Your dad is not egotistical, but it takes a bit of ego, some arrogance and bravery to say, "No, it's not impossible" and then try to prove yourself right.

What your dad really has is character - enough to keep himself from letting any of those qualities take over.

Excellent story - thanks for sharing!

P.S. My father is the same way and when asked he simply says, "No, I don't think I am always right - I just know when I am".

"It ain't bragging if you can back it up." - Jaco Pastorius

Yes you need enough intelligence to assess a situation and know if you can handle it or not.

This story really touched me. It got me to look at what I'm doing (manufacturing, maybe something 30 people in the world are doing) in a new light. Thank you!!

Thanks for your comment. You are right my Dad has true character, and great his story can help inspire a few people on hacker news!

Very inspiring!

My dad is an engineer as well -- a mechanical engineer. He designs, repairs and maintains large refrigeration equipment.

He taught me to:

1) be curious -- I used to take everything apart, and he would encourage it. He invited me with him at a site once, where there was a Soviet built fax machine. It had a ton of mechanical and electronic components. A goldmine of strange boards, a tape deck, large capacitors etc. I spend the whole day taking it apart. It was great fun.

2) be patient -- when stuff gets hard and things seems impossible step back a bit, take a breath, go for a walk and come back to the task.

3) do everything to the highest (but realistic) level perfection -- don't half ass stuff, make others look back and say 'oh that is the work of so and so, i recognize it by the high quality'

I never took a liking to mechanical stuff. But I ended programming but the same principles apply. So I am always grateful to my dad for the things he taught me (and is till teaching me) and I like reading stories like this.

I hope I am just as good of a dad for my kid and they look back and think of me the same way...

As a Dad myself, probably about the age of your Dad, with a son about your age, I can tell you that as impressive as what he has accomplished in his career is -- I bet he'd say that having a son like you, and what you wrote, the way you feel, and your determination to follow his lead is his greatest accomplishment.

This is very inspiring... up to the point when you meet someone who works in finance who makes twice as much working half the hours. :(

(Disclaimer: I have a similar job although I am not nearly as good at it as your dad)

Yep. Not fair. There are also people who have cancer and I don't.

1) Life's a bitch and then you die.

2) Life is beautiful.

Choose one and go with it.

I see we have a Nas fan here.

Sadly, I'm a bit older than that. "Life's a bitch..." is from a movie in the 80's with Patrick Dempsey in it. (At least that's the first time I heard it).

To me «Life is a bitch and then you die» is about a Deftones song :)

Here in the UK there are football players who make £200,000 a week kicking a ball around a piece of grass.

There is more to life than money (as long as you have enough money), I'd be happy with the equivalent to £25K a year and a job I love for the rest of my life.

I started my own business not because I wanted to get rich (I doubt that will ever happen in the sense of making millions) but because I wanted to build good B2B software in a niche where none currenty exists and because I felt unchallenged/overworked in my previous jobs.

Please try to ignore the footballers and celebrities who make obviously more money than they ought to. They are definitely outliers (combination of genetics, support system, and good coaching). Just be the best you can be at your chosen niche. That's what I'm trying to do.

It saddens me how few of the people I meet have this attitude. I learned pretty early how rewarding hard work is, but the opinion I hear most is "life is for living, not working". "Life is for living" is a justifiable claim, but why don't people see living well and working hard can go hand-in-hand just fine?

Props to your old man. I like that your talk covered lots of intangibles above and beyond raw technical skills. He sounds like a man of great character and soft spoken leadership.

This is so awesome. Wonderful stuff. Props.

Love the article! It does make me wish there was an app I could use to proof-read your site, correct your writing mistakes and share the link with you.

Some fixes: Been a printer’s engineer > Being a printer engineer | hell been > hell being | heart and sole > heart and soul | the company are happy > the company is happy

Hi there, haha I was literally pouring my heart out whilst writing, I'm going to go over it now and correct those errors, thanks for pointing out!

It was a good read typo's included :).

My father taught me a lot about life as well, whenever I get stuck I think "what would my dad have done?" and then I do the exact opposite, he was a superb example.

fyi: "the company are happy" is proper usage of British English.

Luke...

Great inspirational story! My dad was a hard worker and could build anything. He died when I was pretty young and I had to find my own inspiration to succeed in life.

Sorry to hear about your father but great that you found a positive path through life.