{"id":6132,"date":"2026-09-28T11:13:45","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T15:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/?p=6132"},"modified":"2026-09-28T11:15:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T15:15:47","slug":"1937-who-s-at-your-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/1937-who-s-at-your-table\/","title":{"rendered":"1937 \u2026 Who \u2018s At Your Table"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These four digits have meant a lot to me at different times over my life, my career, and made me ponder on the year they represent as well. It was in this year, 1937, that The Hoover Dam welcomed its first tours of the newly created structure\u2014and delivered the first bit of hydro-produced power to the area. This special year also brought the delivery of my father to his parents in a small northern Alabama city<\/a>, some of you know that they migrated to my beautiful home-state of Georgia a few years later, settling in a small town just north of Valdosta, GA. Another unique event that fully displayed these four digits was them showing up as the last four digits of the Federal Tax Identification Number that our company, AirTight Mechanical, was issued back in 1999 when we incorporated. The number sequence was XX-19XX3764, a divine set of numbers indeed, as this was my father\u2019s birth year (37) and my birth year (64) sequentially. Having discussed starting a business with my father for several years prior to him dying of cancer, in my mind this simple 8-digit number sequence clarified that Connie, and I were definitely doing what was scripted for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As special as that year has proven to be in my life, there is one more thing that occurred in that year. Napolean Hill<\/a> wrote and had published Think and Grow Rich<\/a><\/em>, the book that has lit such a path for me to follow, sometimes very hardily, other times just more in principle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thesis of the book, for those that haven\u2019t read it \u2026 Yet! \u2026 is that Mr. Hill, in his infinite wisdom, built an Imaginary Board of Advisors, but as he called it, The Cabinet of Invisible Counselors. Each night, having completed his work and studies, and just before he went to sleep, he imagined his invisible counselors sitting with him around a Council Table. He made himself the Chairman of the group. Hill had a definite purpose in hosting these nightly meetings, his main purpose was to rebuild his character, representing a composite of his invisible counselors. Essentially, weighing his thoughts and actions then juxtaposing them against The Councils judgment, as he thought the judgements would be delivered to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

him if the council members were in fact alive and truly present. Each member of the Counsel was known for a specific trait that he wanted to measure himself against.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes when certain events happen, may be on a global scale or maybe just something that pops up in my day-to-day, it is usually a big thing that happened around 1937 that I learned about, my mind rapidly goes to \u201chow far life separates people, or maybe the word is isolates, based upon their socio-economic and geographical placement\u201d. One such thing is The Hoover Dam, as referenced above. The amount of work, the engineering, the travel, the mass of humanity that landed on the banks of the Colorado River in order to create Lake Mead<\/a> and subsequently, all things associated with the entire project were massive. How about the \u201cBoys in the Boat\u201d story that stemmed from the 1936 Olympics when an underdog rowing team<\/a> from the University of Washington, way up in the Pacific Northwest, beat all of the Ivey League Schools at their own game. What a feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now consider a share-cropping family that had a baby boy in Northern Alabama, then moved to rural South Georgia and how that young family had about ZERO idea that all that was taking place 2,500 miles from them, or could even be imagined, as they figured out how to simply build a life on an old red clay road. These things seemingly couldn\u2019t live in harmony, yet they did and still do, in some fashion. The disparity in the two realities is simply baffling to me at times. What were the motivating factors that drove my grandfather further South, was it with counsel, did he have a board of advisors lurking in his mind or was it simply survival<\/a>? The depression-era was a brutal reality for so, so many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basis of having my own Board or Council was and is appealing to me. As stated, sometimes in my life I have really worked on it and other times it was merely one thought in a series of thoughts to weigh out if I was doing \u201cThe Right Thing\u201d\u2014 or was I doing something else for another reason, maybe not intentionally, but out of ignorance or because I hadn\u2019t addressed an issue that needed solving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Napolean Hill brought together some of the sharpest minds of his time, as well as those from history to help guide him. The list is impressive: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Paine, Thomas Edison, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Luther Burbank, Napolean Bonaparte,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry Ford, and pulling in the final spot, Andrew Carnegie. Nine of some of the sharpest minds in history. Each with skills that could have been complementary of each other, yet these men also were known to be firm in their convictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My point? Simply this, \u201cWho have you gathered as your Cabinet of Invisible Counselors?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who do you measure yourself against, not in a financial way, not in a status way, but who do you have sitting at the \u201cBig Table\u201d that is helping guide your decisions, your thoughts, your actions \u2026 who helps you decide what you will be benevolent to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, Mr. Hill selected many \u201cfirst-round draft picks,\u201d he made quite a list, yours does not have to be as solid \u201cappearing\u201d as the nine men he selected. Who, when you read or watch news, or read a book, inspires you and why? Rosy the Riveter<\/a> just passed away a few months ago, I would bet she\u2019s on some folks list. Elon \u201cMr. Polarizing Figure of Our Times\u201d Musk, Mahatma Ghandi, Billy Grahm, your Mom, your pastor? We have such a plethora of high-quality humans to choose from and an equal number of people you want to steer clear of, mentally and figuratively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point is, \u201cIt Is Your Board,\u201d you appoint these people and allow them to serve you and serve at your leisure, meaning we evolve as we learn, and so should your board. Different mindsets and a rotating group, in my opinion, can only make us and our thoughts stronger, and hopefully more clear-eyed to what steps we can take to continue the march towards Excellence … Yours, Mine, and Ours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until Next Time, continue your work along the path of a Prokopton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

G<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These four digits have meant a lot to me at different times over my life, my career, and made me ponder on the year they represent as well. It was in this year, 1937, that The Hoover Dam welcomed its first tours of the newly created structure\u2014and delivered the first bit of hydro-produced power to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6139,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132\/revisions\/6139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}