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It Is Time to Fail Faster

It Is Time to Fail Faster

Founder and Managing Member Ron Slee shares words of wisdom he heard recently in today’s blog post: It Is Time to Fail Faster.

I never thought that I would call for “failing faster” in my life. Imagine failure? Of course, if we think about this, a moment’s failure is important to anyone who is interested in getting better at how they do things. 

I was given this “line” by Stephanie Smith, Vice President of Marketing from Newman Tractor on a recent Podcast with Mets Kramer. We were talking about Marketing and the Digital Dealership and how fast change was happening. Stephanie calmly stated that we have to learn how to fail faster. I stopped her and asked her to repeat it. I found it to be so profound. Days later, to me it is still a very profound observation.

I was in school in the 1950s and the 1960s. It was a very basic education. Nothing particularly fancy. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. My Mother was a teacher, she was the Vice Principal at the grade school I attended. She chose all my teachers. I couldn’t get away with anything. My Grandmother was a teacher in the proverbial one room schoolhouse. She got a Master’s degree from the University of Manitoba in the early 1900s. One year I was doing miserably in Geometry and Latin. I hated studying so I refused to memorize. I either understood it or I felt it was not that important. My Grandmother took over my schooling on the weekends. I spent several months with her every weekend. The first semester I got 38% in both Geometry and Latin. That was unacceptable to Granny. By the final report card, I averaged 78% for the year. I had no choice but to stop failing. I was “taught” a very important lesson that year. It wasn’t “don’t mess with Granny.” No, it was “apply yourself or there will be a consequence.” Did I ever learn! That, plus my experiences in the swimming pool as a competitive swimmer, made me who I became.

That led me to my favorite question: “Why?” It seems from a very young age I was always asking why. Perhaps every child does. But that meant I would try things. That was when I started experiencing failure. I remember one instance when I was doing some work in the warehouse at the Caterpillar dealership in Montreal. I think we were moving parts around trying to make more space. Bob Hewitt, the dealer principal, came out to the warehouse and put his arm around my shoulders. I was surprised. Here I was in a sweat shirt and jeans working and dirty in the warehouse. He was in a three-piece suit looking very elegant. He looks me in the eye and says “I am really disappointed in you.” Even in those early years I was rarely at a loss for words. I quickly responded “me too. Why are you disappointed?” I looked up at him and I could see his face start to twitch. He said “when you are finished come see me in my office.” The thing he was disappointed in was that the roads to a remote branch were closed for the winter and I had placed a stock order that wasn’t going to get there. I hadn’t planned for an early snowfall. I told him if I would have known that snowfall was coming, could have predicted that, I would be working somewhere else. True story.

I have made an unbelievable number of mistakes over the course of my lifetime. They continue even today. The trick with mistakes from my perspective is very simple. You are going to make mistakes, that is clear, identify the mistakes as quickly as you can and make adjustments, corrections, fix it. Fast. Today with the rate of change in society, in technology, in telecommunications, in fact in nearly every aspect of our lives is dramatic. Change is coming at us so fast it is impossible to keep up. At least that is true for me.

When Stephanie made the comment, we have to “fail faster” I was amazed. It was so appropriate. It was profound to me. It was an “aha” moment. It forced me to think about things again in a new way. I needed to pick up my pace and make more changes more quickly. Don’t worry about making mistakes. Don’t worry about failure. That is going to be a consequence of doing more things. Mistakes and failures are also a part of the process of learning. You just have to recognize when things don’t work and make adjustments. Make corrections. Everything will continue to be alright. No one is going to shoot me. At least, not for making a mistake. 

Thank you, Stephanie.    

The Time is Now.

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How Do We Find Our Individual Potential?

How do we find our individual potential? 

As many of you know, the primary purpose of our Learning Without Scars business is to help people find their personal potential. That confuses a lot of people. Most of us don’t have any idea of our potential. Early on in civilization it was quite basic and very simple – to have the strength to be able to find and get food. We were hunters and gatherers. If we couldn’t find food, we died. Simple, right?

Today it is much more complicated. Governments are determined not to have people die from lack of food. We have many social programs to ensure that people will have access to the basic requirements of life. Even in these advanced times, we have many who choose to stay off the grid for one reason or another.

In the United States in 2020, about 18% of the population was under 15 years old; 65% from 15 years old to 64 years old; and 17% over 65 years old. I believe that understanding our potential changes with our age. It varies as we get older. One of the definitions of potential causes me some difficulty. It is the “possibility of becoming something more.” Isn’t that always the case? Aren’t we constantly learning things? Another definition is “coming to self-realization that there is more to our lives.” This definition gets rather personal for me. One day, while my father was still alive, we were having a glass of “brown water” and solving the problems of the world, he paused and looked at me and said “I don’t understand you. You are never satisfied.” I responded quickly with the blithe comment “well there is always more, isn’t there?”

And that becomes the challenge of potential. There is always something more.

One of my grandchildren is in High School and we were talking about what he wanted to do with his life. He said, “I don’t know.” It is a terrific answer for someone in High School today. There are so many choices available to us. There are the sciences and the fantastic developments being made within them. The arts and the various media – sculpture and painting – as well various methods to express ourselves visually. Music and literature and drama. Fashion and Makeup. I might add that many of the early school years tend to “stifle” creativity not “encourage” it. How do you start in finding this something “more?”

Well, how about starting with those things that do not turn you on? These are the things that you don’t like to do. In 1998 Sir Ken Robinson led a commission created by the government in the UK – “Commission on creativity, education and the economy.” It turns out he was highly critical of the education system under which he was taught. He regretted the fact that neither the primary school, secondary school nor college enabled people to develop their talents and discover what they really wanted to devote themselves to in their lives. Doesn’t that condition still exist where you live? Where you went to school, or your children and grandchildren are going to school? Where are we supposed to find this magic “thing” to which we want to devote our lives?          

This is a difficult undertaking, isn’t it? This pursuit of our potential. How about we look at the other side of the question. What don’t we want to do? What aren’t we very good at in our lives? Sometimes that is easier to identify.

  1. What was something you disliked studying?
  2. What were some jobs you hated?
  3. What are some of the household chores you really don’t like doing?

Isn’t there anything common in the items above? 

  1. Are they some activities you do alone or without somebody else?
  2. Does someone tell you to do these tasks or does it depend only on you?
  3. Do the activities need something physical or intellectual?

Now let’s make another list.

Write down everything you like or liked to do in the areas below: 

  1. School or Education
  2. Jobs
  3. Everyday tasks

Now find the common denominator in these items.

Have you stopped any of these activities you enjoyed? 

  1. Why?
  2. Can you recover it and start it again?

Now let’s rank the things you liked to do.

  1. What is in first place?
  2. Can you make it more prominent in your life?

Some things should now be standing out. Things should be clearer.

Now comes a big question. I think it will have become clearer to you. You know better now some of the things you want to do. So, let’s ask that magic question? What have you always wanted to do but were afraid to start doing it? Do you think it is time to start doing it? That is the beginning of your potential. The possibility of becoming something more. Are you ready to get started?

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.02.25.2022

Friday Filosophy v.02.25.2022

Augustine of Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions.

After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made significant contributions to the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City. His thoughts profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. The segment of the Church that adhered to the concept of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople closely identified with Augustine’s On the Trinity.

Augustine is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. He is also a preeminent Catholic Doctor of the Church and the patron of the Augustinians. In the East his teachings are more disputed, and were notably attacked by some, but other theologians and figures of the Eastern Orthodox Church have shown significant approbation of his writings. The most controversial doctrine associated with him, the filioque, was rejected by the Orthodox Church. Other disputed teachings include his views on original sin, the doctrine of grace, and predestination. Nevertheless, though considered to be mistaken on some points, he is still considered a saint and has influenced some Eastern Church Fathers. Augustine’s impact on Western Christian thought can hardly be overstated; only his beloved example, Paul of Tarsus, has been more influential, and Westerners have generally seen Paul through Augustine’s eyes. 

  • Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
  • Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
  • What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
  • Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
  • The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
  • In doing what we ought we deserve no praise, because it is our duty.
  • Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.
  • Patience is the companion of wisdom.
  • In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
  • Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.
  • Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity.
  • Hear the other side.
  • If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.
  • The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

The Time is Now

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Friday Filosophy v.02.18.2022

Friday Filosophy v.02.18.2022

Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a “bag of symptoms”. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

  • If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
  • What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.
  • What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.
  • One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.
  • If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
  • The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
  • Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself.
  • The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side… It has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illnesses, his sins, but little about his potentialities, his virtues, his achievable aspirations, or his psychological health.
  • I was awfully curious to find out why I didn’t go insane.
  • But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.
  • We may define therapy as a search for value.
  • Rioting is a childish way of trying to be a man, but it takes time to rise out of the hell of hatred and frustration and accept that to be a man you don’t have to riot.
  • What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.
  • I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.
  • You can see neurosis from below – as a sickness – as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends.
  • Work is that which you dislike doing but perform for the sake of external rewards. At school, this takes the form of grades. In society, it means money, status, privilege.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.02.11.2022

Friday Filosophy v.02.11.2022

Alexander III of Macedon July 356 BC – June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. A member of the Argead dynasty, he was born in Pella—a city in Ancient Greece—in 356 BC. He succeeded his father King Philip II to the throne at the age of 20, and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia and Northeastern Africa. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history’s greatest and most successful military commanders.

During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. His father Philip was assassinated in 336 BC at the wedding of Cleopatra of Macedon, Alexander’s sister, and Alexander assumed the throne of the Kingdom of Macedon. In 335 BC he campaigned in the Balkans, reasserting control over Thrace and Illyria before sacking the Greek city of Thebes. Alexander was then awarded the generalship of Greece. He used his authority to launch his father’s Pan-Hellenic project, assuming leadership over all the Greeks in their conquest of Persia.

In 334 BC he invaded the Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire) and began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following his conquest of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, including those at Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety .At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. Alexander endeavored to reach the “ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea” and invaded India in 326 BC, achieving an important victory over King Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He eventually turned back at the Beas River due to the demand of his homesick troops, dying in 323 BC in Babylon, the city he planned to establish as his capital. He did not manage to execute a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart.

Alexander’s legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism and Hellenistic Judaism. He founded more than twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander’s settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture resulted in Hellenistic civilization, which developed through the Roman Empire into modern Western culture. The Greek language became the lingua franca of the region and was the predominant language of the Byzantine Empire up until its end in the mid-15th century Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, featuring prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. His military achievements and enduring, unprecedented success in battle made him the measure against which many later military leaders would compare themselves. Military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics.

  • Whatever possession we gain by our sword cannot be sure or lasting, but the love gained by kindness and moderation is certain and durable.
  • How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?
  • There is nothing impossible to him who will try.
  • Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.
  • Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters.
  • You shall, I question not, find a way to the top if you diligently seek for it; for nature hath placed nothing so high that it is out of the reach of industry and valor.
  • How happy had it been for me had I been slain in the battle. It had been far more noble to have died the victim of the enemy than fall a sacrifice to the rage of my friends.
  • I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.
  • I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.
  • How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens?
  • A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

The Time is Now

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FridayFilosophy v.01.21.2022

Friday Filosophy v.01.21.2022

Herodotus: c. 484 – c. 425 bc was an Ancient Greek historian. He was born in Halicarnassus, a town in south-west Asia Minor (now Bodrum, Turkey)

Herodotus was called the “Father of History” by Cicero. He wrote about the ancient empires of Babylon, Egypt, and Persia, and about the Ancient Greeks.

During his life, Herodotus probably told his stories in front of large numbers of people in Greek cities. Some men at the time did this for pay. He is now most famous for his writings about the wars between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states. He told the story from the Greek side, although the war was mostly finished when he was still a child.

In his books, Herodotus tells us that he travelled a lot. He says that he went to what is now Italy (including Sicily), Ukraine, Egypt and Pakistan. He may also have travelled to Babylon in today’s Iraq. He often used stories from people he met to write about other places and happenings.

Some people think that Herodotus wrote about things that were not true. That is possible, because he would have relied on information from various sources. His work is important because there is very little writing on these subjects before his works.

The works of Herodotus are available today in translations.

  • The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.
  • In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
  • Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
  • Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.
  • Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
  • Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
  • Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.
  • Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before.
  • Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.
  • He is the best man who, when making his plans, fears and reflects on everything that can happen to him, but in the moment of action is bold.
  • To think well and to consent to obey someone giving good advice are the same thing.
  • There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.
  • It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing.
  • Civil strife is as much a greater evil than a concerted war effort as war itself is worse than peace.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.01.07.2022

Friday Filosophy v.01.07.2022

Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. His family was known for teaching people how to speak English clearly (elocution). Both his grandfather, Alexander Bell, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, taught elocution. His father wrote often about this and is most known for his invention and writings of Visible Speech.[1] In his writings he explained ways of teaching people who were deaf and unable to speak. It also showed how these people could learn to speak words by watching their lips and reading what other people were saying.

Alexander Graham Bell went to the Royal High School of Edinburgh. He graduated at the age of fifteen. At the age of sixteen, he got a job as a student and teacher of elocution and music in Weston House Academy, at Elgin in Morayshire. He spent the next year at the University of Edinburgh. While still in Scotland, he became more interested in the science of sound (acoustics). He hoped to help his deaf mother. From 1866 to 1867, he was a teacher at Somersetshire College in Bath, Somerset.

In 1870 when he was 23 years old, he moved with his family to Canada where they settled at Brantford, Ontario. Bell began to study communication machines. He made a piano that could be heard far away by using electricity. In 1871 he went with his father to Montreal, Quebec in Canada, where he took a job teaching about “visible speech“. His father was asked to teach about it at a large school for deaf mutes in Boston, Massachusetts, but instead he gave the job to his son. The younger Bell began teaching there in 1872. Alexander Graham Bell soon became famous in the United States for this important work. He published many writings about it in Washington, D.C.. Because of this work, thousands of deaf mutes in the United States of America are now able to speak, even though they cannot hear.

Bell’s genius is seen in part by the eighteen patents granted in his name alone and the twelve that he shared with others. These included fifteen for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aeronautics, four for hydrofoils, and two for a selenium cell.

In 1888, he was one of the original members of the National Geographic Society and became its second president.

He was given many honors.

Some of his thoughts and words were very powerful:

  • Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
  • Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.
  • Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.
  • When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
  • Great discoveries and improvements invariably involve the cooperation of many minds. I may be given credit for having blazed the trail, but when I look at the subsequent developments, I feel the credit is due to others rather than to myself.
  • America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.
  • A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself.
  • A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.
  • My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.
  • I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.
  • Such a chimerical idea as telegraphing vocal sounds would indeed, to most minds, seem scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over. I believe, however, that it is feasible and that I have got the cue to the solution of the problem.
  • Morse conquered his electrical difficulties although he was only a painter, and I don’t intend to give in either till all is completed.
  • I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man’s private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious… I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a postmortem examination to vivisection without anesthetics.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.12.31.2021

Friday Filosophy v.12.31.2021

Paulo Coelho de Souza; was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and attended a Jesuit school. At 17, Coelho’s parents committed him to a mental institution from which he escaped three times before being released at the age of 20. Coelho later remarked that “It wasn’t that they wanted to hurt me, but they didn’t know what to do… They did not do that to destroy me, they did that to save me.” At his parents’ wishes, Coelho enrolled in law school and abandoned his dream of becoming a writer. One year later, he dropped out and lived life as a hippie, traveling through South America, North Africa, Mexico, and Europe and started using drugs in the 1960s.

Upon his return to Brazil, Coelho worked as a songwriter, composing lyrics for Elis Regina, Rita Lee, and Brazilian icon Raul Seixas. Composing with Raul led to Coelho being associated with magic and occultism, due to the content of some songs. He is often accused that these songs were rip-offs of foreign songs not well known in Brazil at the time. In 1974, by his account, he was arrested for “subversive” activities and tortured by the ruling military government, who had taken power ten years earlier and viewed his lyrics as left-wing and dangerous. Coelho also worked as an actor, journalist and theatre director before pursuing his writing career.

Coelho married artist Christina Oiticica in 1980. Together they had previously spent half the year in Rio de Janeiro and the other half in a country house in the Pyrenees Mountains of France, but now the couple reside permanently in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1986 Coelho walked the 500-plus mile Road of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. On the path, he had a spiritual awakening, which he described autobiographically in The Pilgrimage. In an interview, Coelho stated “In 1986, I was very happy in the things I was doing. I was doing something that gave me food and water – to use the metaphor in The Alchemist, I was working, I had a person whom I loved, I had money, but I was not fulfilling my dream. My dream was, and still is, to be a writer.” Coelho would leave his lucrative career as a songwriter and pursue writing full-time.

While trying to overcome his procrastination about launching his writing career, Coelho decided, “If I see a white feather today, that is a sign that God is giving me that I have to write a new book.” Seeing one in the window of a shop, he began writing that day. The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house that made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint it. He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book Brida, The Alchemist took off. HarperCollins decided to publish the book in 1994. Later it became an international bestseller.

His work has been published in more than 170 countries and translated into eighty-three languages. Together, his books have sold 320 million copies. On 22 December 2016, Coelho was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 200 most influential contemporary authors.

  • When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.
  • You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
  • Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.
  • One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.
  • I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.
  • The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.
  • The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality – it connects you to reality.
  • The more violent the storm, the quicker it passes.
  • I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.
  • People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.
  • Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
  • The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.
  • I always was a rich person because moneys not related to happiness.
  • You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.
  • I write from my soul. This is the reason that critics don’t hurt me, because it is me. If it was not me, if I was pretending to be someone else, then this could unbalance my world, but I know who I am.
  • Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.
  • What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats.

The Time is Now.

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What’s Next?

What’s Next?

As 2021 winds down it is time for some reflection and some contemplation. What have we been able to get done in 2021 and what is next for us in 2022?

There has been a lot of confusion this year, wouldn’t you say? Politically, economically, and socially. Perhaps many of us ourselves have been confused. At Learning Without Scars we have been very busy.

  1. We received our IACET Approved provider accreditation.
  2. We revamped our website.
  3. We expanded on the Resources available to our followers.
  4. We introduced Podcasts to our audience.
  5. We added more Contributors to our blogs and podcasts.
  6. We created a Quarterly Newsletter.
  7. We created Audio Learning in multiple languages.
  8. We rounded out our Subject Specific Classes at 108 subjects available.
  9. We rounded out our Job Function Assessments at 18 available.
  10. We made available all of our Job Function Assessments in French and Spanish.
  11. We made our Parts Subject Specific Classes in French.
  12. We create Partnerships with Service Providers, Associations and Consulting Groups.

Now that is a Dozen Items to contend with and it is a list that we take a lot of pride in sharing with you. Ross Atkinson has been a large part of this work and we are most appreciative of having him participating with us in our business. I would like to extend our most sincere thanks to Norma Robbins and Louise Duranleau for their work in providing us the translations and audio tracks for the job function assessments and subject specific classes. And finally, to Caroline Slee-Poulos for her untiring work on working with IACET and completing our accreditation after nearly three years of work. My thanks to all of you.

Yet there are miles to go before we rest.

  1. In 2022 we expect to complete all classes in Spanish, French and English.
  2. We are modifying all subject specific classes to provide multiple quizzes in each class. These quizzes are aimed at improving learning and knowledge retention.
  3. We are working with Industry Associations to provide their members access to all of our learning products.
  4. We are working with Equipment Manufacturers to provide training to their dealership field personnel
  5. We are working with Systems Suppliers to provide training to their sales teams and support personnel.
  6. We will start working with Technical and Vocational Schools to introduce our subject specific classes into their curriculum for mechanical and technical training.
  7. We will be introducing new Products in the Learning area; – new Subject Specific Classes and more Job Function Assessments
  8. We will be adding new Zoom Offerings with panels of subject matter experts providing discussion on specific subjects and specific books that we are discussing.
  9. We will be looking to creating an industry wide Job Certification Program.
  10. We will accelerate our marketing activities with email blasts, e-books and snail mail programs.
  11. We will continue to improve the depth and breadth of our reporting to assist our clients in keeping track of the progress of their employees who are enrolled in LWS products.
  12. We will closely monitor our compliance with IACET requirements and keep them current with our activities.

While we are getting all of that done, we also intend to have thousands of individuals take Job Function Assessments and enroll in Subject Specific Classes.

We would not be in the position we are now, of being the supplier of the most comprehensive list of training products and employee development programs in the industry, were it not for the invaluable assistance we have received from you, our clients. Your suggestions and questions are all taken seriously and without your input and involvement we would never have gotten this far down the road. From our start with Quest Learning Centers in 1994, which provided Classroom Programs and Webinars, to Learning Without Scars, which is focused on Internet Based Learning we have depended heavily on your support.

Our purpose as a business is very simple.

We provide complementary resources to assist each individual to find their potential with blogs, podcasts, audio learning, suggested reading lists, newsletters and job function assessments. Then we give each person a pathway to achieving their potential through the use of Skill Level Pathways. To the thousands of you who have taken assessments and classes with us we say thank you. We know you are making a difference in your lives both personally and professionally through your commitment to excellence. We wish you all the success that you are dreaming about in your life. Your individual happiness is a true sign of a successful life. Thank you as well.

I want to close this blog, our last for the year, with a quotation from our Mascot, “Socrates.”

Socrates Says – Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

The Time is Now.

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Friday Filosophy v.12.03.2021

Friday Filosophy v.12.03.2021

Henry David Thoreau. July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. Thoreau’s books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism.

Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the fugitive slave law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau’s philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist. In “Civil Disobedience”, Thoreau wrote: “I heartily accept the motto,—’That government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, ‘That government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. … I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government.”

  • Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
  • It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
  • Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
  • The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
  • Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
  • If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
  • Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
  • Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
  • Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.
  • Things do not change; we change.

The Time is Now

 

 

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