Lessons Learned from my 90-year-old Grandfather

A recent opportunity to step away from the fast paced corporate world of keeping up with constant technology advancement and shifting industry trends led me to upstate NY.

A career sabbatical afforded me the time with my grandfather. To boot, it was during the peak of leaf fall in the northeast, enchanting color away from what seems like a constant brown or green shade in Dallas year round.

My grandfather grew up on a farm in West Virginia.  Along with the everyday farm work, he also worked in the forest industry hauling logs with horses out of wooded terrain. He had a Navy career as a crew gunner on a ship, fireman, and a crash crew rescue team member. He retired from a long 40-year tenor at GE. The type of tenor which is archaic to most of us. He started as a welder and worked his way through the ranks to become an Engineer on the Corporate Consulting Services team at GE. The man can talk welding and the heating and cooling effects of welds for hours.  

Takeaways from our meals together:

Never Stop Learning, Challenge Yourself Continually

My grandfather said he wished he had been a “clear cut college graduate in the engineering field”, but he also said at the same time, “I would not have had the experiences I had moving through the ranks, as well as the hands on experience of the work itself. Nobody ever pushed me harder than myself to learn as much as possible, no matter what position I held.”

To this day he continues to take classes through the mail. He is currently working through a photography course and a cooking class.

Leadership Starts with Self-Leadership

Any difficult and integral problem can only be solved by principle. Be firm and secure in the foundational principles you build your life on. These will also be the same principles you will lead with. Leadership is about getting the basics down and consistently practicing them. Do not lead based on popularity, but on principles.

Technology is Only a Tool

Technology can make life more efficient, but let it not be the end all for human interactions. Technology does not replace the human to human connection. Face to face, not Facetime and voice to voice will always be one of the best ways to interact with others. 

When a nun asks you to hold her hand and pray with her, you do it!

One of the most fascinating stories of my grandfather’s life was that he was in a large passenger airliner crash during his midlife. He was in the middle seat holding the hand of a praying nun on one side and a mother with her new born baby on the other side. His row survived.

Wrap Up

Time spent with a 90-year-old man who is still practicing the fine arts of challenging himself and self-leadership, as well as still seeing the strong value in the old fashion human to human interaction was a great refresher for me to re-calibrate to during a work sabbatical.