“Can’t act. Slightly bald. Can dance only a little.”
Good thing Fred Astaire paid no attention to MGM’s review of his screen test.
Beethoven’s violin teacher declared him hopeless as a composer, while Einstein’s teacher wrote that he “would never be able to do anything that would make any sense in this life.” Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper for lacking ideas.
How many of you could share a story – either personal in nature or well known in your family – of how certain failure actually turned into real success. Can you share a dead end that lead to one of the better times in your life?
I don’t want to be like one of those naysayers who tried to squash a genius, but I have to disagree with a blowhard professor from Wharton who predicts the end of advertising because of the internet. You can read his entire point of view here.
To me this an opinion whose time has not yet come. Failing newspapers and declining radio revenue are examples of changes in media usage. But the death of standard push media is greatly exaggerated.
Time will tell. Don’t let new age ideas that are ahead of their usefulness affect your bottom-line. Invest in the future at a manageable pace. Make sure the people who are advising you have a real world understanding of your challenges. A book full of words and a brain full of academia rarely produce outcomes that produce jobs for employees, sales to customers, or profits to pay your bills.