A man in my life

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

This one is potentially very easy, especially as a grown-ass “daddy’s girl”, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not even going to go for the almost equally easy answer of “my husband”. For this prompt, I am going to describe my mentor.

He’s a good guy in general, though because of his position in business, he sometimes has to be a hard ass. He even sometimes pretends that he is a flat out asshole. There were times early on that I would have agreed with that assessment, but I know better now. He is a good man, but not always a nice man. There is a distinct difference, and I would rather deal with a good person than a nice person if I had to choose between the two.

He is smart – he knows his shit about his job and his industry. Is he a genius? No, but most people aren’t. We can’t all be Einstein or Hawking or Da Vinci. The key thing about this is that he knows he doesn’t know everything and actually strives to surround himself with people who know more than he does, so that he can learn from them and build an effective, successful team.

He is fair and generous but also has an immense amount of backbone. He stands up for himself, and for others. He values the loyalty of his team, and reciprocates that loyalty. He admits when he is wrong, and will sincerely apologize if he steps out of line. He is genuine.

I have learned a great deal from him, professionally and personally. He has taught me things that were sometimes a bit painful to learn, but that I believe have helped to make me a better person and more effective professional. And for that, I am eternally grateful.