Schleif/Learning Blog

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March 2016

My life… my purpose.

My life has purpose. Today I can help a co-worker see the world... just a little differently. My story is important. Maybe today I'll share a story that will help another discover their story. My dreams count. Let me count my dreams. My voice matters. Speaking up today takes courage. Courage that I've learned through practice and failure. I was born to make an impact. It all began the day I came into [...]

Never miss an opportunity…

In today's world, our time is valuable. We have a lot of choices to make. Then, someone comes up and asks, "Hey, can you help me?" Take a moment, and think about your initial response. Was it, "Of course!" Or, was it something different? How about giving this a try? When someone comes up, asking for your help, think of it another way. Say to yourself, "This is really an opportunity for me." [...]

It’s your decision…

As individuals, we have to make our own decisions. We have to decide when to get up in the morning, what time to eat, and who we'll associate with. We have to decide when we ever going to relax and how we'll respond under pressure. Unfortunately, good decision making isn't a natural process. It's a developed skill, honed by years of practice and failure after failure. And, the worst decision is the decision we [...]

The comfort zone isn’t safe

Sooner or later, your place of inner comfort is no longer safe. Call it a parent's home, a familiar way of doing things, a stale relationship. Your comfort zone is where you can rest easy and be yourself, without having to think about it. Unfortunately, your comfort zone isn't really very safe. This place of inner comfort is just an illusion that lulls us into inaction, complacency, and waste. And towards the end, it causes [...]

It’s really an inside job.

We react, naturally. It's in our DNA. When we're frightened, we usually flee. Sometimes we'll stick around and fight. Responding though is different. We "learn" to respond, though our interactions with others. We've all been taught, "Do unto others, as they do unto me". Developing our ability to initiate something is different than developing our ability to react or respond. Developing our ability to initiate is an inside job. It really doesn't matter if [...]

A few of my recent LinkedIn posts!

I was asked to post some of my recent LinkedIn posts here to my blog... Well, here they are! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. The process of developing these special sayings is a great way to communicate to others. As someone said, a picture is worth... Have a great day! (Click Pic To Zoom) [...]

Hard work

Somethings in life can simple, and yet at the same time, be so very hard. Finding the work you love is one of those things. Simple to think about. Hard to successfully accomplish.

The artist living… within

I've come to discover, "We all have an artist living within." Over the last several years, I've worked with all types of technical workers... call them laborers, craftsmen, and artists. I've noticed that many of them work for the money. Others work to display (show-off?) their skill. And others work for a different reason. They work for something higher. They work for something special. They work for... the artistry of work. They invest themselves with everything [...]

February 2016

Let’s be smarter…

It's okay to be smart. In fact, during employment interviews many of the questions that HR representatives ask are designed to help identify "the smart people". Yes, companies spend a lot of money trying to determine how smart people are, before they're hired. But there's something far more important to you and your company. That something is called "shared knowledge". This type of knowledge includes the tribal knowledge that can and should be [...]

Don’t listen… sometimes.

It's hard not to listen. Who hasn't heard, "Listen to your parents". And we really do want to listen. Especially, when we're working to improve. You see, self improvement requires work. Hard work. And, it's an inside job. Unfortunately, when we're trying to change for the better, a few people might suddenly speak up. And they really want us to listen. But, we shouldn't. We shouldn't listen to the naysayers, who say, "You can't do [...]