At age 14, my dad had me jacked up against the wall in a state of near collapse. My nervous system was shutting down because there was no hope of escape. It would have been like watching a wildebeest being mauled by a lion.

I had been assigned a book report. I read the book but did not do the report. Therefore, I received an “F.”

The book, The Third World War by Sir John Hackett, was sophisticated for a 14-year-old. President Reagan was reading it. My teacher, Mrs. McLamb, gave me special permission to report on that book. I needed her permission because it was not on the ninth-grade book list.

I was a boy from a family where no one had graduated college. No one for generations. Many didn’t have a high school diploma. That included Dad, who had my 112-pound body pressed against a wall. It caused my nervous system to sleep, my self-worth to disintegrate and my heart to break.

Hanging there against the wall while his hands gripped my collar I wondered why? Why did he care now? Not once in nine grades had he helped with homework. Nor spelling words. Most certainly not with a book report. He had never even so much as sat at the kitchen table with me while I did schoolwork. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t do it.

The tip of his nose was against the tip of mine. He was hissing. While his eyes stared rage into mine, he hissed. It was not words. Not the usual torrent of curse-laden invective. Instead, he just hissed. I felt like I was staring into the very depths of evil.

All because I had not done the second half. Arguably the easier half. You might wonder, why not simply help me finish the report? That’s a good question.

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Two decades later, that hurting boy was the leader of an engineering firm that he named Tower Engineering Professionals. I was facing a familiar dilemma. My partner refused to complete the second half of his assigned task.

He was a smart engineer, much smarter than me. He had completed the first portion of his job. It was the groundwork. The part that he knew how to do and had the creativity to do so confidently.

The second – and riskier – part of the job was an unknown for him. It involved climbing to where a guy wire had been severed by a neighboring tower collapse. All climbing is dangerous but climbing a tower in good condition is at least a known danger. Not so for this tower with a missing a guy wire.

So how did I help him finish the job?  I geared up and then did the climb myself because it’s what a leader does. Together, we completed the job and left with our nervous systems energized and our hearts whole.