I thought of luck and the old couple. They could be me in forty years’ time. This double awareness—first, that people should be judged on how much they do with what they’re given, and not just how much they accomplish; and second, that in a slightly altered circumstance, you and most other people in the world could easily have your roles reversed—makes me look upon everyone as an equal. This made it easy and natural to want to help them and be their friends, even if I hadn’t needed the ice.

Today, I don’t sit in a private office but out on the general sales floor. We don’t live in a fancy house or neighborhood, but in a relatively modest one. And I don’t drive an exotic car or fly first class. (Of course, my inherent parsimony contributes to at least some of this.) I don’t have a personal secretary and find it very difficult to ask people to do personal errands for me. I answer my own phone. I also try very hard to include as many people as possible in our company’s decision-making process, and I really listen to what everyone who advises me has to say. I never assume I just know better than someone who, at the moment, is much lower in the organization, but who might know more and deserve to be higher.

In our family too we try to be democratic and not arbitrary. It’s easy for parents to get power-crazy and impose their wills and preferences on their children, but when children are given responsibility and authority, they develop their true selves. Sometimes this creates chaos. No two kids in my family ever want to do the same thing. No two kids can even agree about what to eat for dinner. Managing this tribe is probably as difficult, and requires as much finesse and creativity, as running IDT. And in the end, it’s a lot more important. We listen to everyone, from my sixteen-year-old son who knows it all, to my fourteen-year-old son who only wants to talk about hockey equipment, to my eleven-year-old daydreamer, everybody’s best friend, who who would gladly give you the shirt off his back. Then there’s my nine-year-old gymnast, smart as a whip and highly opinionated, and her six-year-old brother, who thinks everyone else in the family is out to get him. My four-year-old daughter is that rare gem—a gift from G-d, for whom every glass is neither half empty nor half full, but overflowing. Even the year-old twins are included in our family’s decision-making process. In fact, lately it feels like they’re running the show.

When it comes to being a father, I think about a pitcher by the name of Jim Abbott, a guy who was born—and made it to the majors—with only one hand. He pitched for the Yankees for a while, then ended his career with the California Angels.