It was a Friday evening, and I was sitting in the backyard enjoying a cigar and a drink.

My son, who was about five years old at the time, came outside and sat with me for a few minutes.

I don’t remember what we were talking about. I don’t remember what I was drinking.

But I remember exactly what he asked me.

“Dad, if smoking and drinking are bad for you, why are you smoking?”

I looked at him and, for a moment, I didn’t know what to say.

I had told him that smoking was bad for you. I had told him that drinking wasn’t good for you. I had even taken him back inside because I didn’t want him around the smoke.

But from his perspective, none of that made sense.

I was telling him one thing while doing another.

That realization hit me harder than I expected.

I put the cigar out, cleaned the ashtray, and went inside.

There was no big announcement. No resolution. No promise that I was changing my life.

I just knew that I couldn’t keep telling my son what was right while showing him something different.

The funny thing is, I had never really been much of a drinker.

I’d have a glass of wine, a beer, or a margarita now and then, but it was never really my thing. I had friends who enjoyed it more than I did, and I loved having people over. There were parties, dinners, and gatherings, so I would buy drinks for everyone.

Over the years, bottles were left behind.

Somehow, a few of them stayed with me.

There were also a couple that had a story of their own. I had bought one of the wines while I was in Spain. Another was given to me as a gift there.

Then life moved on.

I got married. We moved to a new city. We bought a new house. We started a family.

The bottles came with us.

Eventually, they ended up in a cabinet above the refrigerator.

And I forgot about them.

Years passed.

What stayed with me wasn’t really the decision to put the cigar out.

It was the question.

My son wasn’t trying to challenge me. He wasn’t lecturing me. He was simply trying to understand something that didn’t add up.

And that stayed with me.

As the years went by, I began to realize that the lesson wasn’t really about smoking or drinking.

It was about consistency.

Whether with my family, my friends, my team, or the customers I worked with, I started paying more attention to the space between what I said and what I did.

Because people don’t just listen to us.

They watch us.

As my career grew and my relationships with customers became stronger, this became one of the principles I carried with me:

If I expect people to trust my words, my actions have to give them a reason to.

I’ve thought about that many times throughout my career.

You can talk about accountability, but people notice whether you hold yourself accountable.

You can talk about trust, but people notice whether you keep your word.

You can talk about doing the right thing, but ultimately, people see what you do when doing the right thing is difficult.

Words matter.

But actions give those words weight.

And somewhere in my house, those old bottles are still there.

I recently thought about them again. Some have been with me for decades.

They’ve traveled with me through different homes, different cities, and different chapters of my life.

For a long time, I thought of them as nothing more than bottles I had forgotten about.

Now I see them differently.

They’re a reminder of a Friday night in a backyard.

A cigar.

A drink.

And a five-year-old boy who asked his father a very simple question.

He had no idea he was teaching me something.

But that question stayed with me.

And perhaps that’s the funny thing about the lessons that shape us most.

They don’t always come from books, mentors, or boardrooms.

Sometimes they come from the people who never intended to teach us anything.

Sami Joueidi holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and brings over 15 years of experience leading AI-driven transformations across startups and enterprises. A seasoned technology leader, Sami has led customer adoption programs, cross-functional engineering teams, and go-to-market strategies that deliver real business impact.

He’s passionate about turning complex ideas into practical solutions, and about helping teams bridge the gap between innovation and execution. Whether architecting scalable systems or demystifying AI concepts, Sami brings a blend of strategic thinking and hands-on problem-solving to every challenge. © Sami Joueidi and www.cafesami.com, 2025. Feel free to share excerpts with proper credit and a link back to the original post.