THE BIGGER PICTURE: I love my dad. I really do. As a parent, he has been a tremendous guidance. He is also a wealth of wisdom, a role model and an inspiration to me. From him, I have learned life lessons about illness, health, love and dreams.
As a young boy, my father - Shall Sinha - watched planes with awe and fascination at how they could fly. Unlike many, he had the chance to find out, training as an aeronautical engineer and becoming a designer of landing gears. While his path eventually moved to motivational speaking, the science in him is clear - he has a deep wonder and respect for the world, is willing to experiment and is hugely imaginative.
He taught me how to learn - something I now consider essential to living. He showed me learning was as entertaining as magic. More so, he showed me that learning was limitless and available to all. No one was above anyone else. Educated people, even doctors, were not gods, just people with knowledge that they offered from a particular perspective.
When I was young, things were difficult. I couldn't count on other young people to be kind to me. I often couldn't count on adults, either. We were Indian immigrants in a white world. A lot of people were confused about us. Some were vicious. In my second year of school, I became very sick. I was also isolated and withdrawn.
There was a problem - the school noticed. But with no ability to consider that the school environment or society could be involved, a psychiatrist was brought in to assess me. He found no evidence of abuse or neglect, and so prescribed psychiatric drugs for my indulgences. I was six years old.
My parents couldn't believe this was right and my father began to investigate. He spoke to my teacher - a harsh woman teaching a long time - and asked where I sat. He discovered I had sat in the desk next to hers, but was recently changed to the seat furthest away (so she could keep a misbehaving child near her). He wondered if I felt frightened or rejected? The truth is that I was so regularly under assault I relied on her for safety. Thus far, she had shown me neither safety nor hope.
He asked her to do an experiment: for three weeks she would encourage the pupils and not shout at all, no matter how badly our behaviour deteriorated. He also requested that she get to know her students (and me) personally, and let us know her. He listened to her concerns and asked the principal and other teachers to support her. The project began.
After three weeks, the behaviour and performance of all the students improved, as did my health. Her teaching transformed, along with my understanding of humanity, illness and what really heals.
My father heals with love, and is a good person to do it - he has a genuine respect for individuals, a belief in humanity and a wonderful sense of humour. He showed me that there is much more affecting our beings than a war with foreign invaders, and much more power is required if we wish to find healing. More importantly, he has always shown me that great power exists within ourselves.
There is still something that has influenced me even more. Being very talented, my father was soon promoted to management. He did little designing, dealt with bureaucracy a lot and became very unsatisfied. When I was about 12, he left it all to become a full-time motivational speaker.
Everyone said he was crazy. For years people criticised him for shirking his responsibility to his family. Yes, we became financially insecure, but I learned the greatest lesson of my life: the value of acting on your belief in yourself no matter how unusual your ideas.
My life has never been conventional, but has always been bigger and more fulfilled every year, and greater than anyone would imagine. It was only this summer that I remembered my father, too, wrote a weekly column entitled Perspective for a syndicated newspaper group in Canada. A compilation of his inspiring essays was published in a book, From Ordinary to Extraordinary, the theme of which has pervaded his motivational work.
He has always believed even the most remarkable person we see is as ordinary as each of us, and that we could flourish from knowing the circumstances, choices and influences that brought them to their successes. This was embodied in his next most beautiful book, 24 Heroic Journeys, illustrated by 24 artists in Canada. From this followed the first volume of Words of Wisdom - inspiring quotes from 500 people who led great lives.
The second Words of Wisdom concentrates entirely on Mahatma Gandhi, the man who has been the single greatest inspiration to my father. It allows us to learn from the inner thoughts of this great person who lived among us.
Had my father stayed an engineer, the world would have missed the expression of this man's thinking, perspective and personality. He now travels a great deal, speaking on Gandhi, peace education and motivation. Currently, hundreds and thousands of people share in this, all over the world. My father always believed I could do and be anything. Truly. There was never any question of my abilities or potential. He took me seriously at every turn. He is only one half of my mother. To this day, he inspires me.