I Wasn’t Groomed for Greatness

I wasn’t trained for greatness. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how strange it feels to be a professor of innovation when I grew up in a tiny town in northern Ontario where none of this was ever expected of me.I was the kid least likely to “make it.” I was in special ed for years. I was bullied. I was the one everyone quietly assumed would end up cutting trees in the bush or working at the mill, because that’s what people did in Dryden. No one in my extended family had ever gone away to university. Traveling 24 hours to school felt like moving to another planet.And still, somehow, here I am.Every time I go home, the old identity crashes into the new one. People don’t quite know what to make of me, and honestly, I don’t always know either. But I do know this: I wasn’t groomed for greatness, but I learned to keep going anyway. When nobody supports you, your mind can still support you. You can use the spite. You can use the doubt. You can say “stick it” and walk forward.It might take 20 years. But someday, the same people who doubted you will ask how you did it.