One day, as a small child, Thomas Edison came home from school and gave a paper to his mother. He said to her, “Mom, my teacher gave this paper to me and told me only you are to read it. What does it say?”
Her eyes welled with tears as she read the letter out loud to her child: “Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have good enough teachers to train him. Please teach him yourself.”
Many years after Edison’s mother had died, he became one of the greatest inventors of the century.
One day he was going through a closet and he found the folded letter that his old teacher wrote his Mother that day. He opened it. The message written on the letter was: “Your son is mentally deficient. We cannot let him attend our school anymore. He is expelled.”
Edison became emotional reading it and then wrote in his diary: “Thomas A. Edison was a mentally deficient child whose mother turned him into the genius of the Century.”
A positive word of encouragement can help change anyone’s destiny.
Although it’s widely known that Edison struggled with learning as a child and only attended public school for a short time, there is much conjecture on the Internet as to whether this story about his teacher is true. No one knows.
Regardless, it illustrates the importance of both owning your own engagement and never letting others ruin your outcomes or future. If people don’t believe in you or the mission you’re committed to, it shouldn’t affect your own personal drive. This is true at school, at work, and in your personal life. Never let people put you down!
| Kevin Sheridan is an internationally-recognized Keynote Speaker, a New York Times Best Selling Author, and one of the most sought-after voices in the world on the topic of Employee Engagement. For 6 years running, he has been honored on Inc. Magazine’s top 100 Leadership Speakers in the world, as well as Inc.’s top 100 experts on Employee Engagement. He was also honored to be named to The Employee Engagement Award’s Top 101 Global Influencers on Employee Engagement of 2017.
Having spent 30 years as a high-level Human Capital Management consultant, Kevin has helped some of the world’s largest corporations rebuild a culture that fosters productive engagement, earning him several distinctive awards and honors. Kevin’s premier creation, PEER®, has been consistently recognized as a long-overdue, industry-changing innovation in the field of Employee Engagement. His first book, Building a Magnetic Culture, made six of the best seller lists including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Virtual Manager, which explores how to most effectively manage remote workers. Kevin received a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School in 1988, concentrating his degree in Strategy, Human Resources Management, and Organizational Behavior. He is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded and sold three different companies. Connect with Kevin on Twitter, LinkedIn , or e-mail: kevin@kevinsheridanllc.com. For more information, visit Kevin Sheridan’s website: www.kevinsheridanllc.com. |