When researching the history of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge as a major illustration for the ideas of success and motivation, I became engrossed with the story of how the first bridge was built over Niagara Falls. You see, to build a bridge over a giant gorge, first you have to get a line over the canyon, from one side to the other, easier said than done at Niagara Falls.

The engineers couldn't cross the falls in a boat to take the line from one side to the other because the boat would go over the falls, and the airplane hadn't been invented yet. The distance was also way beyond the bow-and-arrow range, which had been a common method at the time of getting the first line across to build a bridge.