Birds of a Feather

I few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about how my mother homeschooled myself and my brother during summer break in order to help prepare us for school. It just so happened that this occurred on Mother’s Day week, of all times! When I found out about this, I knew I had to talk about my father on Father’s Day week and what he taught me.

The list of things my father taught me is as long as my arm. A lot of my quirks come from my dad. For instance, we both speak very loudly whenever we become excited about something. Listening to him talk about work, about family, or about anything he loves becomes a contest of “how loud can my voice go without actually shouting?” It’s something we have in common, and my mother never lets either of us live it down.

But more than teaching me to speak up, he taught me a lot about how to socialize with others, and that’s something I’ll always be grateful for.

I remember times when dad and I would be driving somewhere, and he’d begin to talk. One of the things he had a tendency to do was ask questions. It’d annoy me because, no matter what he asked, I never had a good answer. For example, he’d often ask me what I felt about the scenery around me as we drove. Because I wasn’t paying attention to the road, I’d have to answer with something noncommittal or otherwise admit that I wasn’t paying attention. Needless to say, it wasn’t always a fun experience.

However, these experiences contained a lesson in each one. The main lesson of this, for instance, was to pay attention to my surroundings, something I had to learn to do over the years. More importantly, it taught me the importance of probing questions. If you want to get the other person more engaged in the conversation, if you want to avoid monologuing, then you have to ask questions of the other person.

My dad also talked to me a lot about the importance of making sure the other person got the chance to speak and to pay attention to others. People like to talk, he said, and they especially like to talk about what they love. If you ask questions about the other person, you can learn a great deal from them while brightening their day.

Socializing has always been a struggle for me. Even today, I feel nervous getting into a conversation with other people, and I feel like I drift in and out of it whenever I’m not the center of it. When I did talk, I would dominate the conversation without any regard for the other person’s interest. My skill at reading body language was poor, at best.

My dad, by contrast, knew how to socialize with people. He had to in order to put food on the table for our family. My dad worked as a salesperson for years. He sold HR services for many years to a variety of small businesses. In that time, he met with every kind of business owner you could imagine. And later on, he was placed into a teaching role, helping teach others how to make better sales. He was the perfect teacher for me.

For this and many other reasons, I will always grateful for my father being what he is, and I hope he continues to teach me new things for many more years to come. Happy Father’s Day, everyone!