The Times When I Grew Up

I have a Ph.D. and I ran a very successful consulting company. I have spoken dozens of times to large audiences both in the U.S. and internationally, but that’s not how I grew up. I grew up as a failure with a reserve that kept me quiet and scared to speak up. I did not speak Yiddish in a yeshiva where all the Judaic teachers spoke Yiddish and so I sat in the back of the room unable to learn anything. I never did anything on my own and I listened to my parents and admired my friends. It never occurred to me that I could change my personality even though I didn’t like who I was, the quiet unassuming young man who followed family and friends.

Then, three things happened that altered my feelings about myself and helped me see the new me I could become. None of them changed me quickly, but unconsciously I knew I could be different. I could be my own boss, but that thought only occurred later. Change takes time. Here are the things that helped me along the way.

At 14, I passed an exam to attend Brooklyn Technical High School, an honor for me and my elementary school. The principal insisted that I should go there, but I did not want to go, and my parents supported my decision. For the first time, I felt in charge of my life and went to Erasmus Hall High School instead.

At 16, my friend, Bernie, asked me to go fishing with him by taking a fishing boat out from Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. My father had taken me fishing many times on boats in Sheepshead Bay, so I knew how to fish, but all these times occurred during the summer when the days were warm, and the ocean was usually calm. I told Bernie, “It’s December and you must be crazy to want to fish in the middle of the winter.” But Bernie was insistent and I merely followed his insistence.

When I asked my father if I could go, he told me it was a stupid idea, but I pushed hard to go. Finally, my father said that he would let me go to teach me a lesson. He knew I would not be hurt, and he knew I would learn something from going. He said, “You don’t know how awful fishing in December will be. The waters will be rough, you will get sick from the ship rolling back and forth, you will not catch fish, you be nauseous and spend most of the trip below deck where the older men will be playing cards and smoking cigars. So, I went fishing and everything my father told me happened. It was the second time I felt I was charge of my life, though I learned an important lesson to trust people who know more than me on a given subject.

Then, at age 17, as a senior at Erasmus, there was discussion among the seniors that on Senior Day we could dress as we please in any way that was fun. I convinced my mother that I would go as a pirate, so I cut my pants to make them short, cut the legs into strips, put on a tight blouse from my younger sister, wore a bandana on my head and covered one eye with black patch. I got the courage to get on the train to school and managed to stay in school for an hour or so until the vice principal caught me and sent me home. I was scared to do it, but it was harmless and my parents allowed me to make that decision. I was growing up.

After these harmless events, I knew that I had made the transition from a reserved and quiet young man to someone in charge of his life. My parents let me decide for myself and that gave me the courage to move toward the person I wanted to become. It had taken almost a decade to make that transition, and I thank my parents for the foresight they had to let their son gradually make decisions for himself and thereby manage his own life.