I want to tell you guys a story about my dad. Like most people, I’ve learned a lot from my folks, and this story has to do with everything I know about persistence and endurance. But specifically, it’s about academic persistence and career persistence; the persistence that it takes to find your ideal job/career. So, here’s the deal. I was in tenth grade and failing math for the second time. The first time I failed math - well it was a near fail - was in ninth grade; probably algebra or pre-algebra. And it was the same story in tenth grade. I’m failing pre-algebra, and my dad sits me down and says, “Jay, I got a story to tell ya.” And what he told me is still a vivid and constant reminder, really the only reason I can blame or point to when people say, “Why do you have PHD?” And it’s this conversation. This story.

Dad came from a little town in Arizona and loved to hunt, fish, and make stuff. My grandpa had a shop; he was kind of a jack-of-all-trades. But my dad had only been exposed to a few different jobs. He knew about being a mechanic, and he knew about being a musician. He knew that you could work at a lumberyard or a sawmill, because those were the industries that were around in this little tiny town in Arizona. So, he went off to college, and he studied industrial arts because that’s what he liked. He also took an economics class; and this economics class is what this story is all about. He said, “I took this economics class, and I failed. It was hard; I didn’t want to do it.” And after he failed, he never took it again. Kind of at the end of this short little blurb about an economics class in college, he said, “Jay, take the hard classes.” In that statement was some shame, some regret, and some longing; some wish that he would’ve taken the class again.

Now I don’t know what would have happened if he had taken the economics class again or where he would have turned out, because ultimately, Dad got a degree in industrial arts, and went into the air force. The only reason he went into the air force, though, was because he didn’t know what he wanted to do at that point, and ultimately, he had to get out.

And you know what, we had this conversation when I was in tenth grade, so I’m like, “Okay yeah, great Dad.”

Since I’m the oldest, I saw my dad really at some of his worst moments, his worst times. Career wise, he loved his time in the military. He was an administrative officer. He had many different jobs. It took him some fun places, and he had some great gigs. It’s a pretty macho thing to be able to walk around an air force base in a uniform and know that you are a part of something bigger. He even got a MBA while working being full-time active duty during the day and going to school at night. But then he had to get out, and he had no plan. 

It was like a bomb dropped on his life. He was a captain who didn’t make major, and they had too many captains. So, it was an early,  honorable discharge. He didn’t retire; he didn’t have enough time to retire. We were in Charleston South Carolina at the time, and he could find absolutely no work. So we moved. One random job he found was as a stockbroker in Florida. But the chaos just continued. One day after the owner of the brokerage had a party and got drunk, he took all the money and left the country and dad was out of work once more.

This was in the 80’s, in the middle of one of our country’s biggest recessions, up until this most recent one. He couldn’t find work, and it was totally humiliating and depressing for my dad. It was an angry time for him. I can remember packing up everything. We were in Florida at the time, and my grandparents, his in-laws, lived here in Washington. So he moved his family back to the Pacific Northwest. I was 8 years old and in the middle of third grade. It took us a week to drive cross-country, but he took his family and lived with his in-laws. There were many other jobs that my dad took. He managed a KFC for a while, he worked down on the tide flats as a union temporary, and eventually he went back to school at Pierce college and got himself a degree in network administration. And ever after, life improved for him.

I was there through that whole thing; seeing how miserable my dad was. This conversation came right in the middle of all this mess and he said, “Jay, take the hard classes.” Well that really stuck with me, and from that point on something kind of clicked and I said, “Okay, I’m going to get as much education as I can,” because I didn't want to get stuck, out of work, working dead end jobs, paycheck to paycheck, never having time to play, or raise my family. One of the reasons I felt that way was watching my dad and hearing him say, “Take the hard classes.”

It wasn't just about the classes though. I knew he wanted me to have a plan. He wanted me to grind, and strive for excellence. He needed me to learn from his mistakes and to know that I was not limited the way he had been. I never grew up in a tiny Arizona town learning how to swim in ditches. Sure I had trouble growing up. Sure I knew what it was like not to have. Sure I was the odd new kid, with few if any friends. But, I had a father that loved me, and knew how to work. He taught me that persistence not talent wins out. Through difficulty and adversity, those that arrive at the destination are the ones that kept going, often having to adapt and create along the way. He taught me that! 

So when it came to academics for me, I’ll admit there were ups and downs, failures and complete misses. But I did it. I graduated college, even got a Master’s Degree, and then with painful glee, completed a PhD. I did all that, so that I could do the work I was meant to do. (Because, by the way, I learned who I was along the way.) I knew where I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it! Thanks Dad For Everything!