The Keyboard Cowboy

 

THE KEYBOARD COWBOY!
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, July 11, 2025

For the record, I attended Chaney High School in Youngstown, Ohio from 1960-1963, and graduated in 1963.  We were known as The Chaney High School Cowboys.  

One of the most productive courses I have ever taken in Junior/Senior High School or even in College was a typing class.  At the time I took the class I was also a member of the High School Band and played many instruments but specialized on the Clarinet and Baritone Saxophone.  Why is this important to know?  Both the typewriter keyboard and the musical instruments require that you learn to use all of the fingers on both hands.  In fact, my Clarinet teacher gave me finger dexterity exercises to do every day and I did them  As an example I would hold up one finger (the same finger) on each hand.  Then with my hands facing each other, I perform flex motions in unison and then as opposite motions.  I would do this with the four fingers on each hand, and even the thumbs at times.  The exercises helped me tremendously in playing the Clarinet and Sax. More importantly it put me light years ahead of anyone else in my typing class.  Putting these two topics together, I came up with an appropriate description of myself, I became a:

The class taught me another valuable lesson.  The typing instructor asked everyone on day one if they had ever taken typing before?  He then asked if anyone in the class ever used a typewriter.  I said no to both questions which was the truth.  How do you prove to someone you never typed on a typewriter keyboard?  You can’t!  It requires proving a negative or a positive where there is no evidence for either other than the person’s word.  As it turned out, my word was insufficient.  Why do I say that?  I took to typing like a duck takes to water.  I know with certainty it was because of the time I spent on the Clarinet and Sax.  The goal of the class was to be typing 30 words a minute with zero to just a few typos by the end of the class.  I think I hit that goal after the first three weeks.  That may not sound like a lofty goal but in the 1950s, we had MANUAL typewriters.  If you have only typed on an electric typewriter or a computer keyboard, you have no idea how the manual typewriter keyboard actually slows you down. 

My best guess would be that you have never heard of the QWERTY layout of the typewriter keyboard.  There are lots of rumors as to why the keys on a typewriter are laid out as they are so I asked ChatGPT and this is what I discovered:

• Early typewriters (1860s–1870s) had keys that would physically strike a ribbon to print a character. If two adjacent keys were pressed too quickly one after the other, their typebars could jam or clash.
• Christopher Latham Sholes, the inventor of the QWERTY layout, reorganized the keyboard to separate commonly used letter pairings, making jams less likely.
• This design had the side effect of slowing down typing speed, which helped avoid mechanical issues but wasn't strictly aimed at making typists less efficient—just at keeping the machine functional.

Misconception:

• It’s often said QWERTY was designed purely to slow people down, but it’s more accurate to say it was designed to optimize the mechanical limitations of early typewriters.

Today:

• Despite the original purpose no longer being relevant, QWERTY stuck due to familiarity and training inertia, even though more efficient layouts like Dvorak and Colemak exist.

So yes—QWERTY was a compromise between speed and function, with "slowing down" as a means to prevent jams, not the primary goal.

By the end of class, you would have thought that because of the speed I could type I would have received an A for the course but I did not.  Instead, I received a C.  When I asked why, the teacher said he did not believe me when I said I had never typed before because of how fast I was able to pick it up.  He said he had never seen anyone do that before.  Well, I can honestly say he was wrong!  Nothing I could say convinced him otherwise.

How fast can I type?  So glad you asked.  Before I tell you, let me tell you that my ability to accurately type and type fast was the result of several really good unit assignments when I was on active duty with the U. S. Coast Guard.  The first one caused me to be transferred from a unit where my main job was cutting fallen trees around the Coast Guard Radio Station (NMG) New Orleans.  I managed to acquire a very severe case of poison ivy, so much so, they had to transfer me as soon as possible to separate me from the cause of the skin issues.  The first question I was asked was could I type?  When I said yes, the District Commander transferred me to the Eighth Coast Guard District Office where I worked at becoming a Yeoman (administrative specialist).  That led to me getting married, being transferred to London, England, having four children that led to nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren, as well as becoming a Yeoman Class A School Instructor all because I said I could type.

How fast can I type?  Let me explain by showing you:

I can type 300 words a minute without a mistake!

Do you want to see me do it again?

I can type 300 words a minute without a mistake!

I hate to have to explain a joke but that was obviously a joke.  You may have to read it twice to understand it.

Over the years I have become what I refer to as a Keyboard (typist) Cowboy (Chaney High School).  I like, the title, have always enjoyed writing and typing.  I initially wrote a great deal with a fountain pen and paper.  This may be hard to believe or understand but there was always something very special to me when I wrote with a fountain pen (which very few people do any more).  I can see the ink flowing from the nib (pen point) onto the paper.  The words went from my mind down through my arm and hand, through the pen and out onto the paper.  I doubt many people have ever thought like that but I did.  The words I put to paper reflected the creative juices I had stored up in my head.  Those thoughts would have remained in my head forever had I not put them onto paper.

Therein lies the purpose of this Nugget; to get people to think about writing down or typing out the words in their heads so that others can some day see the world as you have seen it and experienced it.  I have relatives who have long since passed who I would love to be able to hear or read their life stores but unfortunately those stories died with them never to be heard again or experienced again.  My advice is to not let that happen to you. 

“Don't Die with the Music Still in You” 

The above quote is attributable to many people.  I personally heard it from Dr. Wayne Dyer at  seminar he gave in Austin, Texas.  It is great advice, don’t die with your stories still in you!

I began writing as a way of sharing information about real estate sales with my agents within my company.  I understood that time was very important to them as it is to everyone.  Sitting in a class for one or two hours to learn a new way to sell real estate, develop personal relationships, learn contract law, etc. was just too much to expect from everyone.  I started writing one-to-three page Nuggets for the Noggin, like this one.  I would then print them out, copy them and place them in the mailboxes of all of the agents.  Did they read them all?  I have no idea but it became obvious to me that many did just by watching the way they conducted their businesses.

That was before the days of computers.  Computers made it much easier to do the same thing and it made it much easier to safely store what I had written or so I thought.  I wrote the Nuggets beginning in the early 1990s.  I had a total computer failure and lost everything I had previously stored.  I thought I was doing the right thing by copying the Nuggets to what we then referred to as floppy Discs.  Unfortunately, the virus that attacked my computer was also on the Discs. All of the early Nuggets have been lost forever.  The lesson learned from that experience was to pay for an offsite storage program.  I have and I have had to use it at least twice to restore a computer that had crashed.

How many Nuggets have I written over the years?  I really don’t know but it has to be between 900 and 1200.  I initially used the format to write about sales and book reviews.  After I retired, I began writing about whatever came to my mind.  You can find most of the Nuggets since the early 2000s on my blog at www.NuggetsfortheNoggin.com.  I post them primarily for my own enjoyment but I have been keeping track of how many people open each one I post.  I have been blown away at the number of people who have been opening the blog pages.  I posted one 2 days ago and already have about 1000 openings.  That’s a lot of people.  Recently over 5000 people opened just one of the Nuggets.  5000! 

Over the years, I have begun writing all of the life experiences that I can remember.  That is yet another valuable lesson.  The older I get, the more difficult it has become to remember things; that is just life.  That is why it is never too soon to start writing down YOUR life experiences so you can pass them on to your immediate family and they can pass it on to their familes, indefinitely!

I have one such document that I titled, Humor In A Coast Guard Uniform.  It explains all of the humorous things that I was involved in over a 20-year Coast Guard career.  At first you might think that would be small document/booklet.  It turned out to be a rather lengthy read, 78 pages; I had a lot of fun over those 20 years.  I have since begun writing another book about everything I can remember from the late 1940s through to the present.  One tip that I can pass on is this.  When I began writing the book on humor, I first started by writing down words or phrases as fast as I could think of them.  What I discovered was that one thought triggered the thoughts of something else and it went on like that for a day.  I then took each word or phrase and started writing about what they represented.  I discovered that as I made the initial list, the more I wrote, the more I remembered.  The book about my life is far more involved.  There has been a lot to remember and I know for a fact that as soon as I think I am done, I will remember even more to add.  That is the magic of this process.  Since it is a computer file, I can simply go to the point where the story fits and insert it.  Anything I write is better than writing nothing at all.  The same goes for anyone reading this.  WRITE IT DOWN BEFORE IT BECOMES THE DUST OF HISTORY!

You want to leave a legacy for your kids (4), your grandkids (9), your great grandkids (4) leave them a story about your life!  Annotate it with photos or pictures when you can.

“There ain’t no story to tell after you are gone!”

(Sounds like the beginning of a great country and western song!)

How Extreme Could YOU Be?

 

HOW EXTREME COULD
YOU BE?
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, July 9, 2025

I submitted a question to ChatGPT:  Can mind control cause someone to do something they otherwise would not do?

What was the reason for the inquiry?  I wondered why so many people create violent acts.  I was born in 1945 and I say this as a disclaimer.  If you believe as I do that Dr. Morris Massey was right when he said that people develop their beliefs and character by the age of 10.  He lectured on the subject and repeatedly said, “You are what you are because of what you were when you were ten!”  https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org/2019/02/06/you-are-what-you-were-when-again/   He then gave specific examples to prove this belief.  I was ten in 1955.  What was happening in the world in 1955?  Television was only then becoming more commonplace in the home.  We were taught in elementary school and at home that America was good, Russia was bad, and people were starving in China.  Television shows depicted a home with a husband and wife where the husband worked hard, the wife stayed at home, and every evening there was a happy family enjoying supper around the dinner table.  Now imagine if you were ten in 1965 just ten years later.  You would have seen the death toll from the Vietnam War EVERY NIGHT on television.  You would have seen antiwar riots and students at Kent State being shot by our own National Guard.  You would have seen the age of drugs and sexual activity skyrocket throughout society.  You can do this exercise throughout time and suddenly you realize that Dr. Massie was right on the money.  What was happening in the world when YOU were TEN?

I was curious, hopefully you are as well, so I asked ChatGPT the question.  Is it possible to through mind control, to get someone to do something they otherwise would not do?  I wanted to know if someone could be “pulling the strings” of a person to cause someone to shoot up schools, shoot someone in the back in downtown New York City, to make attempts on the life of the President of the United States, to support political causes that seem to go against everything we had been taught was wrong like killing babies, men playing in women’s sports, mass street violence, mobs breaking into retail stores, the list is endless.  None of these things were even discussed in 1955 let alone perpetrated by so many people throughout America and probably around the world.  We did not have 24/7 news on television in the 50s and no one watched the news except our parents.  There were no sex education classes in primary education schools.  There were no sex changes that I was ever aware of.   What each of us ten-year-olds at the time learned, we mostly learned from our parents, from our school teachers and from our friends “on the street.”  We were also influenced by the new television shows of the time; just like kids are today.  I wore a Hopalong Cassidy Cowboy Hat and carried a cap-shooting gun.  As I moved on to middle school, I began to wear a flat-top hair style mainly because my sports heroes wore such hair cuts in the 1950s.  As I look back. it is obvious that I was being molded less and less by my parents and more and more by what I saw and heard on Television and in the movies.  I’ve seen studies that make the claim that this is simply not true; those studies clearly had their own agenda; it was true then and even more so now!

We see one incident after another where one or several individuals take violent actions including murder against people they don’t even know all in the name of some cause.  I find it very hard to believe that we have raised a bunch of murderers over the past 80 years.  How do YOU explain the rash of violent crimes that have taken place over the past decades?

I am NOT saying that the U. S. Government’s MKULTRA mind control programs of the past had anything to do with it, still, I am curious so I asked ChatGPT the question that I began this Nugget with.  Can mind control cause someone to do something they otherwise would not do?   The following is the answer I received:

Yes, mind control — depending on how it’s defined — can influence someone to do things they might not normally do, but there are important limits.

Here are the key distinctions:

1. Psychological Manipulation / Coercive Persuasion

This is the real-world version of "mind control" — used by cults, abusive partners, interrogators, etc.

• It includes tactics like isolation, gaslighting, sleep deprivation, fear, repetitive messaging, and social pressure.
• Yes, this can make someone:
• Change deeply held beliefs.
• Cut off relationships.
• Commit crimes or self-harm.
• Give up personal autonomy.

Examples:

• Cult members doing extreme acts they never would’ve considered before.
• Victims of human trafficking manipulated into staying with abusers.

2. Hypnosis

• Hypnosis can influence suggestibility but cannot force someone to go entirely against their core values.
• A hypnotized person won’t murder or jump off a cliff just because they’re told to.
• But it can enhance compliance in already willing individuals or influence minor behaviors.

3. Sci-fi / Absolute Control

• No, there is no known technology or drug that gives full "remote control" over someone’s mind like in movies.
• Even powerful hallucinogens or brainwashing programs can’t override all personal resistance or deeply rooted values.

Bottom Line:

Yes, people can be manipulated or coerced into doing things they normally wouldn’t — even extreme things — but not through magical or absolute control. It requires powerful psychological pressure, gradual influence, and often trauma.

There have been multiple studies done to judge the effectiveness of Subliminal Messaging including messages that flash across a movie screen that are unseeable to most people in the audience.  The message may be something as mundane as suggesting the viewers buy more popcorn or drink more Coke.  They also evaluated the subliminal messages conveyed through the strategic placement of products that you can see in movies and television.  Like a well placed can of a popular beer or back in the day, cigarettes.  The book Propaganda, written in 1928 by Edward Bernays explains this in greater detail and causes the reader to take a self-analysis of how much the reader has been programmed to take a certain action because of what they had seen in a movie, or a television show.  Or how the clothing a celebrity wears or the make and model of the cars celebrity’s drive influenced what you would wear or drive.  As an example, I grew up during a period where the ONLY people that got tattoos were men, usually men in prisons or sailors both commercial and military.  Otherwise, tattoos were severely frowned upon.  That is not the case in 2025 because so many celebrities and sports figures now proudly wear their tattoos so it must be a good idea to get one so that you fit in, right?  Wrong!  Doing something to “fit in” is a horrible reason to do anything.  That is the result of propaganda and in a sense, mind control.  Back in the 50s we referred to it as “keeping up with the Joneses”, meaning if the Joneses got one, we should get one as well.  Research the subject at:  https://owdt.com/article/the-science-behind-subliminal-perception-how-does-our-brain-react-to-hidden-messages/

Now comes the part that I am not proud of and that is how much I have come to mistrust the elites of the world including our own government.  How far would someone go in order for them to achieve a goal that for a huge majority of people would be something no one would even think of doing?  What if some of the people who engage in violent acts, acts of terrorism both domestic and foreign, had been singled out as being a person whose mind “could” be molded to the point that they could be influenced to do something that they otherwise would never consider doing? Things like shooting up a school, throwing Molotov Cocktails at innocent people in a parade, or intentionally driving a car or truck into a group of people.  Who would do such a thing other than someone trained, consciously or subconsciously, to do such an act of violence?

To give you an idea as to how this could work, think about your home computer screen.  What if someone were able to hack into your computer and plant subliminal messages that appear on your computer’s monitor screen.  Messages that are repeated, over and over but would be invisible to the naked eye of the user of the computer, you!  Just like the unseeable messages that flashed in a frame of a movie suggesting you want popcorn or a Coke.  Instead of getting you to buy a product, it constantly bombarded you with a message that becomes embedded in your brain that someone like President Donald Trump is a Nazi.  President Trump is Hitler. To a weak-minded person, that message could very easily be transformed into a violent action like the one in Butler, Pennsylvania when a shooter tried to assassinate President Donald Trump.  Again, I am NOT saying that is what happened; I AM saying that it is possible. 

Messages such as the one regarding President Donald Trump are not just subliminal messages, members of Congress have repeatedly called him Hitler, a Dictator, and a Nazi!  We all have heard the outrageous calls by these elected officials.  The politicians would NEVER take action against the President but their continuous and unending vicious rhetoric could land in the head of a weak-minded person who could be influenced to take violent action such as an assassination attempt.  Is that not what a person would have done in the 1930s by taking out Hitler had they been given the chance to do so?  Afterall, Hitler was a very bad person and if YOU were the one who removed him from the world scene, you would be viewed as a hero would you not?

I never trusted Lyndon Baines Johnson when he was President.  I served in the military under the incompetent Jimmy Carter and Johnson.  The first George Bush had a history that few people have ever heard but if they did, they would NEVER trust him, EVER!  You could go down the list of Presidents and almost everyone was seriously flawed and no action was beyond their capability or desire to achieve.  They all used propaganda to get the majority of the public on their side.  They took polls to see how the public would react to an action being considered to see if there would be any serious backlash.  As much as I disliked the policies of so many presidents in my lifetime, I can honestly say I never wished any of them any harm.  That is NOT how people think in 2025!

In the sales business, it is called the shotgun approach to selling.  You send out message after message to as many people as possible asking them to buy your product or service.  You know that very few will ever take you up on your message and buy a product/service but eventually some will buy what you are selling?  The more people you aim at and send your message to, the more likely it becomes that someone will buy your product/service.  Or as in the case suggested above, you might find that lone nut job who would be willing to take a shot at a sitting President.  Is that what happened?  I have no idea but it is certainly possible. 

We have just witnessed a horrible flooding event in Texas where over 100 people lost their lives.  Within 24 hours the lies from the Democrat politicians in Washington began suggesting that the National Weather Service was hit by staff and budget cuts and the deaths were therefore attributable to President Trump.  This is how propaganda works.  This report appears on most of the major news outlets and people assumed, something you should never do, they assumed the reports were true and accurate.  According to statements by the National Weather Service, they were not understaffed as had been reported and the reports were fraught with lies because it served a political agenda to get people to believe something that was simply not true.

I am not the brightest bulb on the tree but even I can see and understand that there are really stupid people on this planet who will take the lies as recently spewed by politicians and reinforced by the media and run with the false reports.  It is not a reach that the person they believe to be responsible for the deaths of over 100 people, should be taken out.  If you, the reader, cannot understand this, you might want to look in the mirror real hard because you may in fact be part of the problem facing America in 2025.  As a reminder, John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln and he honestly thought he would be hailed as a hero for having done so.  Most if not all of the people engaged in conducting violent acts probably feel justified for taking the violent actions by believing that in some distorted viewpoint, they are doing the right thing.

This just in as they say in the newsrooms!  Democrats recently said that they need to see “blood” to get their points across to the masses.  They have condemned ICE Officers for simply doing their job to enforce the laws that the politicians had passed.  An ICE Office was attacked by gunman and one of the gunmen was killed as a result of the attack.  Words mean things and sadly there are people who take the words literally and commit crimes believing they are doing the right thing like attacking an ICE Officer in Texas or shooting a President in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

I am sickened by it all and I don’t see it getting better until such time as people are held accountable for their actions by spending considerable time in prison as a penalty for what they have done!  City after city will not even hold criminals in jail anymore.  Instead, they pursue a policy of cashless bail and the criminals are back out on the street within hours of being arrested.  No one is ever held accountable for their actions!

How will anyone ever fix this?  Personally, I am lost for a solution but I am pretty sure it must start with the termination of violent rhetoric by elected politicians on both sides of the Isle.  America needs a conscious return to CIVILITY FIRST!

PROPAGANDA (BRAINWASHING)

 

PROPAGANDA (BRAINWASHING)

A Book Review by Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, a book by Edward L. Bernays

THIS IS A CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING!  This book by Edward L. Bernays was written in 1928, repeat 1928.  Why is this so critical to understand?  So glad you asked.  

As I read this book my very first thought was that it could have been titled “Brainwashing” by Edward L. Bernays.  The following is a definition of the word Propaganda from the Internet: 

noun

1. A congregation of cardinals, established in 1622, charged with the management of missions.
2. The college of the Propaganda, instituted by Urban VIII. (1623-1644) to educate priests for missions in all parts of the world.
3. Hence, any organization or plan for spreading a particular doctrine or a system of principles.

I have highlighted the last portion of #3 for what it DOES NOT SAY.  “A particular doctrine or a system of principles” can be a good thing or a bad thing.  It would be something that is true or something that is false and therein lies the danger of using the word “propaganda.” 

The second thought I had as I read this book was that I had to check out again WHEN it was written because it could just as easily have been written in 2025.  There was so many topics touched upon like the arts, education, universities, the news media (and yes there were problems back in 1928 much similar to the media issues we experience in 2025), sales/selling, business principles (in some cases a lack there of) and especially POLITICS, and like business where there is a definitely lack of principles and understanding of the job of a politician.

THE BIG TAKE AWAY FOR ME in reading this book is that I identified myself on a great many of the pages.  I could easily see where I arrived at some of my opinions, beliefs and principles and how they were actually unconsciously taught to me through the use of “propaganda.”  If you want examples, I grew up hearing and seeing that smoking cigarettes was a good thing, that they tasted great and that real men smoked but women did not (1950s).  I grew up believing the having Floride in my drinking water and toothpaste was a good and healthy thing to have; it isn’t, check for yourself because people still believe that BS today in 2025.  In the 1950s we were taught that the USA was good, Russia was bad and that China was starving and a third world country where everyone lived in poverty and that I was supposed to eat everything on my plate because there were children starving in China.  I hope you get my point.  We all, you and I, have been taught a great many things, some true but a lot more not true.  Unfortunately, as we have been taught these things there were no contradictory sources to teach us otherwise like we have in 2025.  One of the biggest examples, not discussed in the book because of when it was written, happened in the Gulf of Tonkin.  This turned out to be one of the biggest instances of propaganda every perpetrated on the American people and the world.  We were told and we all believed that the North Vietnamese attacked TWO U. S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.  As a result, America used the incident to become fully involved in the War in Vietnam!  It turned out to be a version of propaganda instituted by the government of the United States and it was all false – it never happened but we believed it because it came from the government – it was FAKE propaganda/news at its worst.  As a result, over 50,000 American lives were lost and thousands more wounded, both mentally and physically and probably million(s) of North and South Vietnamese lost their lives or wounded and it was all based on a lie – on propaganda!  That is a case were Propaganda is bad; really bad!

This book explains in detail how corporations think and act to make us do something we otherwise would not do without the insertion of propaganda suggesting it is a good thing for us to do.  Instead, we join in the group-thinking that doing what they suggest will make us part of the larger group or keeping us up with the times or the “Joneses next door.”  We have been manipulated to buy a Chevy or a Ford or visa versa.  Owning a red car was better than the standard black car.  Owning a fur coat or later not owning a fur coat; both were created either by the fashion industry or the saving the animals crusade. 

Something else became very obvious as I read the book.  There was a passage on almost every page that could be extracted as a single memorable quote from Bernays!  You can’t say that about most book but you can about this one!

The problem not addressed in the book is what should we do about the obvious propaganda made worse in 2025 by social media where more and more people are being exposed.

THIS IS A MUST-READ BOOK FOR EVERYONE!

Who should read it?  Everyone, but especially anyone in sales, business, arts and politics

Would I read it again?  Probably not, I got the message, loud and clear!

Would I give it as a gift?  Absolutely

HERE’S THE BEST PART.  If you have a Kindle Reader or App (everyone should, it’s free), the Kindle version of the book is only $12.43 PLUS you can also purchase additional books like a study guide of this particular book.

Raising The Bar!

 

Raising The Bar!

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, April 1, 2010 Revised June 2025

 What does “raising the bar” really mean?  Pulled this definition off the Internet: 

You have a bar (FIGURATIVELY!).   It represents a STANDARD, something to get over (at this point you may well imagine the high jump or pole vault contest in track and field).   Once achieved this standard remains unchanged over a period of time.  Then someone “raises the bar” tries again and succeeds.  All of a sudden more is expected to meet the “new” standard.  This little bit extra could be absolutely anything.  That’s the beauty of the concept.   Use your imagination.  Before anyone could go to university!  Now they had raised the bar; you needed to be intelligent!  In 2025 that no longer seems to be the case.  Look at all of the ongoing riots where students, as we have been TOLD by the media, are engaged in “mostly peaceful protests (riots).  There is no obvious sign of intelligence on display at any of these riots!  

I  originally wrote this Nugget in April of 2010.  I should have known.  I read the book The Naked Communist in the mid-1990s and that is where I learned about the 45 goals The Communist Party USA (yes it is a party within American and yes, it is still alive and active.).  Goal number 17 stands out amongst all of the goals.  It reads, “Get control of schools.  Use them as transmission belts for Socialism and Communist propaganda.  Soften the curriculum.  Get control of teachers associations (unions).  Put the Party Line in textbooks!”  This one goal, established in the late 1950s IS the key to what we are now seeing throughout America.  Instead of “raising the bar”, a topic discussed in the original Nugget, I have sadly learned that lowering the bar is also a possibility that I would have heretofore thought unimaginable before 2025.  The Communist Party USA seems to have accomplished their primary goal of brainwashing students beginning at the earliest of grades and then advance as they are promoted from one grade to another.  Then, just as planned, these students go on to college and they become the teachers and professors of the next generations of students thus promoting and enhancing the Socialist/Communist agendas and most of us just sat back and watched it happen. 

Back to the original Nugget, I truly believe it remains true and optimistic as it should be! 

Using the high jump as an example, it was not that long ago that anyone who could jump over 6 feet was considered a record holder at that height.  Over time, techniques and equipment improved, people in general became larger, faster and more agile and now high jumpers jump well over 7 feet. One high jumpmer, Dick Fosbury in 1968 invented a totally new way to perform the High Jump.  It became known as The Fosbury Flop, proving that there is always a way to “improve the mouse trap.”  The Fosbury Flop became the accepted form ever since.  The same is true for pole vaulters.  Each year athletes “raise the bar” ever so slightly and jump higher and higher.  Yours truly was a pole vaulter in high school in the early 1960s.  The pole I used was about 3” in diameter and about 10’ long and as ridged as possible.  If you could vault 10’, you were considered an elite pole vaulter.  Then came the fiberglass pole that whipped around like a fishing pole.  As you planted this new pole, it would bend to the point of almost breaking and then like a sling shot, shoot the vaulter up over the bar that now exceeds 17’ or higher.  Things change.  Goals and objectives change.  Techniques change.  Sadly, most people remain stagnant in the past and refuse to even consider a different way of doing things.  

"If you continue to do the same things

the same way you always did them,

you'll continue to get the same results"

…Henry Ford, some contribute it to Alfred Einstein 

It has been my sporting experience that there are self-imposed barriers.  For example, I can remember when people thought no one would ever run a 4-minute mile, jump over 6 feet high or pole value over 15 feet.  All these records have fallen.  Did you notice?  “4” minute mile?  “6” feet?  “15” feet?  People tend to establish barriers at almost predictable measurements.  In golf people talk about “breaking 100” meaning they shoot 99 or less; or breaking 90, or 80.  You never hear someone say they are going to break 85 for example. 

Now think about the Law of Attraction.  You tend to bring into your life that which you think of most.  Therefore. if everyone (figuratively) says you cannot run a mile in less than 4 minutes that is what most people thought about.  A very small number of people were not restricted by such thinking and tried anyway.  Along comes Roger Banister and he ran the first sub 4-minute mile.  Once he did it, it only took a couple of weeks before the next person and then the next person and then the next person ran sub 4-minute miles.  What is the next barrier?  Actually, it became the 3 minute, 50 second mile. Who will be the next runner to raise the bar and just how fast will he or she be able to run? 

In golf, if you typically shoot between 95 and 100, why would you set a goal to break 90?  Why not set a goal to break 95, then 94, and then 93 and before you know it you are breaking 90.  Then what?  88?  85?  

Before you can “raise the bar” what must you know?  You must know where the bar is set FOR YOU (either by yourself or someone else) right now.  What is the “acceptable” standard, whether it is in sports, business or life in general?  What do you accept as your standard?  How did you come to accept that particular standard?  Who set it; did you or did someone set it for you?  Why did you come to accept whatever it is you currently accept?  Can you do better? 

Now there’s a question for the ages; can you do better?  Well, can you?  Is there anything you currently do that cannot be done better?  If that is so, what is keeping you from doing better?  Let’s count the reasons: 

1. You don’t really believe you can do any better.
2. Someone, maybe the voice inside your head, has convinced you can’t do any better.
3. You believe that if you do better someone, maybe even you, might expect you to do better every time; not just this time.
4. Maybe you relate doing better to being compensated for what you do or, “I’m not getting paid to do this.”
5. You believe that the more I do the more I will be given to do therefore why do more or better?
6. Unconsciously you don’t know there is a “better” to actually do; what you are doing is acceptable (to whom?).
7. One of my personal favorites is “Close enough for government work!”  Therefore, there is no incentive to do better.
8. What’s in it for me if I do better?
9. No one is really looking, why go the extra mile?
10. Another one of my personal favorites as this applied to me in high school back in……  If I do better, I will be considered a geek and people like those on the football and basketball teams will not want to include me in their activities.  Sound familiar?  Hope not; it was for me. 

Can you come up with more?  I know I sound like a broken record when it comes to the 80/20 rule but it applies to raising the bar as it applies to everything in life.  If statistics could be maintained, it would be my guess that 80% of people would accept the standards that 80% of the people currently experience.  While the 80% are doing whatever they are doing, what are the remaining 20% doing?  I can say with certainty, they are doing what the 80% are doing plus a “little bit more” than what the 80% are doing. 

Why would anyone ever want to be in the 80% group who are obviously satisfied with the status quo?  What is to be gained by being like everyone else? It may take a while to answer that so I’ll wait… 

A picture can be worth a thousand words OR MORE!  Look at the following picture; what do YOU see?

WHAT DO YOU SEE?  It is not what you might first think.  The obvious answer is that they can’t envision putting the round wheels onto the cart making it roll easier and you would be correct.  The not-so-obvious answer is that the four characters ARE SATISFIED with their progress and then fail to think “outside the box” to enhance their efforts.  This one graphic is a tremendous metaphor for people who refuse to consider that there may be a better way and that someone other than themselves may be the one or ones that know what that better way is.  People who have an open mind are typically people who read, who take courses, who teach courses and are always looking to build “a better mouse trap”  which of these two definitions of people are you? 

See if you can equate to my logic.  When I became an instructor in the U. S. Coast Guard I was tasked with teaching people how to complete their paperwork, imagine that for those who know me.  We would actually grade people on how accurate they completed a form(s) or process an event.  Students would get an A, B, C, D and F just like millions of students for hundreds of years.  The first thing I did was change the grading system.  Instead of having a student prepare a form and get a grade of 70% or a C, I would mark the areas of the form(s) the student failed to properly prepare or calculate and then return it to the student not with the correct answers but simply the areas that were incorrect.  It was up to the student, with an open book, to properly complete the form and return it for review.  First consider my logic.  Once these students are “in the field” working, they are not expected to work totally from memory.  They will have resources they can use like manuals and instructions.  Therefore it is equally as vital that they be assessed on how well they can follow the instructions that those resources provide.  I would first mark up the form(s) and if incorrect, return them to the student to try again.  It was the same with every form and every procedure.  The student would be graded not on each form but rather how many times it took him or her to get it correct. 

I can remember it as if it were yesterday when the Training Officer called me into his office to ask me what on earth I was doing.  He called me crazy.  I told him that a passing grade for the school was 70% and he agreed; it was 70%.  Then I said, “Sir, if I were teaching students to be dental technicians, would you want someone who passed with a 70% grade working in your mouth or would you want someone who did it right the first time working in your mouth?”  Before he could answer I then asked, “Sir, let’s look at it another way.  If I were teaching payroll and accounting, would you want someone calculating your pay check who passed the school with a 70% or would you prefer someone who knew how to do it right the first time?” 

The silence was deafening!  He agreed.  The only problem we then faced was how many times would we permit a student to keep trying to get it right before we came to the conclusion that he or she was just not cut out for what was being taught.  After all, not everyone has the motivation and intelligence to be a brain surgeon, plumber or pay clerk.  I can tell you that the quality of the graduating students improved when they understood that the standard, or where the “bar was set” was what they were expected to achieve when performing their work.  Anything less is unacceptable; anything more, commendable! 

Whenever you are performing work, providing a service, or providing a product for someone else, where do you set your bar?  Do you set it where the 80% reside or do you set it where the 20% flourish?  I’m just asking.  You tell me.  If you think that the work you do is satisfactory or “good enough for _______”, is it really?  If the shoe were on the other foot and you were the customer and someone else was performing at the level they considered as satisfactory, would it be satisfactory for you?  

Is it possible to set the bar too high?  Is it possible to run a 4-minute mile? Absolutely!  Is it possible to run a 3-minute mile?  Not yet!  

Here is another way to think about it.  I took my one and only hot air balloon ride with a pilot and one other person, a lot older than I was.  It was magnificent but the actual ride is for another story.  It was getting dark and the wind had taken us north over forests instead of south over clear pastures.  With the sun setting we were definitely in trouble and you could sense that in the change of attitude and presence of the balloon pilot. 

“There”, he shouted as he pointed to a very small clearing surrounded by a fence and with one large oak tree in the center.  He let the air out of the balloon as much as he safely could and we descended so fast I think it was a little more than we safely should have.  We landed very hard and the basket turned on its side and dragged us for quite a distance but we managed to get on the ground, we did not hit the tree or the fence.  We had made it slightly bruised but alive.  

But wait, we landed in a coral not a pasture and there was a very large and very angry bull in the coral.  We were in BIG trouble.  Like the joke you hear about one hiker shifting to his running shoes not to out run the bear but to out run his fellow hiker, I felt I was faced with that choice.  Neither the pilot nor the passenger was as young as I was and neither one able to out run the bull.  With only seconds to spare, I decided that I could attract the bull’s attention and get him to chase me while the other two could get to safety on the other side of the fence.  I had one chance and that was to beat the bull to the oak tree.  Screaming as I ran to get the bull’s attention plus the fact that I was scared to death. I began a bee-line to the tree with the bull on my tail, literally.  It was really getting dark but I could see a low hanging branch about 10 feet high and if I could only reach that branch. I could escape the bull. 

Running as fast as I could and to this day I remember the heat of bull breath on my neck, that’s an exaggeration but I swear I could feel it.  As I came closer to the tree I jumped with all my power to grab hold of that life-saving branch. 

Since I am telling you this story, you can safely assume that the bull did not kill me.  As I said, I ran faster than I had ever run and I jumped higher than I had ever jumped – I missed the branch; after all it was over 10 feet in the air.  But much to my surprise, I caught it coming down. 

Most of that story is true and the part about catching the branch on the way down is not but it serves my purpose in this Nugget.  It is perfectly permissible to shoot for the moon and it is perfectly permissible not to make it because who knows what star you might latch onto on the way up or down.  The standard or the bar should be perfection.  Anything less is like the student passing with 70%.  

I have one question for everyone who reads this Nugget.  Would you want a dentist working in your mouth who obtained his or her dental degree with a grade of 70%?  I’ll wait for your answer… 

When you have a position where people rely on you and your failure could cost them money or as was in the case of the Coast Guard even their life, it is incumbent on you not to score a 70% but to score a 100%; every time!  Remember, if the shoe were on the other foot. you would expect nor would you accept anything less than 100%, am I not right on this?  

Never accept ordinary or the minimum because ordinary and/or the minimum will never make you great; it will only put you in the 80%.  More importantly, you cannot expect others to give you 100% if you do not expect the same from yourself when working for another person’s best interests. 

ORDINARY WILL NOT MAKE YOU GREAT!

ALWAYS SET YOUR BAR HIGHER THAN WHAT OTHERS EXPECT!