My dad never finished high school. He left Pratt, Kansas at 14, looking for opportunity. His own father was a farmer, but my dad liked the city and wanted to live in a bigger one. His favorite thing to say about Pratt was that it is a great place to be from. He ended up in Denver, where he laid brick for about 60 years. It was his whole working life, and for roughly 30 of those years he worked for himself.
He was gruff, he had hands of steel, and he was hard on me. I was the booksmart kid, and he was not satisfied with that. He wanted me to have common sense to go with it. Book smarts alone would not get me far, he figured, so every day was a lesson, and he expected a lot of me for my own good.
Why’d you get a B?
My favorite story is from high school. I brought home a report card with all A’s and one B, and he looked at it and asked what happened. Why did I get a B?
He was not tearing me down. He was building me up. He expected it of me, so I learned to expect it of myself.
I grew up in Denver, in Park Hill and Montbello, and I went to Montbello High School. College for me and my classmates was not expected back then, and most of them would never even move out of the area. But my dad really did want me to go. He just wanted me to be a well-rounded human being, and that took more than good grades. Looking back, I did not always see that question for what it was. I do now.
The hardest work I ever did
For two summers I carried hod for my dad, which means carrying mortar and brick up to the bricklayer. It was the hardest work I have ever done. I would come home and fall asleep at 8 pm, then get up the next morning and do it again. I knew I did not want to do it for the rest of my life, and that was the point. He wanted me in college, not on a job site.
My dad loved me, but he showed it in a way other people might not understand. He taught me to bowl. He taught me how to fight. He taught me how to navigate life as a Black man. None of it came with a speech. It came with showing up and expecting me to do the same.
His two rules
He had two rules for work and for life.
A man who left school at 14 and laid brick for about 60 years told me never to be embarrassed about loving to learn. I have carried that with me ever since.
Books and wise people
My dad gave me the first half of the lesson, which was to love to learn. The second half I worked out on my own: you can learn from a book, and you can learn from the experience of wise people, and you need both.
My dad could teach me about work and grit, but he could not teach me how corporate America worked. No one in my family had gone to college or worked in it, so there was no one at home to ask. All along the way I looked for people I admired and paid attention to how they thought. At ASU it was Dr. Dan Brenenstuhl. With the Phoenix Suns it was Tom Ambrose. Later it was people at Dial, Bath & Body Works and Najafi Companies.
At Dial, Scott Parker taught me that consumer products was a career where you could build a real business. He talked me out of going into finance, because that is just moving paper around. His question to me was, “Where else can you go to a store and see people buy your ideas in real time?” He was right.
A book could not give me what those people did, and they could not give me what a good book does. Together they gave me book smarts and common sense, which is what my dad wanted me to have in the first place.
A just cause
Years later I read The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, and one idea stuck with me. Sinek calls it a just cause: a specific vision of a future that does not exist yet, so appealing that people will sacrifice to advance it. That is his idea, not mine, and the book is worth reading: The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek.
When I tried to put my own just cause into words, it was simple. I wanted to use my marketing skills to give my family a life where they could thrive and contribute to the world. I think my dad had one too. He built it one brick at a time, and he pushed me toward something different so I could build on it.
The last weeks
When my dad finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer, I was glad that I had spent a few weeks with him, reminiscing and telling him I loved him. It brought a smile to his face.
I still love to learn. I teach now, and I am still not embarrassed about any of it.
It is the same thing I see in the founders and brands I work with: high expectations, honest questions and a love of learning are how people and businesses get better.
Thank you, Dad, for the rules, the summers and the expectations.
Stay grateful, my friends.
After Hours is a Saturday series of personal stories from Carlton Hawkins, founder of Vantage Business Consulting. If you would like to talk about your brand, we would be glad to hear from you.
