Linda and I told you last week that we have been invited on two podcasts to talk about You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! The first one is coming up this Friday, it is The Hollis Chapman Show. You can listen to me live on The Hollis Chapman Show, with host Hollis Chapman, on Friday, October 25 at noon EST by going to https://blogtalkradio.com/hollischapmanshow

The other podcast, as we told you last week, is Heroes Like You with host Joe Belliston. Last week we told you that we didn’t have a date for this interview. Well now we have a date. The interview is set for November 8, but this one is not a live interview. After the interview we will ask Joe to let us know when it will be aired. Hopefully Joe will give us a link to the interview that we can put on this site.

Linda and I are continuing to contact podcasts and also organizations in regard to teaching classes to spread the message of positive self-esteem and self-acceptance throughout the United States and the world. Shane, our incredible social media guru, is working on the landing page.

We want to thank Thurman Greco for her assistance in spreading the word of You’re Amazing. Thurman runs a book booth at Mower’s Saturday Flea Market in Woodstock, NY. The first time we ever met Thurman was at this first speaking engagement. At her booth she allows authors to speak and present their book. On September 14, 2019, I spoke at her booth and presented You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! After I spoke, Thurman took it upon herself to take You’re Amazing to the West Hurley Library.

We also want to thank Barbara Kortrey. After hearing me speak at Barnes & Noble she purchased two books. This speaking engagement was the first time we had met Barbara. When she got home, she sat down and read You’re Amazing. She then read it again. After reading it a second time Barbara took one of her two books to the Woodstock Library and she took her second book to The Golden Notebook bookstore in Woodstock. Barbara then contacted Linda and me and set up a meeting with us. We met with Barbara for three hours. At this meeting she informed us that You’re Amazing has got to get into as many people’s hands as possible.

Because of Thurman, Barbara and others who have taken it upon themselves there are a lot more people who are receiving the message of our book. People are good! People are really good!

 Now for this week’s story.

Grandma’s Fish Pond

About a year ago, Linda and I were looking for advice on how we should go about marketing You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! We figured that the Small Business Administration would be a good place to start. After meeting with them, they informed us there was very little they could do for us. However, they could help us find a mentor who had written his own book.

Linda and I were excited to meet this man, so we made an appointment. We wanted to meet him as soon as possible, so we could get his advice. We were to meet him in his home in a few weeks. We really didn’t want to wait two weeks, but we were sure the wait would be worth it.

Finally, the day came. We drove more than an hour to meet him. Upon arriving, we introduced ourselves and he introduced himself as Professor So and So. He was an older man who had taught at several prestigious universities across the country during his teaching career. Linda and I were impressed.  We asked him how many books he had written. He answered with a great deal of pride. He said, “I have written five books.” We said, “That’s awesome! How many have you sold?” He said, “NONE!” You read that right he said, “none!”  We looked at him and repeated his answer back to him with astonishment in our voices, “None?” This so-called Professor who had been teaching our kids for years and was now recommended to Linda and I to be our mentor, went on to explain why he had sold NO BOOKS AT ALL.

He said, “the reason I haven’t sold any books was because I always set my goals low and that way, I am never disappointed.” He also told us that he taught his students throughout his teaching career to set their goals low so they would never be disappointed. He informed us that we should set our goals low. Linda and I weren’t going to waste another second with this man. We thanked him for his time and informed him we would not be using any of his advice and we would never be in contact with him again. We also let him know we were not happy he was teaching our kids to fail. After all, if you teach someone not to try, you are teaching them to fail.

We let him know that You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! teaches our readers not only to accept themselves which leads to accepting the people around them, but it also teaches goal setting, perseverance, and tenacity. We informed him that You’re Amazing teaches no matter how many times a person fails, just because they tried, they are way ahead of where they would be if they hadn’t tried at all.

After Linda and I left, on the ride home, I told Linda that this reminded me of my grandmother’s fish pond. I didn’t grow up near my grandmother, so the only experience I had with goldfish was the little ones you see in a bowl on someone’s counter in their home. Then one day my parents decided we should drive from New Orleans, Louisiana to Wichita, Kansas to see my grandmother. I was six years old. When we arrived, I learned that my grandmother had a cement fish pond that had goldfish in it in her back yard. I was excited to see all the little goldfish swimming around in her fish pond. I ran to her back yard. But to my surprise when I looked in the pond, I saw lots of great big goldfish swimming around. I asked my grandmother, “why are the fish so big?” She informed me that the fish grow to the size of the pond they are in. If the fish are in a little bowl, then they stay little, but if you put them in a big pond then they grow big.

I learned this lesson when I was six years old. Although the fish pond story is not in You’re Amazing, You’re Amazing does teach that if you want to grow to your maximum potential you have to set your goals high, then learn everything you can about your goals, and then relentlessly go after them. In other words, you have to risk failure in order to move beyond where you are at. To say it another way, like the goldfish in my grandmother’s pond you have to put yourself in a bigger pond.

It’s too bad our college professor didn’t learn the big pond lesson. I also wonder how many of our young people this man deliberately taught to stay in a small bowl. He deliberately taught our kids to stay small, not to grow and achieve. I am here today to say to you, never ever let someone tell you to stay small. Always look ahead. Keep growing. Keep learning. Keep achieving. No matter how far you get you will be farther down the road of life just because you tried. Keep trying, keep flying!

For more positive life lessons, buy a copy of You’re Amazing And I’ll Prove It! You can buy it through Amazon (paperback or Kindle) – go to the book page on this site and it will link you to Amazon.

As always, I welcome your comments and stories. If you would like to follow this blog please click on the plus sign in the upper left-hand corner of this page. See you next week!