Step Into the Unknown

The Rowan’s of the world are worth spending any amount of gold to have on your team.

Worth any sacrifice to have as a friend.?

In 1899, Elbert Hubbard wrote a book called “A Message to Garcia”. Really more of a?booklet than a book. It mentions?a moment during the Spanish American war.

General Garcia is fighting on the side of the US, but is buried deep in the mountains of Cuba with no way to reach him or communicate with him.?Someone tells the president “There’s a man named Rowan. If anyone can find him for you, he can.’"?So they send for Rowan. They tell him what needs to happen. Rowan takes the message, wraps it in oilskin, straps it to his heart, and leaves. Three?weeks later he’s back, having successfully delivered the letter.

And that’s the important part.

The moments of the journey, struggling through mountains and jungle, evading capture and certain death, arriving at Garcia triumphant.

Those details are all left to the imagination.?

Maybe someday a keen and imaginative soul will write that story.

The main point Hubbard wanted to make was this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?”

Hubbard said, “It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this or that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies; do the thing - “carry a message to Garcia!”

Here’s the full excerpt:

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You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office—six clerks are within your call. Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Corregio.”?

Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task? On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye, and ask one or more of the following questions:?

Who was he? Which encyclopedia? Where is the encyclopedia? Was I hired for that? Don’t you mean Bismarck? What’s the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for??

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the 2 other clerks to help him find Garcia - and then come back and tell you there is no such man.?

Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.?

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Corregio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself.

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Every year we teach and equip more small business owners to charge into the jungle and carve a path for others to follow. But doesn’t save you from having to leave this campus and step into the unknown.

Here’s to someone who sees something that needed?or?worth doing, and simply steps in and gets it done.?

That’s our kind of people.?