WHO WOULD IT BE?

WHO WOULD IT BE?
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, August 16, 2026

 

There was a very intriguing question asked on Facebook today, August 16, 2026. 

If you could thank one Coast Guard member today, who would it be? 

Before you write the question off because you may not have served in the Coast Guard, think about the question and the career path that you have chosen. You can easily substitute a very different type of profession or even a company’s name that you worked for in lieu of Coast Guard.  

It is a question that WILL make you THINK! Personally, I had two careers that I retired from plus I have done a considerable amount of writing in the form of real estate training courses and Nuggets for the Noggin like this one. In fact, over the past thirty-five years, I have written well over one thousand such Nuggets which will be the topic of another Nugget very soon. 

As to the question, my first career was serving in the U. S. Coast Guard. Over the next twenty years, I was EXTREMELY fortunate and I emphasize the word extremely because not everyone could be as lucky or as fortunate as I was. I had the best of the best to supervise, train and guide me to the point I eventually retired from the service as a Lieutenant having entered as a Seaman Recruit. That may not mean much to people who have not served in the military, but trust me when I tell you that was quite an accomplishment for which I am very proud. 

Over those twenty years, I can list at least six Coast Guardsmen that were exceptional at what they did and of the six, there was one that helped me the most. It was a matter of luck, of timing and my own perseverance but the catalyst was “the one person” that was most responsible for me serving the twenty years and retiring as a Lieutenant. To non-military people reading this, to be selected for a special Limited Duty Officer program that promoted only one or two people each year in their specialty to Lieutenant was indeed an honor and an exclamation mark on a successful career. 

When I saw the question on Facebook, it caused me to pause for two reasons. First, it gave me the idea for this Nugget. Second, and the most important reason of the two, is that it caused me to stop and think about those twenty years and who within the Coast Guard community would be the most responsible for any success that I was able to achieve. For any of my fellow Coasties that might read this, your name was probably on the list of six names that I reduced my selection to, so please do not take it personally that your name is not the “one name” of the person who helped me the most. The reason I listed the person’s name is because he took a young 20-year-old, with no specific skills other than being able to type, and guided me to do the work he and others assigned me. He guided me towards advancing through the ranks. He guided me regarding working with others, especially very senior Coast Guard Officers like the Admiral who was our District Commander. 

I graduated from Coast Guard Boot Camp as a Seaman Apprentice (E2 on the pay scale). The only skill I learned in the first three months of service was how to cut up fallen trees. I was assigned to the Coast Guard Radio Station across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. I arrived in New Orleans weeks after Hurricane Betsy struck the area and there was damage everywhere. At the Radio Station, which sat on a HUGE parcel of land in the middle of nowhere, there were fallen trees blocking the dirt road that completely encircled the station. For three months I cut up trees to be hauled off. I accomplished two things during those three months. First, I put on twenty-five pounds. Secondly and the most important one, I caught a severe case of poison ivy working in the jungles at that time.  The ONLY solution to the poison ivy was to transfer me away from what was causing my skin to break out and blister over most of my body. This was one of those “life lessons” we hear about. When one door closes, another door opens. 

The Radio Station door closed for me, but the Eighth Coast Guard District Personnel Office opened. That is when I met my selectee who became the one person who helped me to grow my career the most and gave me a chance, primarily because I could type. That one person was YN1 (Yeoman First Class) Carl Seale (who eventually retired as a Chief Warrant Officer (W4) specializing in Personnel Administration. I sat down at a desk and a brand-new potential career opened in front of me. Carl guided me to what I did. He explained why certain things must be completed in a certain way and that errors were not acceptable. He also set an example for me. His uniform was always impeccable. At the time I was single, living on my own in a two-room apartment. Yes, I said two rooms, actually three if you count the bathroom. It had a small, very small kitchen and a living room with a pull-down Murphy Bed. I was twenty-one years old, living on my own in a town two thousand miles away from what I called home and earning about $100 a month, yes, you heard that right, $100 a month. 

From that humble beginning with Carl’s help and mentorship, that twenty-year-old unskilled worker bee made it through being promoted to Petty Officer, Third, Second and First Class and eventually to Chief Yeoman. From there I was promoted to Chief Warrant Officer (W3) and eventually to the LDO Lieutenant at which pay grade I retired. 

This is the sad part that the question generated, at least for me. I have never said Thank You to the one person most responsible for my success. Why do you suppose that is? I have a thought, but it may only apply to me. My formative years were in the 1950s and early 1960s. I do not remember “GRATITUDE” ever taught by anyone. Is that not what this is all about? Showing someone YOUR gratitude for the help THEY provided on your path to SUCCESS?  To be 100% honest with you, I self-taught myself about gratitude when I read the book The Secret.  By the time I read the book I had already retired from the Coast Guard and was well on my way establishing a second career in the real estate business. By the way, there is that ONE PERSON who also helped me towards the success I achieved in the real estate business and that was Dr. Tom Hill of RE/MAX Dixie Region. 

This Nugget is about two different subjects, first identifying that one person and then second, telling them how much they have meant to you and your career. As for showing gratitude, the book The Secret (I highly recommend reading it) discussed the Gratitude Stone. In the book, it was just a random stone you might find anywhere alongside the road. Instead, I chose a glass stone like the ones you see at the bottom of a fishbowl. I purchased a bag full of them at Hobby Lobby.  First, you make certain that you take the gratitude stone with you wherever you go 24 hours of every day! No exceptions! Every time you see the stone or touch the stone in your pocket or purse, you are to stop, think, and give thanks/gratitude for something or someone at that moment in your life.  For the last half of my real estate career, I would give a glass stone attached to a business card size instruction card on how and when to use the stone. People remembered that stone and thus they remembered me, something everyone in sales wanted to have happened.  I used the stone for years.  Why I stopped, I am not certain, but I will carry it again; it is a great habit to practice! The glass stone takes up very little room in your pocket or purse. You see it first thing in the morning when you get up and again the last thing at night when you go to bed. Being grateful for what you have is far more productive than listening to the news first thing in the morning and last thing at night. 

The goal for everyone should be to be always conscious of occasions when it is appropriate to be thankful/grateful and to show how thankful/grateful someone has been to you. As an example, my parents taught me to write thank you notes to people who give you gifts or did something for you. Writing thank you notes has become a thing of the past and everyone ought to consider restructuring that habit. When was the last time you received a handwritten thank you note?  Me neither! 

So……..with all that said……. 

WHO SHOULD YOU BE THANKING RIGHT NOW!
 
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING ON?

Your Future and How to Get There!

 

Your Future and How to Get There!
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, August 10, 2026

“Hope is NOT an effective strategy!”

Dr. John Maxwell 

“To succeed at whatever you wish to do or become,

think with the end in mind!”

Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown 

 “Your thoughts makes all things animate and inanimate work to bring you want you want; but your personal activity must be such that you can rightly receive what you want when it reaches you.” 

Wallace C. Wattles 

By “thought”, Wattles is referring to learn to “think in a certain way.”  Wallace is the author of several really great books written in the early 1900s which are more valuable in 2026 than ever before! 

The graphic above proves the point that a picture is worth 1000 words!  The best time to think about your future begins around the age of 10 if not before.  What will your life look like by the time it is finished?  A better question would be, what do YOU SEE your life looking like by the time it is finished?  Far too often, people’s lives are directed by what “others” see them doing rather than what THEY see them doing. 

"Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life" 

Mark Twain 

The road to success is therefore quite simple.  Begin at an early age to identify the type of work you want to see yourself doing.  It was over 20 years ago that I learned that there were students beginning their college education with a goal of performing a job that may not even exist by the time they graduate.  You can interpret that in two different ways.  Either the job has not yet been created, or technology will have made the job obsolete.  In 2026 there are thousands if not millions of college graduates who are unemployed in their specific field of study that they majored in and for which they have acquired massive debt to complete.  That is NOT a good place to be – ever! 

My advice to the youth of today is to seek multiple avenues to pursue.  For example, learning a trade skill is never a bad idea even if you desire is to be employed in a position that requires your mind over the completion of a skill.  I refer to this as having a “Plan B.”  In other words, it is not a good idea to “put all of your eggs into one basket.”  As an example, you may be the best quarterback that ever-played football and your goal is to play in the National Football League.  Given your skill set, that might be the most beneficial path for you to follow.  That would be Plan A.  However, as we all know, football is a sport that can be and oftentimes is harmful to your health.  A sudden injury could bring an end to your desire to play in the National Football League, your Plan A.  If you had put all your efforts (eggs) into that one goal (NFL Career), you would find yourself unemployed with no Plan B.  The more topics you become well versed in, the more valuable you become to others and to yourself. 

As an overall objective, I would suggest that you begin with the end in mind.  What do you see your life looking like by the time it is finished?  Where do you see yourself living?  What are you doing for fun?  What are you doing to keep yourself busy?  What are you doing to ensure you have an adequate income well into your retirement years?  What WILL your life look like when it is finished?  Do you have a plan? 

If you can paint a mental picture of that life you can envision, you can reverse engineer that image and ascertain what one thing should you be doing at this very moment that if done will serve as a puzzle piece that fits perfectly into to your life’s overall picture that you have envisioned.  Once that one piece is put into place, what is the next “one thing” you should be doing at this moment in time to add to the picture you have begun to complete? 

Gary Keller, co-founder of Keller Williams Realty International, has written a book “The One Thing.”  It details how you identify what the “one thing” is that you MUST do right now that will lead you to the next “one thing” that must be done next!  It then becomes a simple matter of “rinse and repeat.”  Imagine your life’s picture when it is completed as being that of a completed puzzle.  Each puzzle piece would represent one step in your life’s journey that when they are all put together becomes the completed life you have desired and worked to achieve throughout your life. 

If you notice in the graphic at the beginning of this Nugget, the boy has not only identified the important aspects of his life, but he also planted seeds in each of the various categories (rows).  His first decision is what does he do next?  Does he sit back and “hope” that they get enough sunlight, that they get enough water, that they get enough fertilizer or does he take action necessary to ensure the seeds get enough of these things that would all but ensure their growth? “The Secret” is a book certainly worthy of reading and many have.  Even I could pick out one glaring omission in the book.  It instructs the reader to set goals, to think about what they want and suggests that the universe will more than likely bring them what they seek.  But no where in the book does it say you have to take some form of action to turn your “wants” into “receipts!”  To accomplish anything takes some form of action.  That is why Dr. Maxwell’s quote above is so critical to understand, “Hope is NOT an effective strategy!”  It takes a vision, a goal, an objective and then that is followed up with some form of action; a movement towards achieving what you want to achieve. 

I have used myself as a training aid as to the value of (1) identifying a need/want.  (2) Identifying what the end looks like.  (3) Identifying the steps that must be taken between steps (1) and the completion at step (3) and beyond.  To this end, I refer to you my Coast Guard career.  By the time I completed Boot Camp, I KNEW EXACTLY what I had to do to be eligible for a promotion to the next pay grade.  I also knew exactly what I had to do to acquire a specialty that would enable me to be promoted beyond just the next pay grade.  In other words, I knew I was under contract for the next four years of my life so why not make those four years the best that I could?  I immediately ordered and began working on the required correspondence course that needed to be completed prior to being promoted.  I had a choice of applying for a Class A school or learning on the job.  This was a path that some of the service ratings could do while others required you to attend a school.  I could type rather fast without errors so one specific specialty seemed to fall into place, that of the Yeoman specialty.  Being a Yeoman in the military might better be understood if you were to refer to it as the “company clerk.”  A record keeper.  A personnel administrator.  To acquire that rating while serving in the field required that I “strike” for the position under the direct supervision of experienced Yeomen in the field, which I did.  I completed the correspondence course for YN3, was recommended by my Commanding Officer, passed the service-wide examination and was promoted to YN3.  

This started a routine for me.  Before I took the examination for YN3 I had already ordered the course for Second Class Petty Officer, YN2.  That was also true for First Class Petty Officer, YN1 and eventually Chief, Petty Officer YNC.  At the time that I was a YN1 taking the YNC course, I applied for and was recommended to be promoted to Chief Warrant Officer.  I was promoted to Chief Yeoman and two months later promoted again to Chief Warrant Officer.  The point of this is that (1) I knew exactly what I had to do and when I could do it. Then (2) I did them as quickly as the time would permit me to complete them.  As a result, I was promoted through YN1 as fast as anyone could have been promoted.  The competition for YNC was much tougher and therefore took a bit longer to be promoted but the process was the same. 

It is the PROCESS that I want to convey to the reader.  I KNEW what I had to do.  I set a personal goal of doing it as quickly as time would permit.  I kept my nose clean, as they say.  I did my work as professionally as I could and that resulted in getting good recommendations for advancement from my various Commanding Officers.  One “life lesson” learned along the way was that the more you make yourself irreplaceable on the job, the more valuable you become to the people you work for and the people who work for you.  This all occurred long before Gary Keller wrote the book The One Thing but looking backward, that is exactly what I did throughout my Coast Guard career.  I identified the ONE THING that if done would lead to identifying the next “one thing” that needed to be done and then the next, etc.  The list of completed “one things” resulted in a very successful Coast Guard career.  I advanced from Seaman Recruit in Boot Camp through Seaman to Yeoman Third Class to Chief Yeoman, to Chief, Warrant Officer (Personnel Administration) and was ultimately selected for a rare promotion to Limited Duty Officer – Lieutenant the grade at which I retired after twenty years. 

I know with certainty that this process works because I did the same thing as I progressed into the real estate business.  There was ALWAYS the ONE THING that if done, would lead to the next ONE THING that cumulatively would lead to the completion of a goal/objective I pursued.  IT WORKS!  

Therefore, your goal, should you decide to pursue it, is to (1) find the ONE THING you must be doing right now.  (2) create a mental image of what your life will look like when it is finished.  Breakdown the period from where you want to be in the future back to the current moment in time. Once you have accomplished that, you can identify the many steps you MUST take to make things happen in your life that must happen for you to get to where you want to go.  BUT FIRST – YOU MUST KNOW WHERE IT IS YOU WANT TO GO!  The following is a great poem.  I wish I knew who wrote it.  The message is clear as a bell! 

WHERE’RE YA GOING? 

High in the Sierra Mountains lives an old man
Who, from their hermitage, looks down in pity
Upon other people of higher mental aspiration.
One day he rescued a little group of Swiss mountaineers
Lost deep in the mountains’ fastnesses.
When told where they were, they exclaimed in disbelief,
“But how did we get here?”
To which the old hermit replied,
“If that question ain’t got no answer attached to it,
I ain’t got none that fits.
If you is goin’ anywhere in particular
Up here, yu’d better figger fust how to get thar.
Cuz by jest goin’ afore ya know where yere agoin’
Ya can get to a powerful lotta places ya might not wanta be.”

-Author unknown

Gary Keller also said many times that YOU MUST be LEARNING BASED because if you are not Learning Based, you are IGNORNANT BASED and that is the mindset of a loser.  You MUST be constantly learning.  You must want to become better at what you do, and you achieve that by reading, studying your craft, attending seminars, and listening to appropriate podcases.  The more you learn the more you know and the better you will perform.  Since my early 40s, I established a personal goal of reading 2 books a month.  I read on average 3 books every month.  Reading explains how when you are facing a problem, suddenly from out of nowhere the solution appears in my mind.  At first, I had no idea where these solutions came from but then I realized that you rarely truly forget anything.  The information is there, lying dormant within your subconscious mind.  You put it there through your reading, courses taken and podcasts listened to.  Then if as if by magic, the information appears when you need it most. 

“YOU can READ…for a change; or YOU can read…for a CHANGE!  The choice is yours!  Choose wisely!”

Jim “Gymbeaux Brown 

There you have it!  You can CHOOSE a purpose filled and successful life, or you can LIVE an unplanned life of happenstance and struggle.  The choice you make that will grow the quickest will be the one you voluntarily choose to feed the most as the graphic above suggests!  The choice should be obvious and a “word to the wise should be sufficient!”  You are wise, are you not? 

I would be remis it if I did not recommend you read the book Where Are You Going? (available on Amazon) co-authored by Lou Vickery and Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown (yes that is me).  The book goes into much more depth on living the life you desire through self-analysis and goal setting.

“Success leaves clues!”  Anthony Robbins.  It truly does.  The information is out there!  All YOU have to DO is open your mind and LET IT IN!