting other things done. I’ve also shortened the post below and given a bit more background on some of the situations in which I remember my Father saying these things. I won’t republish the entire post here as you can read it for yourself, but I do include the quotes and a bit of explanation of them so you can quickly skim through them.
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The things I remember my Father saying can be broken into a few different parts.
- First, watch what goes into and through your head;
- Second, be nice and help each other out;
- Third, learn about money and how to make more of it with little more effort on your behalf;
- Fourth, learning and business;
- Fifth, make a decision and do it already, and live with the consequences (whatever they may be);
- And, finally, sixth, a job is just a job and it doesn’t have to define you. Though it should form a part of your larger “work”.
With that, these are the things I remember my Father saying to me as I was growing up and into adulthood.
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“Be careful what you put into your head.”
“As a man thinketh, so is he.”
In general, be careful who and what you let rule in your head. Thoughts become actions as the saying goes. You need to filter, process, consider the information, the arguments presented, think for yourself and come to your own conclusion. This is the basics of critical thinking.
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“ ‘I only shot him once.’ Yes, well, now he’s dead.”
“Be nice to each other.”
“You can be an ass or an asset.”
In essence, don’t be mean and help each other out. My family, especially my parents, were very religious and very much taught the “treat others as you wish to be treated” maxim. It’s not a bad idea at all and I’m surprised at how often it goes ignored.
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“It’s only money. You’re young, you’ve got lots of time to make more.”
“Sell half.”
“Wants become needs.”
“Remember the five-legged stool.” – It is a struggle to remember exactly what all of the legs were but they basically consisted of your primary job, a secondary job, insurance for your life, savings for children’s education and learn how to trade stocks. A lot of people who have families would take these all at face value. However, should you not have kids these things can be taken more generally, especially in regard to the last two. Thus, instead of children’s education or even how to trade stocks, you can instead see it as money for learning (formal or informal) and learn how to manage your money (since stock trading isn’t for everybody).
“Take out a small loan and pay it off. It’ll help your credit score.”
It’s no surprise to the people that knew my Dad that he was big into finance, money and taxes. He was very proud of his accomplishments and many would say that he believed his greatest accomplishment was his family, having five kids with my Mother. “Not bad for a farm boy, huh?” He would say. In addition to having a full time job my Dad also did taxes for farmers all over Canada. As a result, he had a healthy understanding of how money worked and how to make it work for you. He also encouraged his kids, and everybody, to learn how to make money with money.
In his later years he wrote a stock market newsletter, Stocks Talk, through which he shared his experience learning how to trade the stock market. The origin of his learning how to trade stocks began back in the 1990s when he gave a chunk of cash, about $3000 or so, to a broker who then invested it for him. The broker lost everything and when my Dad asked about it the broker simply said, it’s part of the game. From then on my Dad made it his mission to learn everything about money and finance.
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“Learn how to learn.”
“Successful people eat more cold meals.”
“It’s easier to ask for an apology than to ask for permission.” – Again, I think my Dad got this from somewhere else but apparently it’s an old publishing maxim. Basically, take the risk rather than wait for the okay from the higher ups. Of course, you need to measure the risk being taken and be cautious about what you’re doing, but the point remains that it is easier to publish something and then ask for forgiveness rather than asking for permission in the first place. “According to a source who wished to remain anonymous…” Sound familiar?
These quotes were in reference to business and how to get ahead in life. Simply put, you couldn’t wait for things to come together, you had to make them come together and, more importantly, sometimes you just need to push ahead despite what other people say. It goes back to the “be careful what you put into your head” since your actions will be the result of study, deliberation and decision.
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There came a point when my Dad released some dominance over saying something about what as children did, unless asked of course. I don’t know when it happened but I suspect that a father will always be a Father and that there will never be a time that they can’t help but say something because, you know, they do have more life experience than kids will ever have, it just follows naturally that they’d have something to say. Basically, you have a brain, use it. There’s only so much another person can say (especially a Father) before you have to make a decision on your own, do it, and live with the consequences.
“You have to do some of these things in life.”
“Who cares what I think?”
“So go do what you have to do already and be done with it already.”
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“It’s better to be smart with no money than dumb with lots of money.”
“Everyone is a temp.” – This would be one of the last few things I remember my Dad saying that had an impact, if only because of the humour behind it. If there is one quote that kind of set me straight on the path of “it’s only a job”, it’s this one. This one happened after I’d returned from Australia with a rather sizeable credit card balance (again) and was working in warehouses and garden centres in Winnipeg. I was usually the highest educated, lowest paid employee. I bemoaned the fact that I was still only a temp and that’s when my Dad, in one of our scotch-drinking evenings, very derisively dropped this sentence on me: “Everyone is a temp.” Duly noted, job dismissed!
Again, back to the money but I remember my Dad saying these later into my mid-20s already. Both quotes refer to working different jobs and bouncing around. The trouble isn’t that you have no money, it’s that you’re not settling in and you keep moving and not enabling yourself to build up that cash savings that can sustain throughout the droughts. I’m not sure if my Dad saw the “gig-ification” of the workforce in that more people were working jobs that weren’t stable. All I knew was that the type of office job that my Dad had would not be the one I would take. And so, it was there that we really parted ways in our understanding of work.
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And a shout out to my Mother for saying something rather poignant about my first university degree, “Your first degree only helps you to think.”
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I hope that was helpful! Happy Father’s Day to all of the Fathers out there! Keep up the hard work!