Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Naysayers and Fire in The Belly

I've just read an interview with the very famous (and mega-book-selling) Seth Godin, where he says his high school English teacher wrote this in his yearbook:

"You are the bane of my existence and  
it's likely that you'll never amount to anything".

Wow! Way to make a positive impact on the world there, teacher! I wonder if this sort of treatment is what gave Seth the fire in his belly to achieve so much and to be such an advocate for challenging the status quo. 

Either way, it's a great example of how other people can (try to) drag you down. They don't get that it's ok to think differently, to see things in a different way, to act differently and have a different set of skills.

In our house, we tell all our kids (and have done for several years) that "Different doesn't mean wrong", because great things have NEVER come out of the status quo.