Do you listen to what people say about you? Do you believe what they say?Do you listen without realizing it, buying into the negatives and allowing them to shape your life?

Whether you do or don’t is a function of your MAP and that’s within your control—in other words, it’s your choice.

So when someone tells you that you can’t, think about it honestly—first about the source of the comment and then about the comment itself—and make your choice.

Here are a number of folks who fortunately didn’t listen.

Can’t act. Can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little. –MGM executive, reacting to Fred Astaire’s screen test, 1928

You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married. –Emmeline Snively, to Marilyn Monroe, 1944

Many others who’ve won fame and riches were told they couldn’t/wouldn’t succeed…

• Elizabeth Taylor because “her eyes are too old”
• 5’6” Alan Ladd was too short, as were Laurence Olivier and David Niven, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson.
• Esther Williams, Alexis Smith, Patricia Neal and Ingrid Bergman were all too tall
• 5’7”Katharine Hepburn was considered too tall to work with Spencer Tracy
• Barbara Streisand’s nose was too large and too ethnic
• Anne Bancroft left Hollywood for acting lessons in New York and won several Tony Awards
• Sylvester Stallone’s lisp, face and voice were all considered no-wins

And finally a business favorite of mine straight from the horses mouth,

“So we went to Atari and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary; we’ll come work for you.’

And they said, ‘No.’ So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, ‘Hey, we don’t need you. You haven’t got through college yet.’” –Steve Jobs on efforts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

To whom do you listen?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 at 3:30 am and is filed under Personal Development, Quotable Quotes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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