What is a Dad? A dad is someone who... wants to catch you before you fall but instead picks you up, brushes you off, and lets you try again. A dad is someone who... wants to keep you from making mistakes but instead lets you find your own way, even though his heart breaks in silence when you get hurt. A dad is someone who... holds you when you cry, scolds you when you break the rules, shines with pride when you succeed, and has faith in you even when you fail.
One of my favorite studies that I put in the book was this. They took math students – these were 800 SAT math score types – and put them against the clock competing next to each other doing complicated math problems against the clock on a screen. They divided the two groups. They matched them for everything except for one factor, which they didn’t tell them about. They found out, through the questionnaire, group A had a positive relationship with their fathers around performance. Group B had a negative relationship with their fathers around performance. So, they put them in this time-sensitive forced high brain activity and they hooked their brains up to the scans. Then they start the clock. The problems start to work and they start to work. But the whole trick was this. The researchers subliminally – you know what subliminal is – they flashed on the screen, while the kids are working the problems, they flashed their father’s name on the screen subliminally. They didn’t know they had seen it. Their brain had seen it but their eyes didn’t know they had seen it. The kids that had the positive corner four relationship with the father, just the name coming up – every time the name came up, their performance spiked, because that voice had been internalized. Group B, every time their father’s name came up, performance went the other way. This brain, the software of working your strategic plan is running on the internalizations that you, as the leader, are giving to people. They take it with them.
An incident transpired when Muhammad Ali’s daughters arrived at his home wearing clothes that were quite revealing. Here is the story as told by one of his daughters: “When we finally arrived, the chauffeur escorted my younger sister, Laila, and me up to my father’s suite. As usual, he was hiding behind the door waiting to scare us. We exchanged many hugs and kisses as we could possibly give in one day. My father took a good look at us. Then he sat me down on his lap and said something that I will never forget. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Hana, everything that God made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You've got to work hard to get to them.” He looked at me with serious eyes. “Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered too.”