Guy Reams (00:01.454)
Well, this is day 249. Just figure it out. So I'm in the parking lot again. Once again, I am at my daughter's basketball tournament and today is Father's Day. So what better thing to do than to be hanging out with all a bunch of other parents watching their daughters play basketball? So I was thinking today as I woke up this morning,
What was the one thing, the most important thing that my father or my grandfather
I didn't really know my mom's dad very well, but I knew my father obviously, and I knew my grandfather on my father's side pretty well. So I got to thinking about what were the things that these men taught me the most. Now I asked my wife this, and she had some pretty good ideas about her dad. He taught her mostly about just being kind to other people. Well, being proud of who you are,
but at the same time being kind to others. Kind of a hard juxtaposition to be very proud of who you are, but also to be kind to others in doing so. So I think that was a skill set that my wife's father had. But I was thinking about what might now there's a lot of explicit things that my father and my grandfather taught me. These are knowledge like.
Like my dad was really fascinated with words about reading and science fiction. And he was also interested in the spoken word and was really liked good speeches. And, you know, he liked poetry, like the reciting of poetry, things like that. And I remember as a child being enthralled by that. So those were explicit things. And there's a few things.
Guy Reams (02:01.912)
You know, when there was a controversial thing going on, my dad would explain to me the issue and then tell me the other side of the issue. So very analytical. And I would understand both sides. And I think along that way, there was there was some empathy there. Like, you know, my dad had always had a really strong sense of humor, but also there was empathy for the other people. So I thought a lot about that. And there was something. My grandfather was very argumentative. He was a lawyer.
always loved a good debate. So there's things like that that were very explicit. But the thing I was really thinking about today, what were the implicit things, the things that just kind of happened? I asked my kids today, what is it that you've learned from me implicitly? Like without my specifically saying what interesting is the things that came back. Like my daughter said that I taught her to be OK with being different. And if people didn't like it, well, just be who you are.
And find people who do care about who do like you for your differences now That's not something I would ever explicitly teach somebody but apparently that was an implicit thing that she'd learned from me, which is interesting So what was it that I learned implicitly like I don't think my dad really set out to teach me this And I think it's the same thing with my grandfather. They both came from the same mindset
And I don't think they ever forced me into this paradigm, but they were examples of it and I call it the just figure it out so the best example I have from this is One day the my grandfather wanted to do something with the tractor I think he wanted to take the tractor and load up some trash and go burn the trash at this place where we burn the trash on the farm and He wanted me to just go
He wanted me to get the tractor ready, hook it up to the trailer. Now I had never driven said tractor, other than just having him, me sit on his lap type of thing. So I was pretty young, probably 12. and I never driven the tractor and I had never hitched the tractor like with it.
Guy Reams (04:25.108)
And I'd certainly never started said tractor. So I remember he's like, I'm like, how am going to do that? And he goes, well, the keys are hanging on the choke that the old trackers have a choke, which allows you to restrict or increase the amount of gas. So he asked me to go. The keys are hanging on the choke. So go get that tractor started and get it hooked up to the trailer. So I went out there and.
I didn't know what to do. I put the key in and turned it and nothing happened. I remembered you had to put the clutch in. So I put the clutch in, tried to start it and nothing, not even a click, no turn. So then after messing it around for a while, I went into my grandpa. He was in his office and I said, I don't know what to do. The tractor's not starting. He goes, well, don't look at me. Just go figure, just figure it out. And so I had to go figure it out.
You know, and this this made me really dig deep. Like I recall suddenly all these memories of the things I saw my father do or my grandfather do. And so I remember a battery charger was involved. So I figured maybe the battery was. So I got an extension cord and I put the thing out there and I started charging the battery and I did get it to start clicking, click, click, click. And I thought, wow, I'm making progress. I must have been out there for four or five hours.
messing around with trying to get those trackers done. And eventually my grandfather came out and helped me get it started. But the whole point was I had to just figure it out. And that didn't happen very often. Like my dad wouldn't tell me, hey, just go get this done. Sometimes he would, but not very often. But I did see the way they did it themselves. Like if there was a problem, it's not like they would go.
they wouldn't throw up their hands and say, there's a problem. You know, I don't know what to do. it was more like, there's a problem. Now I got to go figure out how to solve the problem. And they would let me in on their thought process a little bit, or at least I was hanging around bugging them. and so I started seeing that natural confidence that you can, with enough fortitude, you can get it done. Like,
Guy Reams (06:52.514)
I don't know if it's a Midwestern idea of being raised on a farm idea or if it's just being part of that generation. I'm not sure what it is or maybe it's just the mindset. Maybe it's the confidence to know that you can figure it out. I mean, there had to be people back early, early, early in our society that were the ones that just figured stuff out for people. So I guess I come from that ilk that just figured out. Now,
There are some major disadvantages of this mentality. So let me just go through that. So the biggest disadvantage is that I don't ask for help very often. And that probably was bad for me. Like just figured out should have and could have included me asking other people for help. But I didn't want anybody to know that I needed help. So I would just go get it done myself.
and probably spent way too much time figuring stuff out when I could have shortcut it. So maybe too much confidence or too much ego involved is bad. So I think the just figured out mentality is great, but I think you need to include getting advice from and receiving advice from others as part of the just figured out mindset.
But I'll leave you with that. think the thing that I learned from my dad and my grandfather was that I can figure something out. If other humans have done it, I can do it too. And I can go, I can put everything at my disposal, my mentality, my intelligence, my wisdom, my experience. I can put all that together and I can figure out something.
There's nothing stopping me. And that's a mentality I think that's important. I'm certainly glad that I had that mentality growing up and I certainly did. I mean everything I've done in my life has been for good or bad and some of it's been bad but for good or bad I've had the fortitude, the confidence, the willpower to know that I can just get it done. Like I can figure out what to do. And so that's kind of the place I start from.
Guy Reams (09:14.242)
So I am grateful for my father and my grandfather teaching that actually rather implicitly. I don't think they deliberately taught me this. I think it was just by example. And so maybe on this Father's Day, you can think about what your father taught you implicitly without really knowing it. Maybe those are not always good things. I don't know. But anyway, happy Father's Day.