When Steve was in the 6th grade, his teacher asked all the students to write down what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Although little Stevie was from a poor family, wore hand-me-down clothes and had a stuttering problem – he knew exactly what he wanted to be.
He wanted to be on TV.
He wanted to make people laugh like Bill Cosby did.
So he wrote down on his piece of paper “I want to be on TV” and handed it in.
He felt excited when his teacher called him to the front of the class to read out what he had written.
This was his moment to share his dream!
“Little Stevie, what did you write down?”
With his chest puffed out – oozing with confidence, he proclaimed:
“I want to be on TV!”
But his enthusiasm quickly turned to defeat when he heard his teacher’s response…
“Why did you write that on your paper? Do you know anyone on TV?”
“No Ma’am…”
“Has anyone in your family been on TV?”
“No Ma’am…”
“Stevie, you can’t be on TV. Take this paper home and you write something more realistic and bring it back tomorrow.”
At that moment, little Stevie’s dreams were crushed.
His 6th grade teacher embarrassed him in front of the whole class.
His teacher imposed her own self-doubts and limitations on little Stevie. She put his dreams in a box. She spoke the words of a dream-killer – ‘be more realistic’. She didn’t understand the damaging effects her words could have on a young person’s mind.
Despite what the Nay-Sayers tell you, never lose faith in your dream
His teacher called his Mum to let her know little Stevie had been talking nonsense in class.
His homework was to come back the next day with something more realistic written on his piece of paper.
When little Stevie got home from school, his mum blasted him.
“Why didn’t you just write down something the teacher wanted to hear on the piece of paper?”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Turns out his mum was a dream-killer too…
What was his Dad going to say?
His Dad was the disciplinarian of the house-hold. The enforcer. The man who handed out ass-whoopin’s.
When his Dad got home from work, his Mum told his Dad what went down at school.
After dinner, little Stevie’s Dad took him up to his bedroom.
Little Stevie started to unbuckle his belt, pre-empting the almighty ass-whoopin’ his Dad was about to unleash on him for talking nonsense in class.
But to little Stevie’s surprise, the ass-whoopin’ never came.
Instead, little Stevie and his Dad agreed to keep his teacher happy. On a new piece of paper they wrote down ‘I want to be a policeman’ – something more realistic.
But what his Dad said next, changed his life FOREVER.
“Stevie, take out that first paper you wrote. Put it in your top drawer. Now every morning before you go to school and every night before you go to sleep, you read that paper. And you BELIEVE that one day you will be on TV.”
The rest is history.
