When I was about 8 years old in Champaign, Illinois. A neighborhood friend's grandfather came over to their home while I was playing with my friend.

He was a nice, older guy. I noticed that Grandpa he had lost three "halves" of the fingers on his right hand. He was managing to throw a baseball with what seemed amazing ability. When he touched my hand with his, it was both fascinating and "off-putting" to me.

I asked my young friend how his grandfather's fingers were cut-off?

He said that, " Remember when you toured the factory the other day? (The family owned and ran the Illinois Glove Factory which was in town.) And you remember those glove pattern cutters? (They were very sharp "dies" shaped to cut-out of leather by pressing in through leather to cut-out a pattern for sewing.) Grandpa, was working at the plant one day and accidentally knocked one of the glove pattern cutters off of a table he was working on. Instinctively he reached-out to grab it, and suddenly parts of his hand were 'gone' on the floor."

I remember that story to this day as a life lesson about controlling ones instincts around dangerous things -- in personal and business life. Sometimes it better to let THINGS go and control ones reaction to automatically blindly reach out without thinking.