Well, my name is Gary Shotton, and we’re gonna talk about the best way to learn something, and yes, I did title this Teach to Learn, rather than Learn to Teach, but I’ve discovered something, that when you’re wanting to learn something, you’ve gotta dig in, you’ve gotta make effort, you’ve gotta be a continuous learner, there’s other teachings I’ve done on that, you’ve gotta have an attitude that I can figure this out, you can’t shy away from new opportunities, that’s when you’re gonna learn the most, when you’re thrown into something that’s way over your head, and that’s when you pick up learning at a high pace, for example, I graduated from college, a young guy out of college, engineer, went to work for the big oil company, and man, right away I got thrown, after about the first year, first year was just getting oriented, first into this company and getting sat down to learn how things work, but in the first part of the second year, I got thrown into a situation where I was really responsible for the design and eventually the construction of a major, multi-million dollar plant expansion, it was perfect, I was in my young 20s, I came from a farm background, I hadn’t really been in much construction, I was an engineer by profession, that’s what I went to college for, but guess what, you come outta college, you don’t really know much, you learn how to get the job, and from getting the job, then you can learn how to get started and you learn on-the-job training, and so I was thrown into a situation where we’re building this huge expansion, and I became responsible as the field engineer, and in a couple years, I became responsible for the entire construction crew to get this project done. It was fabulous. It was fabulous. Fabulous for me, and all I could do was keep learning, and it was a fast pace. I then moved to a new town, 1200 miles away to a new town to go to school, it was actually bible school, and I had to learn how to start a business as a moving and storage company, nobody taught me how to do that, and so I was learning how to be a completely different profession, just like start over, loved it, I had to learn, it was hard work, no problem. Well, what I learned in all these situations, and you know this to be true, until you actually explain what you’ve learned to somebody else, you probably haven’t learned it. I’ll just be real simple, let’s say that you take something like … Teaching somebody how to bake a cake or to cook, my wife like to watch cooking channel, that’s fine, I see some of that while she’s watching it, and I noticed that the good chefs, the good cooks, the people that are involved with this, are very actively passing on this knowledge to other people, they actually have some cooking classes and competitions for young kids, like 12 year olds and 13 year olds and young teenagers, and it’s wonderful, somebody has taught them, helped them, put them under their wing, and I will guarantee you that the youngster that learned to cook, learned something, that’s great, but the teacher actually learned more, because when you can assimilate your thoughts, and watch over someone else, and help them, you actually learn, I own this machine shop right now, this morning, we had a gentleman that’s our senior welder, he watches over the weld operation, and he’s helping another individual that is working in another field at our company, he wanted to learn to weld, well, the supervisor has learned enough to be a good welder, but he’s willing to share that and train someone else, we have that culture in our company, you see, your company, your atmosphere could have a culture of hoarding information, protecting territory, making sure nobody bumps into my territory of knowledge, and so if I can maintain and capture this knowledge and nobody else knows about it, then they must hold me, and keep me, and employ me, that’s just a bunch of hogwash, basically, if that’s the culture that you’re in, if you don’t have the chance to change that culture as an employee, I’d suggest that you change companies, because want to work for a culture, a company that is engulfing and helping you learn, and the best way that you can learn is for you to teach, I’m just guarantee it, that’s the very best way, so whatever lesson that you have learned, make a point at any level, to find somebody or make yourself available to someone to teach them, I’m just telling you that’s what I’m doing right now, I’ve done it for 25 and 30 yrs, and I’m not bragging, I’m just helping with certain things in the local high school, so the local schools, I volunteered in certain programs, the program was set up, I could come up for an hour a week, for nine weeks, and I taught, and I found out that as I taught young sixth graders how to balance their checkbook, how to write a check, how to view finances, how to get some ideas even to make some side money, it’s like a reservoir, the knowledge, I believe God gives us knowledge, I really believe that, and we’re not a reservoir, we’re a river, we’re a river of knowledge, a river of knowledge that goes past us, and we can pick out of that river all the things we wanna learn, especially now on the internet, especially now with Google, especially now with so much at our fingertips, and I’m not saying to be a master of nothing, and basically try to be so broad you don’t specialize in something, there’s no way, but once you get into a field, there’s no depth that you can’t get deeper in it, you can go deeper and deeper and deeper and understand more about your profession or your occupation, let me tell you, knowledge is power, knowledge is power. Right now I run this machine shop, I own this machine shop, I am part of the team, I’m the ownership, I am the outside sales, and the customer that you see we have, making these parts right behind us, they’ve just instituted a new way that we’re gonna follow an industry standard that changes the way we actually measure the quality on these parts. Right away I said, count us in, we’re not bow on our necks, and being difficult and calling this ridiculous, we’re there, we went to class, we meet every other week now, we’re on their team, there’s other shops that didn’t do that, and guess whose shops that’s getting busy right now, we just hired six new people back, because we’re busy, and a part of that is because we’re willing to learn, and if you’re gonna learn to teach, that’s great, but if you teach others, that’s when you end up learning. Well I hope this makes sense, it’s a little bit basic, but these lessons are intended to help everyone, and I hope they do, well please share with other people if you choose to, that’s how we spread the word, thank you.