Five life lessons I learned from my dad

The poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

This is how Dad answered and was shared by me at his memorial service.

If you are receiving this as an email, you can click here to see a video of me speaking.

The five life lessons you would have learned if Tom Young was your father:

1.      The combination of Personal Responsibility and Joint Investment

 2.       Have confidence and Go Boldly

• One of the rallying cries of our childhood was  “The girls will push us out!”

• One of his catch phrases driving on ice was “drive faster, reduce your exposure time.”

• Dad started his own construction company when we were kids, it did not succeed in the ways he had hoped, but it helped teach us to take risks and not to be afraid

• Even though most of our lives, Dad has been sick, he did not let that get in the way of having a good time

 3.       Work with your strengths

• Strengths included: calm personality, willing to take a stand, generosity, strong engineer brain, love of being with people

• He wouldn’t be forced into making a quick decision, and once a decision was made, he stood by it.

4.       Do life with others

 5.       You will leave a legacy – what will it be?

• Dad had three daughters and on the surface we are quite different – different personalities, different strengths, certain values and beliefs are also different

• But below the surface, lie striking similarities and Dad’s legacy is seen in all of the ways that we are similar

• All three of us are in strong, healthy relationships. We know how to make and sustain friendships

• We all value education and on-going learning and engaging of information

• Each of us is a reliable worker/employee who adds value to her job or commitments

• We are all financially responsible and generous

• We are strategic thinkers when it comes to game playing – Dad kind of ruined us for playing with most people because they are so pedantic in their approaches

• We would do anything for our families and friends

 

What life lessons have you learned from good, solid men in your life?

P.S. I want to apologize to anyone taller than me — I hadn’t realized how distracting my casual approach to parting my hair can be. I’ll be better about it in the future :)