A story of my father and I

I received an e-mail from my father today because today is my 18th birthday. He recalled my past 18 years and especially talked about some misunderstanding between us when I was a teenager.

No wonder to say, my father is the best father in the whole world yet I didn’t think so when I was a little girl. My father is a math professor and thus I have such an impressive name. He believes that children should be taught well in their early age other wise they may develop bad habits that can be very difficult to be changed when they grow up. As a result, he has been very strict with me since I was a kid. I have spent almost every school holiday doing math exercise and preparing lessons which would be taught next semester since primary school. Most of my classmates thought I was extremely lucky to have such a father but this was not what I was thinking then.

At my early age, I was shy and could not concentrate very well. Sometimes I could not work out the problems so I tried my best to keep thinking about them for many times. However, I didn’t ask my father like:”Dad, I cannot work it out and can you help me?” or “This is my idea, do you think it can solve the problem?” I kept in silence and my father was standing by my side watching me. I felt very nervous and he felt very furious. He thought I had already worked out the answer but refused to tell him. He was nearly freaking out when the time passed by because he actually had a lot of stuff in the university to deal with. At the same time, I was freaking out as well because I was not sure whether my answer was the correct one and I was too shy to ask for help. Finally, my father lost his patience and scolded me loudly. I could not help my tears falling down. As a result, the more times he scolded me, the more scared I was and he got angry more frequently. It eventually went into a vicious circle. We both failed to tell our true feelings to each other but we both had good motivations: My father wanted to help me on my studies and I didn’t want to disappoint him.

What would you do if you were at my age and in my situation? What would you have done to build an effective communication with your father?

Effective communication skills and success

Successful business people always like to tell their inspiring ‘How do I start from scratch?’ stories and their tough lives when they deliver speeches. The audience is often amazed by the ways where a small amount of money can be transferred into a large sum of money skillfully. Few people may wonder what the inherent reason for their success while the majority may be still immersing in the enormous figure of their salary. The press often says that these people are successful because they are people with business sense or ‘they are born to know how to run a business’. For me, however, this is obviously not convincing enough. I think the real reason for their success is that they know how to communicate with people around effectively and thus enlarge their social network easily.

Communication skills are very crucial nowadays. We are not living alone but on relationships. One cannot successfully survive in the society if he or she cannot convey ideas to the other people expectedly. I have heard one story of a brilliant CEO who won a BMW for his excellent performances when he was a department manager. In fact, this happened 30 years ago, when many people never dreamed of having a car, let alone a BMW! Yet, he sold his prize immediately and bought everyone a small car instead. He clearly expressed his ideas without saying that ‘Thank you for the hard work and hope we can work together in the future’. His story impressed me so much that I realize that communication skills are not all about talking but displaying your thought in a beautiful way.