The Intervention I Wish My Dad Had Had

My dad died 6 years ago this week, at age 64.

Twelve years prior to his death, we (my mom, brother, and I) organized an intervention with my dad to get him to seek treatment for his alcoholism. He chose not to pursue treatment and continued on the path of abuse that ultimately led to his death. Alcohol, cigarettes, diabetes, and a poor diet are not a good combination.

Yet now I find myself wishing that my dad had had a different type of intervention.

An entrepreneurial intervention.

My dad was a very smart man. He was a high achiever and rose through the ranks to become a Lt. Colonel in the US Air Force. His last assignment in the Air Force was as the financial controller for one of the largest bases in the country, overseeing several thousand military and civilian personnel and hundreds of millions of dollars in budget. I was always proud of him and loved seeing him in uniform.

Despite his success in the Air Force, he did not make a good transition into the private sector. He had a couple of corporate jobs with relatively short tenure, and by the time I was a sophomore in college he was unemployed and did not work professionally again.

Yet he thought he had a business.

I remember visiting him during college breaks. He would talk about his business and the amazing work he wanted to do with his clients. He wanted to bring all of his accumulated expertise to bear on helping his clients solve big challenges.

I remember asking him — “if you’ve got a consulting business, where are the clients?”

He deflected. “But I’m really good at what I do.”

Even as a college student with no business experience, I could tell this was a smokescreen. Sure, technical expertise is key. You need to know something about something. But technical expertise is not sufficient to build a business. It is a very small part of what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Then, after several beers, (always Coors Light), he would start giving me his stump speech, slurred and raspy from smoke. “Ronnie (which was the name I went by as a little boy), always remember that there really is no security anywhere. You’ve got to be entrepreneurial.”

I totally got his message. Whatever promises you’ve been given by “the system”, they are all bogus. There is no security except within yourself.

Yet whatever he was doing or not doing, it was not working.

At the time, I didn’t know how to help him. All I could see were the effects — no clients, no meaningful work, cash drain, a collapsing marriage, and a life drifting into despair and medicated via addiction. Tremendous potential wasted.

While he did need an intervention around alcoholism, he really needed an entrepreneurial intervention. I wish someone had pulled him aside and sold him into a coaching program that would have developed the skill sets and mindset necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur.

When I started my business in 2004, I quickly came to the same realization. What I was doing was not working, and that scene with my dad would flash back before my eyes. I had to change quickly to learn the skill sets and mindset necessary to succeed — not to do the work, but to build a business around that work. I decided that I had to master these skills to create the life I ultimately wanted — and it is an ongoing learning process.

This experience with my dad I think explains a big part of why I do what I do and how I do it. The why? To help people live into their full potential and not waste their life because they are missing a skill set that they never would have had the opportunity to learn in a school classroom or corporate job. The how? To compassionately and directly guide you to make a decision about how you want to live the rest of your life as an entrepreneur, and then to teach you the skills you need to do it.

Often we over-complicate the reasons why we are not getting the results we want. But actually it is very simple.

If you are not getting the desired result, you are either not doing what is necessary or you are not doing it effectively.

The only issue now is whether you are willing to really see it and then do something differently.