Know Thyself

We are unique in our talents, interests and traits. As they develop, knowing these should serve to prepare us for life and point to our life’s work for our strongest interests.

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.” – Socrates.

I was homeschooled until 3^rd grade and became a “self-learner” early. I had an older brother and was raised with adults. My communications skills and sense of humor developed early. I loved singing harmony around the piano with my uncles.  I had musical talent and interests and taught myself how to play the piano, bugle and guitar. I practiced because I wanted to master these skills and developed self-reliance.

School was never hard. I scored 2 grades ahead every year on the Iowa Test. I was curious about how homes were built, how things were made and why things broke and went wrong. I liked maintenance work like painting, cutting the grass and mixing and pouring cement. I didn’t like toys and preferred to make my own castles with clay. I rode my bike everywhere.  I played every sand-lot sport but was never really that good at sports. I was included in all groups and learned a lot from everybody. I thoroughly enjoyed my grade school years. I won a Trumpet scholarship to high school and started a Rock Band after 8^th grade playing guitar. I played band jobs throughout my school years and beyond. 

My early experiences made me a self-learner, self-reliant self-disciplined and self-supporting. I liked accomplishing things. I had a sense of humor and used that all my life.

In my high school years I saw opportunities to improve things and viewed these as experiments to test my ideas. I was interested in a career in manufacturing as a Personnel Director to create a positive culture. I saw an opportunity to coordinate groups to support our highly talented sports teams and it worked. I organized a Dixieland band to play at away games and initiated a decorated car parade to these games.  Feedback from the teams confirmed my theory. They won State Championships in all major sports.

Through college, I played bass 6 nights a week in a dirty two-horn blues band. After college I played bass on the weekends in Jazz Trios.

Making good choices requires that we know ourselves. I chose to work for companies that needed the changes I wanted to make. I would avoid large bureaucracies and pick companies who needed to solve their operating problems and apply available technologies.

Improving company operations included automation of processes to ensure close tolerances and increase throughput. It also included avoiding and removing unions, terminating pension plans and replacing them with 401K Plans, moving to skills-based, market-based pay, improving selection and employee development processes and making work fun. All of these had to be consistent with valid employee needs and an accurate view of human nature and an accurate world-view. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader