I believe God put us here to follow His plan for us. We are as unique as our DNA. We are all mammals doing the best we can. We are here to work for our food and shelter. We have “free will” and are completely responsible for ourselves. We are the beneficiaries and the victims of our choices.
Clues to this plan can be found in our talents and interests. Those who are the most successful have identified these talents and interest, made wise choices and love the jobs they do and the occupations they chose. I am one of these blessed individuals.
Those of us who started our careers in 1965 are not strangers to high inflation, recessions and high unemployment. But we did navigate the storms and manged to accomplish a lot.
When I was young I prayed for wisdom. My best talent was music. It was easy to teach myself to play anything. My other interests included learning how everything was made. I knew I had time to learn what I needed to know. I was anxious to work.
I began working as a musician at age 14. I started a Rock Band in 1957, playing guitar and singing 3 nights a week through high school. I joined a Blues Band in 1961 and played bass and sang 6 nights a week through college. I had no loans. College costs were $1000 per year. I married in 1964, graduated college in 1965 we had a daughter and bought our first house in 1966 for $16,000.
I took my first day job in 1965 and continued to work as a musician playing bass and singing on weekends in Blues and Jazz groups until 1975. It was a fun diversion and helped me maintain a balance and extra income. In 1971, I joined a Piano, Bass and Drum trio. We added 2 girl singers and sang jazz chords in 5-part harmony. I still listen to our “on the job” live recordings and can’t believe how good we were. I was blessed to be able to move self-taught from Rock to Blues to Jazz in my 18 years as a musician.
Demand for live music was abundant from the 1950s to 1970s and my time as a musician enabled me to pay all extra expenses as we navigated our way through the recessions and inflation.
I was also blessed to develop my career in the private sector in Personnel. Management. Techniques were available to enable team development. Unions were about to become obsolete. Employees were becoming more mobile. I was completely “achievement oriented” and preferred project-oriented work. When I completed what I wanted to do, I moved on to other high growth companies. I routinely turned down promotions. I chose companies to prove my theories and expand my knowledge. I believed that unions were Marxist and destructive. I removed unions, prevented unions and won elections. I automated everything I could automate and focused on productivity increases. These efforts resulted in higher productivity new skills attainment and higher wages.
Most of my experience was in manufacturing electrical power equipment, chemicals and a university in St Louis Mo, frozen food and Ag equipment in Salina KS and electronics in Atlanta GA. I had added automation, acquisitions and international to my recruiting and personnel expertise. I was kidnapped in 1993 by 6 Atlanta-based electronics manufacturing companies to open a consulting practice.
In 1993 I formed a consulting practice and worked as a Consultant for the next 24 years. My Client List included 46 companies. All of my clients were referred by my other clients. I made no sales calls and worked from home and from customer offices. My wife became a Dental Hygienist in 1986. We raised 6 kids and helped them work through college. We both retired in 2017 at age 74.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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