FATHERLY ADVICE ABOUT WORK

by: Adrienne Rodney

My father, Mark Rodney, the musician, told me something profound that his musician father, Red Rodney, told him, “Whatever you do, whether it’s playing a guitar or building an atom bomb, learn you craft well; so when you get out into the real world, you are well prepared.”

For Father’s Day, we asked our readers and others for sage fatherly advice.

Some advice is easy to swallow. Alicia Moore’s dad encouraged her to accept transformation in the workplace. “You’ll change your career three times in your adult life. So it’s okay to change your job as your life changes. Don’t be afraid of it.” Alicia remembered these words when she left her job to start her own business as a virtual assistant.

After Mary Ruiz became disheartened from constant rejection from prospective employers, her dad knew the right words to say, “It doesn’t matter how many people say ‘no’ to you because you only need one ‘yes’.”

Some fatherly advice is not as easy to swallow. Richard Bird worked on his dad’s fishing boat when he was fourteen and he quit after one week. His father said. “We have an option ‘A’ and an option ‘B’. Option ‘A’: you can work for me and get paid. Option ‘B’: you can work for me and not get paid. This is a family business and we all have to work if we want to survive.” Richard continued to work for his father, and held his fishing guide license for 20 years.

Because Anand Bhatt’s dad couldn’t understand why he chose to be a musician, he struggled to find advice to give his son. But when a frustrated Anand needed him, he was there to get his son back on track. “Stress is not to be avoided. Life is like a guitar string. If it has too much tension, it’ll snap. But if it doesn’t have enough tension it doesn’t make a sound at all. You need just the right amount of stress to make life sound like you want it to.”

Many of us can reminisce about the long conversations we’ve had with our fathers, laughing at how fruitless we thought their lessons were at the time. Sometimes we don’t understand the power of their words until years later.

Brooke Allen, founder of NSoW, was told by his father, Tom Allen, Jr., “It is easier to make money doing what makes you happy than to buy happiness with the money you are paid for doing what makes you miserable.”

Brooke’s dad was a trained sculptor, and his career arc took him from fine art to management and consulting. Brooke thought his dad was crazy because it seemed to be hard to make money doing what gives you pleasure, and being a sculptor paid very poorly indeed. Brooke believed a good way to make money is to do things that make other people happy, and the easiest way is to do things that make them rich.

“Only later,” Brooke says,  “did I realize that he was right, because, if you spend your days working at making yourself miserable, you’ll find it very hard to make up for that, no matter how much money you spend.”

Sometimes, the best advice is to not take the advice. Rory Rowland’s father was uneducated (having left school after the 5th grade), and gave his son two pieces of advice: “Get an education,” and, “You can steal more with a briefcase than you can with a gun.” Rory decided to take his dad’s first suggestion but not the second, and now he consults to financial institutions, adding value, and getting paid much more legitimately than anyone could steal at a teller’s window.

Atypically, in a case of ‘do as I do, not as I say,’ Anna’s hard-working, honest dad recommended she take a job as a stock broker to make more money, even though she lacked confidence that she would know how to do right by her clients. He said, “A lot of people in that business don’t know what they’re doing. Besides, everybody is out for themselves, and the only people who are losing money are the ones that already have a lot of it.”

Anna was perplexed. She knew he wanted her to secure a better financial future, but he raised her to value morality. “He wouldn’t act like that himself,” she says now, ”and he raised me not to act like that either. So I’m ignoring his advice and remembering what he taught me to begin with.”

My father’s advice has ranged from questionable to good, although now that I am older I’m learning to reserve judgment. However, without question, he was right about practicing one’s craft. He’s been playing his guitar every day of his life since elementary school, and he surrounds himself with all things musical. That’s why he’s a pretty damn good guitar player: he took his dad’s advice.

It is Father’s Day – have you thought about what your dad has done for you? Do you think about the lessons you hope to teach your children?

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