What about the author? I think what this question is asking for is what kind of guy he is. As I think about why he was assigned to this earth, I can come up with one self-defining answer: he expected more from people than they thought they could do. That includes his expecting others to do better work than they thought they could. How did I come up with this answer? By looking at what he has accomplished in his teaching between 1958 and 2015. 1. He went to college three times and earned two degrees so he could teach others to become successful learners, both teenagers and adults. 2. He applied what he learned for eighteen years teaching high school students to become good citizens. 3. He applied what he learned for twenty-four years teaching health-care and manufacturing managers how to become more effective leaders. 4. As he looks back now, he realizes that he became more effective in teaching as the years passed because he never quit learning during those forty-two years. The more he learned, the more effective he became as a teacher.
