“None but the people of strong passion shall ever rise to greatness. ... I do not
know whether people are born great, or whether they have greatness thrust upon
.
Your Pathway to Prominence…Going from Good to Great By Bob Pauley “If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you are ever, ever, ever in the same place.” Nora Roberts So mark this well, you proud men and women of action: “Nothing great was ever created without passion”…and, I might add, enthusiasm. Hebbel “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines; sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain “None but the people of strong passion shall ever rise to greatness.” deMirabeau “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson I do not know whether people are born great, or whether they have greatness thrust upon them. I do know that great people demonstrate certain characteristics that distinguish them from others. You are all good educators…that’s why you’re here. You know your subject matter from A to Z…and that’s good. But something might be missing, an embellishment if you will. Above and beyond what you learned at your college or university you excelled in so many different ways…and that’s good. But is it great? You are head of your class serving on committees, volunteering, joining groups and clubs that prove your goodness. What could make you even better? You have all this unique knowledge and talent that inspired you to come to this most excellent conference…and granted that’s good. But might there be something more out there? So what’s this missing ingredient? Are you everything that you can be? Would you like to go from good to great? We are here today to let you in on THE SECRET that will open the door to the greatness in YOU ! Dr. Art Johnson, our superintendent, spoke to me on greatness the night I won the Dwyer Award for Excellence in Education. He suggested perhaps it’s a little bit of Sir Isaac Newton, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe and Winston Churchill that puts us on our pathway to prominence. What did he mean by that?
Sir Isaac Newton, upon receiving a great honor for his valued work, said “If I come here tonight to be honored it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants…those who came before me and paved the road to greatness.” Longfellow wrote poetry: “Up spake the salty sailor who had sailed the seven seas. I pray thee put in yonder port…pirates are pillaging and plundering.” That’s called alliteration. Might we spice up our presentations with alliteration? Edgar Allen Poe wrote: “Hear the bells, boisterous banging bells…hear them bold…Oh what a tragic tale of terror their turbulency tolls.” More alliteration. And, profound. Winston Churchill said “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” Well, that’s six and I can think of a couple more: Insight. Motivation. Enthusiasm. Embellishment. Fun. Excitement. Attitude. Pizzazz! Churchill also said “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down upon us. Pigs treat us as equals.” That’s insight. He said, “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.” Churchill knew how to add pizzazz to his lectures. I trust you read at least one good book a year. Last year that book was The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. He reminded us that India and China are creating new inroads with not just millions…but billions of qualified scientists, technologists, mathematicians and other accomplished educators are coming after our jobs, the jobs that haven’t even been invented yet…and they’re going to have a profound effect on our future. This past year the book to read was called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne…it is the culmination of many centuries of great thinkers, scientists, artists and philosophers and it involves the laws of attraction. It tells us that success is a lot like gravity; it reaches out to those who seek it. Sort of like Henry Ford’s quote: “If you think you cannot do this, you’re right. If you think you can, however, you’re also right.” Your attitude makes all the difference. This year my favorite book is The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said by Robert Byrne. Quotes like “Why don’t you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum.” by P.G. Wodehouse, long deceased, or “How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?” by Woody Allen. The book Good to Great by Jim Collins reminds us that “Good is the enemy of great. Many of us are good but few are great. Let’s go to work to change all that.” “Get the right people on your bus (the successful ones) and the wrong ones off (the mediocre ones) and let’s get going.” This is food for your thought; things that might get you further down the road to prominence…if you might choose such a path. I highly recommend it.
