Fireside Reflections: A Papa’s Lessons for a Successful Life

By Alan Dahl

Alan Dahl believes the world would be a bit brighter if daily we all applied the lessons that we should have learned when we were younger. As he looks into the past post-retirement, he not only reflects on the things he did well, but also the mistakes he made and lessons learned as a result. Now he is ready to share his wisdom with his grandchildren—and anyone else interested in listening to someone who has walked the trail of life before them.

Through a series of heartfelt reflections, Dahl leans on his personal experiences to impart valuable teachings to the younger generation. Set in a cozy glow of firelight, he offers his Littles lessons and insights for navigating life’s choices and challenges while encouraging personal growth. Through his timeless wisdom, Littles will learn how to use their smarts to dig deep and know what is really going on around them, why failing is an essential part of realizing success in life, how to achieve financial independence, preserve relationships, align with God’s plan, and much more.

Fireside Reflections shares a Papa’s journey as he offers wisdom, fosters a strong bond between generations, and nurtures a deeper understanding of life’s experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385024261

Alan Dahl

Alan Dahl is a former CPA who recently retired after thirty-plus years of growing healthcare companies, leading teams, and mentoring executives. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. Alan serves on and advises not-for-profit boards and is active with charitable work. He and his wife of over forty years have four adult children (the Bigs) and six grandchildren (the Littles).

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Copyright © 2024 Alan Dahl.

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WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2424-7 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2425-4 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-2426-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024908062

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/13/2024

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1     Fishing

Chapter 2     Where Are You Headed?

Chapter 3     Money: Old-School Still Works

Chapter 4     Money: Old-School Choices

Chapter 5     Money: Investing Basics

Chapter 6     On My Honor I Will …

Chapter 7     Great-Grandparents Are the Best Teachers

Chapter 8     Marriage

Chapter 9     Faith

Chapter 10   Last Log on the Fire

Bible Verses to Review and Ponder

Other Notes

Dedicated to my wonderful grandkids and

someday, their kids – all are our Littles.

A special thanks to Hannah, Karla, Jeff, Carol, Lisa and

Brandon for encouraging me to capture these ideas or

taking the time to read drafts and provide such valuable

input during the writing of this book. The best parts

of this book are the results of their brilliance.

All of the author’s profits from Fireside Reflections will

go to Love Without Boundaries and provide healing,

education and refuge to vulnerable children

INTRODUCTION

As you live your life, you accumulate a set of stories that you may share from time to time, perhaps over a cup of coffee or a cocktail with a group of friends. Over my career, I have enjoyed (and at times not enjoyed) experiences that some have called unique. Most of these took place in a business setting; perhaps related to a transaction, an odd individual, or a problem in search of a solution. The resulting tales can be fun to share, and since I get requests to retell them, I assume they are also entertaining to hear. Some have suggested that I capture these in a book that combines business advice with interesting stories.

So, as I began the process of retiring, I decided to get these stories down on paper. I started with a long list of stories and then began to outline a few. I just couldn’t get into it. Somehow retiring took the energy out of these business-related stories. They just weren’t as interesting anymore. (Probably never were.) Laughing about a story with coworkers after a long day in meetings is very different from reading stories in a book. It was a funny thing though; as I thought about writing a book, I kept thinking about my grandkids. Did my background and experiences provide anything that would be helpful for them? Do I know things now that I wish I had known and understood when I was younger? This led to the idea of a book that captures ideas, advice, lessons, and stories that would be valuable for my grandkids and others. Some of these lessons I am still learning myself.

As I write this, I have six grandkids ranging from a ten-year-old to still developing and not yet born—the Littles as my wonderful wife of forty-plus years calls them. Our four adult kids are the Bigs. We are Papa and Nana, and we dearly love the Bigs and Littles. Being parents is a wonderful blessing, and being grandparents is better than we know how to express. We see God’s hand at work in the lives of the Bigs and Littles, and that is a great thing. My job now is to be the best at being Papa, and I pray for the required wisdom, patience, and heart.

So, a book that started as a collection of business-related stories has become a collection of lessons I want to share with the Littles and others. As I thought about this book, I did not have the goal of capturing everything I think the Littles should learn. Frankly, that is not my job as Papa and, more importantly, that is not my call. I gathered ideas, advice, and lessons that I have found useful in life and thought would be useful for others. Some are good for the late teen or young adult. Some won’t come into play until later in life.

The world would be a bit brighter if daily we all applied the lessons that we should have learned when we were younger. I grafted some of these lessons into my life early and others I keep relearning as I continue to stumble over them. As I look to the past, I realize I did some things well, and I have enjoyed that success. I also made my share of mistakes, with lessons learned.

Lessons are often learned following a misstep, and frequently it takes repeated failure for a lesson to take root. It is best to learn from the missteps of others instead of remaking those same mistakes. Books are good for that. Late-night talks out by the fire with Papa can be good for that as well.

Beginning when I was young, I spent time reading and studying about life and its complexities. I started early trying to learn how people became successful. I studied how to set and accomplish goals and how to make decisions. I also studied business and business leaders. In my business life and in my personal life, I have achieved a degree of success. I have accomplished many of the goals I set when I was young. But at times, I have also strayed away from my set goals, followed others’ goals instead of my own, lost focus, and flat out failed at times.

Don’t picture me standing in front of you lecturing as a person who knows it all. I have learned much during my life and want to share what I have learned, but I am not the guy who proclaims his expertise as he stands teaching at the podium. Think of this book as life lessons shared in the evening out back in the lodge and in front of the fire, sitting with boots up and sharing things learned from others, from success, and from failure. This book contains a series of discussion topics grouped into chapters. Each topic is its own discussion out by the fire.

As the Littles join me by the fire, we talk about many things. Over the years and in front of many a fire, I hope we have a chance to talk about all the topics touched on in this book. I want these lessons to help them along their path or to help them rediscover their path when the pressures and choices of life draw them away.

God is interlaced in many of these lessons, both directly stated and as an unstated undercurrent. The Bible provides some great advice and I believe that God has a place in our lives. It is fine if you do not believe the same and I respect that; the advice and suggestions still stand. Good advice can come from a lot of places and can be useful to all of us.

One last thing: I don’t recall anyone ever sincerely complimenting me on my writing skills. I assume there is a reason for that. Regardless, I hope that you enjoy this book and come away with a few ideas to ponder or perhaps something to incorporate into your young life or to share with your Littles. The fire is always enjoyable, so we have that to share.

Enough of this introduction stuff. This first chapter will take us directly into deep water. No reason to piddle around; we might as well jump into heavy topics right from the start. So, are we ready to go fishing?

CHAPTER 1

Fishing

Many men go fishing all of their lives without

knowing that it is not fish they are after.

—Henry David Thoreau

If I fished only to capture fish, my fishing

trips would have ended long ago.

—Zane Grey

All kids should learn how to fish. I have taken young kids fishing many times, and they smile and laugh when that first fish comes out of the water. They can learn a lot while fishing. Usually, they can’t wait to get the line back into the water to see what’s next. They cannot see what is below the surface of that water or what may be thinking about nibbling on that bait. With some help, they can begin to understand that below the surface is where all the action lies. Learning for a moment to be still and experience all that is going on around them. Fishing can be more than fishing.

Below the Surface

Life offers so many things to experience and many are different on the surface than from down deep. Fishing is like that. You can walk up to a pond and enjoy the sun rippling off the surface and the dappled shade from the cottonwood by the dam. If you have a rod and a tackle box in your hand, you may also have a good idea that a nice bass is tucked under that felled tree or a big catfish might be hanging out in the deep water at the base of the dam. Fishing teaches us to look beneath the surface for both the snags and the bounty.

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Uncle Everett was one of my favorite uncles when I was a kid. I thought his job was fishing and driving a pickup truck around the pastures of Oklahoma. In the back of his truck, he had lots of tools, fishing poles, and sometimes this floating tube thing attached to rubber pants. This inner tube let him float around a pond and not get wet. Over time I found out his job was checking on and fixing oil and gas wells and pump jacks. Not as cool as driving a pickup all day and fishing, but still pretty cool to a kid. On one occasion, Uncle Everett took us out in his truck, and while he worked on a pump jack, my brother Kevin and I got to fish. When Uncle Everett was done with the well, he worked himself into this floating rubber pants thing and became part of the pond while we fished from the bank. I watched Uncle Everett fish, and he didn’t do what I did. I was kinda lazing around with a fishing pole in my hand while Uncle Everett was intense. I hollered out to him to ask about it and he scowled a bit and held his finger to his lips. He wasn’t kidding; he was focused. When we got back in the truck, Uncle Everett talked about fishing, where he went and why, how he picked a spot, what bait and lures he liked to use, and how he figured out what the fish were doing under the water by paying attention to the clues on the surface. He worked in other topics as well. We were just talking, but I think he knew he was teaching more than fishing. Looking below the surface is a good lesson to apply in life.

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It’s great to think about what lies beneath the surface. We should all do more of that. It has always been easy to look at things from just the surface, but in today’s digital world, it has become the norm. Opinions are set and decisions are made from a quick look at one-liners flitting across a news feed. Conversations are had with just a few lines of a text. Can that even be called a conversation? Well, today it can. It is easy to get the view that most things are binary—either this way or that way.

Without depth and detail, we lose all the important nuances that form the texture of true understanding. By digging deep, we can learn that most extreme surface statements are a twist to reality. We also learn that we are all very much the same and that our differences are far less than our similarities. The surface has its purpose, but the real reward is found deeper. The depth is where you learn the details of complex issues that often bring understanding. It’s also where we understand the snags of life, and that’s fine too.

Fishing is like that. The surface is wonderful, but what you are after lies deeper. If that bass under the log is the reward you seek, you have to risk getting snagged and tangled. In life as in fishing, a whole world of activity and understanding can be missed if we don’t check out what is below the surface.

Everyday life has lots of examples of when we should all dig deep to understand things. Think of anything that you enjoy—video games, cooking, fitness, and yes, even fishing—as examples. If you are into something, then you spend time learning about it. With each of our own examples, we truly understand how much more we can know if we dig beneath the surface. So why are we willing to accept that a simple headline has all the information we need regarding a particular news topic? Why would we accept what politicians say without checking it out ourselves or understanding how they personally benefit from that position? Why would we read a post on social media from a random person and assume that it has any credibility?

Have you noticed that the one-liner in the news or on social media is almost always written from an extreme perspective? It immediately sparks an emotional response within us while our brain is still whispering, Could this even be true? The emotional response often drowns out that whispering in our head. Since we know that we need to look below the surface to really understand something, why are we so willing to accept as true what is seen just on the surface? We know this makes no sense; we really know this. But at times, we all do this. For some, that is all they ever do. With this as the trend, I do worry about the growing hurdles for the Littles to learn that truth and knowledge can only come from digging below the surface.

When I was growing up, news and information came from a limited number of sources: newspapers, radio, TV, magazines, books, or talking directly to people. That was about it. For the most part, news sources tried to get the news accurate. They had their biases; we all do. But overall, I believe they tried to convey something as close to accurate as possible. Their reason wasn’t just because they saw this as their moral obligation as journalists. It was also about survival. If you were a reporter on the nightly news and what you reported often ended up not being true, you lost your audience and your job. Not true today. We can all think of countless stories on the radio, TV, or online that are totally wrong. What’s worse, we believe that the person making the false statements knows they are false. Yet the audience continues to tune in and that person keeps their job. In fact, their audience may actually grow, and so may their career.

Now I know that in the old days some reporters misled audiences as well. However, the situation was nothing like it is now. I think the reason is pretty simple: many people providing information today do not see their job as painting an accurate picture. They see their job as selling a predetermined position or stoking the emotions of their audiences. They provide both the gasoline and the match to get their audiences fired up. Often audiences don’t tune in to learn what is really going on. They tune in to feed their emotions and validate their surface-level beliefs.

You may be nodding while you are thinking about that other station, the station you seldom watch or listen to, the station that is extreme, unreliable, and misleading. I hate to break it to you, but your favorite information source is also unreliable at times and also knowingly twists the truth. Don’t kid yourself. All information sources have found the benefit of rationalizing an edited version of the truth. Some are just more extreme than others. This includes the sources you enjoy.

Because of this, looking below the surface to find the real truth has become more difficult. With the internet and all the information at hand, it seems like it should be easier to find the truth. However, when reputable (using that term loosely) sources do not see their job as delivering a reasonable and accurate account of events, figuring out the real story can get difficult. This is demonstrated most clearly when I drive long distances. Often, I will have the radio tuned to CNN for an hour and then move to Fox for the next hour. I will also listen to MSNBC, public radio, and other news sources. It is amazing how differently the stations report the same events. Often you have to pause and think about it to understand that they are actually reporting about the same event. Which station do you believe? My conclusion is that you cannot trust any of them. Perhaps some mishmash of all of them can get you close to the truth. I find it sad and disappointing. The saddest part is knowing that these news sources are just responding to what their audiences demand. Audiences are setting very low bars.

If you want to form your own opinion on something, it is going to take a bit of work. It always has. You have to look past the bright reflection of the sun on the surface of the water and look below into the depths. It is tricky, so you are not always going to get it right. What you worked on and thought was true may turn out to be