SPECIAL EDITION to THE QATSPY® SATURDAY’S SPORTS PAGE for YOUR LIFE
I’m usually covering Health and Sports in my weekly articles, but I want to include the importance of developing a skilled hobby to improve your cognitive ability especially as we age. Even at age 66, I’m not slowing down, in fact I’m challenging myself to improve my mental acuity.
I’m shown here in my welding shop reinforcing my finishing mower where I can use my finishing mower to push stumps out of the ground. I welding a quarter-inch bar to uproot stumps. It beats digging stumps up out of the ground.
By: Charles W. Boatright, President & CEO of THE QATSPY®
Trade Skill is Superior to any Degree: Associate TECH Degree with a Trade Skill can Trump any MBA out there as Proven by Boring Airlines QCA. I would take an Associate Engineering Grad over any MBA Grad anytime anywhere any day hands down.
QCA– Stands for Quality Control & Assurance
Most Associate Technical can fill 85- percent of the careers today. A Bachelor, Masters, or Doctorate degree are required for careers like education, science, engineering, medical, law, or research-type fields. I can attest that 80 percent of your education is acquired after you leave school or college. There is a huge difference between education and experience.
Along with my Engineering Degree that has been rewarding beyond my expectations, I also took a VOTECH trade course in welding as a hobby when I retired. The most enjoyable sweating that I have ever done next to me working out in my gym.
Working with your hands is probably the most rewarding work and experience that anyone can do in their life. The best advice that I can give out especially to those 20-somethings is to take up a trade that can be rewarding as a hobby that as you become proficient at it your hobby can become your second career, like in my case. You won’t become an angry young person without purpose rioting in the streets vandalizing property, like we can witnessed,
You hear coaches stress the need for athletes to diversify themselves in other sports to become a proficient athlete. The same can be said for your career; pickup as many hobbies as you can along the way in your career. My daily schedule goes from raising roses, sewing, cooking, baking, sports and fitness reporting and writing, to welding.
I enjoy welding the most, because you’re creating a structure that can endure and provide an advantage to accomplishing a task in an everyday situation. Welding makes any job so much easier to accomplish. A welder can tack weld two pieces of metal together then put a finish weld to conjoin the assembly in short order. I enjoy burning rods as much as anything else.
To me, woodworking is much more difficult as I discussed with Mike G., one of my longtime friends from high school who is a professional welder by trade. I have to call him on certain occasions when I’m out of my element or need his advice.
But that is what friendship is for that means so much to us all. Hobbies are like sporting events that brings people together from diverse backgrounds for a single purpose. This proves and highlights that we have a lot more in common than we do in our differences.
But what is difference and hobbies are those bonds that forge that strengthen our friendships that we enjoy. This is like taking three pieces of metal and welding then together with a rod and bonding those pieces into a triangle of metal that is actually stronger than any one piece of metal by itself.
This is another reason why developing hobbies strengthens relationships we have with each other. Also it is important to challenge ourselves and make ourselves uncomfortable by developing a new hobby that takes a high degree of skill for developing potential. This will give you more confidence and you will never lose your mental edge by challenging yourself.
But to be able to enjoy hobbies and your life, you have to have and follow a Healthy diet and fitness program that includes strength training. If you want an age-defying process to not just look years younger, but actually decades younger include strength training in your workout routine.
Aerobics and Cardio gets the lion’s share of the attention in workouts, but slow strength training can change your entire life where you can enjoy what life has to offer you and look younger while enjoying your life.
