I want to share the story of a remarkable teacher who taught her students an unforgettable lesson. On the first day of school back in 2005, a social studies teacher named Martha Cothren gave her classes at Joe T. Robinson High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, something to think about.

With the permission of the superintendent, principal and building supervisor, Ms. Cothren removed all the desks from her classroom. Her first-hour students asked where their desks were. She told them, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk."

They ventured guesses including their grades or their behavior. Wrong answers, she said.

As each successive class came in, they all found a room devoid of seating. By early afternoon, word had spread and television news crews had arrived at the building to report on this crazy teacher.

The final period students came to class and found a place to sit on the floor. Ms. Cothren simply explained, "Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you."

She then opened the door to her classroom. Twenty-seven United States veterans, all in uniform, walked into her classroom, each carrying a desk. They placed the desks neatly in rows, and then lined up along the wall. By the time the last veteran had set the last desk in place, the kids started to understand -- maybe for the first time in their young lives -- how the right to sit at those desks had been won.

Ms. Cothren explained: "You didn't earn the right to sit at those desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It's your responsibility to learn, to be good students. They paid the price so you could have the freedom to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so you have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it."

Would it surprise you to learn that Martha Cothren was named the 2006 Arkansas Teacher of the Year by the Veterans of Foreign Wars?

This lesson extends far beyond the classroom. We have the freedom to choose where we work, where we live, how we spend our free time -- all because someone fought for our freedom. We owe our veterans an enormous debt of gratitude.

Consider these words from Charles Province, an Army veteran: "It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the organizer, who gave us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag and whose coffins are draped by the flag, who allow the protester to burn the flag."

So we take time to honor those men and women who have sacrificed years of their lives, or their very lives, in order that we can continue to enjoy freedoms unmatched anywhere else in the world.

To my way of thinking, every day should be thank-a-veteran day. We cannot begin to understand their contributions to our way of life. So we shouldn't pass up an opportunity to show our gratitude and respect. And if you have the capacity, hire a vet!

Veterans Day is a significant American holiday. It is so important that you'll never have to search for it on the calendar -- it happens every year on Nov. 11. I hope you take the time to thank a vet that day. With nearly 22 million living veterans, you shouldn't have to look very far.

Their sacrifices matter, as President Ronald Reagan noted: "Some people work an entire lifetime and wonder if they have ever made a difference to the world. But the Marines don't have that problem." I'm sure Reagan included all branches of the armed forces in his sentiments.

Martha Cothren's students received an extraordinary gift that day in 2005. What a wonderful illustration of the difference those veterans made in the lives of her students.

Mackay's Moral: To all those who have offered their service: We salute you.

A lot of people believe you only have one shot at success. But that's just not true. What is true is that many people don't even take that one shot -- out of fear of failure, inexperience, lack of motivation or just not knowing where to begin.

Daymond John, one of the stars of ABC TV's "Shark Tank," wants to change all that. He has written "The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage," a terrific book devoted to getting you ready to take at least one shot.

As Daymond says, his book is "all about substance over flash. It's about creativity over certainty. It's about taking a shot over playing it safe."

I've never met Daymond, but I'm a big believer in studying successful people. That's exactly what Daymond does in his book. Each chapter centers on individuals who excelled professionally and personally and the traits that got them there, such as direct marketing whiz Jay Abraham, who talks about agility, and world-renowned DJ Steve Aoki, who talks about resourcefulness.

Daymond is a case study by himself. He started selling home-sewn hats on the streets of the New York City borough of Queens. His initial budget was $40, which necessitated devising some very innovative ways to promote his products. His entrepreneurial exercise developed into the FUBU brand, which is now a $6 billion company.

He credits his success with starting out broke, which made him think more creatively. As he says: "It forces you to use your resources more efficiently. It forces you to connect with your customers more authentically and market your ideas more imaginatively. It forces you to be true to yourself, stay laser focused on your goals, and come up with those innovative solutions required to get noticed and make a meaningful mark."

Daymond has an interesting take on innovation. He believes it starts from the bottom up, rather than the top down. He makes a good point, when you think about it. Break dancing, rap music and slam poetry happened in organic ways and grew.

He says: "People either respond to it or they don't, and it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it, how much you try to dress it up, it is what it is."

As the author of "Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive," I was intrigued by Daymond's "SHARK points." Using the SHARK acronym, he writes:

-- Set a goal. His key points are that goals are much like what I preach -- goals must be realistic and in writing. "Aim too high and you're bound to be frustrated, disappointed," Daymond writes. "Aim too low and you might leave some opportunities on the table."

-- Homework, as in do yours. You have to know your product as well as your competitors'. Daymond says: a "shark doesn't attack unless it know its prey; here on land a 'shark' needs the same mix of insight, instincts and information to keep out in front."

-- Adore what you do. The subtitle of my second book is "Do what you love. Love what you do. And deliver more than you promise." You have to have a passion for what you do.

-- Remember, you are the brand. Daymond writes: "You are what you eat. You are what you wear. You are what you drive, where you love, what you drink, how you vote, what you stand for ... It all starts with how you carry yourself, what you put out into the world, the way you interact with your audience, your customers, the marketplace. It's on you. Just you."

-- Keep swimming. Daymond says that even when sharks are asleep they are "swimming, scheming, getting ready to attack -- which is pretty much the approach you have to take when you're starting out in business. You have to be relentless, nimble, moving ever forward. ... If they don't keep swimming, they die."

Perhaps the reason this book resonates with me is that I started my envelope company with much of the same enthusiasm: a big dream with very limited funds, antiquated equipment and not nearly enough experience, but an overwhelming desire to succeed and a willingness to work tirelessly.

Broke is just a starting place. It's up to you to take the next steps.

Mackay's Moral: Being broke isn't the same as being broken.

This story is often told about Harry Houdini, the master magician whose proudest claim was that he could escape from anything. During a tour of Scotland, Houdini agreed to be locked up in the strongest jail cell available, boasting that he would escape from it.

The magician was searched, his hands placed in steel handcuffs, and he was chained to a bench in the jail cell. The jailer shut the cell door and walked away, confident that Houdini would never wrest free. Left alone, Houdini quickly shed himself of the handcuffs and the chain binding him to the bench. Then he went to work on the cell door.

He tried every trick in the book to pick the lock on the jailhouse door. After an hour, he was dripping with sweat, apparently defeated. Totally discouraged, and near exhaustion, Houdini accidentally leaned against the door and it swung open easily, sending him tumbling into the corridor. The jailer had forgotten to lock the door.

Even if this great story isn't true, it carries an important message. You can waste a lot of time and energy trying to open an unlocked door or solve a problem that someone else has already solved.

Call it reinventing the wheel, but trying to solve a problem that isn't really a problem is what you ought to call a giant exercise in futility. Before you try to spend hours looking for a solution, make sure you have a legitimate problem. In other words, don't overlook the obvious.

As a quote attributed to Henry Ford has it, "Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs." And I would add that you also avoid making a problem even larger by taking small steps first, doing the least amount of damage. So often, a little tweaking is all it takes.

We can't all be like Sherlock Holmes, solving life's mysteries and problems by uncovering the smallest detail. But we can learn to be more observant and train ourselves to look at problems from new perspectives.

"I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves," said Louise Hay, the inspirational author and speaker.

I like the approach that Malcolm Gladwell espouses in "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference." He writes: "A critic looking at these tightly focused, targeted interventions might dismiss them as Band-Aid solutions. But that phrase should not be considered a term of disparagement.

"The Band-Aid is an inexpensive, convenient and remarkably versatile solution to an astonishing array of problems. In their history, Band-Aids have probably allowed millions of people to keep working or playing tennis or cooking or walking when they would otherwise have had to stop. The Band-Aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost."

In other words, don't make a mountain out of a molehill.

Here's another story: A crowded airline flight was canceled. A single agent was rebooking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket down on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight, and it has to be FIRST-CLASS."

The agent replied, "I'm sorry sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first, and I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Without hesitating, the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention please?" she began, her voice bellowing throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at the gate who does not know who he is. If anyone can help him find his identity, please come to the gate."

Mackay's Moral: When the answer is right in front of your eyes, don't blink!