Survival Tip #261

Teach, Don’t Preach 

This might sound a little strange coming from the guy sitting behind a blog roll, but teach, don’t preach. Only people who listen to preachers are those who already know what they are saying. Instead of preaching try teaching.

Take the opportunity whenever it arises to try to pass your knowledge along. The other day I took a good deal of satisfaction in teaching someone what a handful of different tools were called, used for, and what tasks they worked best on. I didn’t preach to them why they should know how to use tools, but by coaching them through and teaching them a new skill I had the chance to impart something to them that will hopefully stay with them for life and make their life easier at times.

The job would have been done faster if I just told them exactly what I wanted them to do and did the more complicated parts myself, but with a little patience I was able to make a different that day.