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Nuggets For The Noggin
Coyotes and Tumbleweeds
By Jim “Gymbeaux”
Brown, August 28, 2013
The following printed in italics was sent to me in an email so I have no
idea who the author was to give due credit.
I had no idea these arrows existed.
On August 20, 1920, the United
States opened its first coast-to-coast airmail delivery route, just 60 years
after the Pony Express closed up shop.
There were no good aviation charts
in those days, so pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using
landmarks. This meant that flying in bad
weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible.
The Postal Service solved the
problem with the world’s first ground-based civilian navigation system: a
series of lit beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco. Every
ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would
be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower
rotating beacon. (A generator shed at
the tail of each arrow powered the beacon.)
Now mail could get from the
Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so. Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it
seems, could follow a series of bright yellow arrows straight out of a Tex
Avery cartoon. By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant
concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio. The
next summer, it reached all the way to New York, and by 1929 it spanned the
continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems worldwide.
Radio and radar are, of course,
infinitely less cool than a concrete Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea,
but I think we all know how this story ends. New advances in communication and
navigation technology made the big arrows obsolete, and the Commerce Department
decommissioned the beacons in the 1940s. The steel towers were torn down and
went to the war effort. But the hundreds
of arrows remain. Their yellow paint is gone, their concrete cracks a little
more with every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for
coyotes and tumbleweeds.
“…no one crosses their path much,
except for coyotes and tumbleweeds.” Think about that for a moment. Anthony Robbins (www.TonyRobbins.com) has repeatedly said,
“Success leaves clues!” In the case of
getting mail from one side of the country to another these clues were in the
form of yellow concrete arrows or as the author said, “a Yellow Brick Road”
from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
But “no one crosses their path
much (any more), except for coyotes and tumbleweeds.”
What would you consider a success in your lifetime? Have you thought about it? Would achieving your success be made easier
if someone like the U. S. Post Office would leave you bright yellow, lighted
concrete arrows to take you from point A to point B?
SURPRISE! The U. S.
Post Office may not have left you arrows to follow but as Robbins said, “success
leaves clues” and fortunately for all of us, there are so many clues for us to
follow that there is no viable excuse for not achieving the success you desire.
Instead of ARROWS the arrows are not BOOKS!
It’s been said by whom or what study I have no idea that fewer than 3% of
Americans read one book or more a year.
Since you are reading this I would guess that you are in the 3% but
there is no guarantee that is true. I
think it is important to make the difference between books of fiction and books
of non-fiction. While reading fiction is
fun and interesting, the lessons learned from reading non-fiction books are far
greater, at least in my opinion.
Have you read any good books lately?
Most people could not answer that question with anything other than a
No; in fact most people, if the 3% is true would say they do not read a book at
all let alone be it a “good” book.
So why would you attempt to travel the “Yellow Brick Road” to success
alone and without help? That is just
stupid since someone has already traveled that road and left you with all kinds
of “arrows” (clues) to follow. The
hardest part of the journey, because there are so many arrows to follow, is
simply finding the “right” arrows for you.
The age of the personal computer has made the selection process even
simpler for you; just Google your goal and then find the books on the subject
matter that will eventually take you to where you want to go and beyond.
My biggest regret thus far in my life is that there was no one in my
formative years that pointed me in the right direction. I did not learn the value of reading until I
was in my forties and even then it was by accident. I had been hired for my first management
position in the real estate industry.
Days before I was to begin, I found a cassette tape set created by Lee
Shelton entitled Creating Teamwork
http://tinyurl.com/p3nwlo8. The tapes
were fantastic! I listened to them so
many times that Lee said I could repeat them from memory and give the live
presentations that he gave so many times.
I became friends with Lee by writing to him to thank him for the
magnificent gift he gave me.
What was the gift? As good as his
tapes were, he suggested on the tapes to read I’m Okay; You’re Okay every 6
months. Until that advice I had not read
a book since I graduated high school some 25 or so years before. I read the book, several times, and that one
bit of advice cause me to start reading and collecting books, tapes and CDs to
the point where I had over 1000 titles that I have read or listened to; some
multiple times. The books, tapes and CDs
were like stepping stones where one led to another to another, etc. They were like “bright yellow concrete arrows”
forming a “yellow brick road” all leading me to this very point in my life
where hopefully I am giving the same valuable advice that Lee Shelton gave me
over 30 years ago and that is to READ!
And more importantly, KEEP READING! Be a STUDENT FOREVER!
I think it is important to also point out that there is one
characteristic that needs to be addressed FIRST! ATTITUDE!
Without the proper attitude, success will continue to be a struggle for
even the brightest student. How do you
develop your attitude? Have you ever
seen a course offered on attitudes?
Being aware of my attitude or lack thereof first happened when I read Jeffrey
Gitomer’s (www.JeffreyGitomer.com)
book, The Little Gold Book of
YES!Attitude. I must have read
that book six times or more and listened to it on CD even more times (yes I
also bought the book on CD). I am sure
the book contains nothing that you have not already heard from your mother but
it assembles it all in one location.
Very easy to read and understand.
Implementing what Gitomer suggests is another story. However, if you were to make a study of the
book a habit, you cannot help but improve your attitude and subsequently your
outlook on life. Is it a coincidence
that Gitomer’s book is “yellow” as are the arrows in the “yellow brick road?” Maybe so; maybe not!
Thank God there are coyotes and tumbleweeds, that would be you, that still find and use the
arrows; they would be considered charter members of the 3% club. Are you a member of the 3% Club who find
success by design or are you a member of the 97% Club who may find success only
by accident?
