I sat on a stool at the end of the kitchen bar. He stood over me as I sobbed. Seeing my tears, he bored in, “Your problem is that you’re too sensitive!”

It was during one of our arguments. I do not remember the subject, but I cannot forget the pain because it is wired in. Dad and I had these ridicule sessions weekly beginning when I was eight. They continued until I ended them at age 26. There were so many I cannot recall the nominal reasons for most. His triggers were many and varied.

In this instance, he was partially correct. I was sensitive. The irony was that dad’s ridicule about being sensitive made me sensitive about being sensitive. Fathers have that power over their boys. I lived with that sensitive millstone around my neck for most of my life. Bear that in mind if you are a dad.

Yes, indeed I was a sensitive boy. From an early age I was a voracious reader. A common characteristic of the sensitive. My earliest books were about animals. That was somewhere around third grade. From animals I went into kids’ mysteries, then science fiction and finally hard science. It was typical reading for a future engineer.

By the sixth grade it was military history. From that I discovered my life’s one pure pleasure: military aircraft. It mattered not what anybody else on the planet thought about it or didn’t think about it; airplanes were my joy. The more technical the better. To this day I remember learning about engine displacements and service ceilings of war birds.

It is not unusual for a little boy who loved books – especially books about animals – to have been born a sensitive boy. So what?

Three decades after dad planted in my brain the algorithm that my sensitivity made me defective, I visited one of my employees in hospital. He was a Division Manager at TEP who had had a heart attack. He was in his late forties. I was the same age.

Being such an avid reader, I knew it was common for depression to follow heart attacks. Aggravating the severity of his depression was that he grew up an orphan. Being a sensitive person, I made it my mission to let him know that his CEO valued him. It was my duty, the least I could do.

He was sitting on the bed when I walked in. His girlfriend was in a chair. No one else was present.

When I walked over and kissed him on the head, he began to cry. His girlfriend thanked me. Then I left. The visit lasted all of five minutes. We barely talked. Yet his scarred heart knew that I valued him.

As of this writing I am 56. Even so, writing this blog post made me tear up. There is much in my life that’s just as valuable as that peck on the forehead, but nothing more so.

Yes, dad, you were right that I was a sensitive boy, but you were also wrong. I was not too sensitive. That sensitive boy became the sensitive leader of roughneck tower hands.

Reader, if you are accused of being too sensitive to be a CEO, ignore that nonsense.