Henry Hollingsworth was grounded again, locked in his bedroom. It was summer and he should have been out chasing girls and sunsets, but the 15-year-old skipped his summer school classes three days in a row, so now he was a prisoner in his own home.
His window looked down on a small pond where every morning at precisely 8am the same older man in a white bucket hat plopped down on a bench with a cup of coffee, a hard roll and his fishing pole. Henry watched the man pull off small chunks of roll, fashion them to the end of a hook and cast his fortune into the murky water. He’d catch a sunfish, toss it back and repeat this ritual over again.
Today, against his mother’s wishes, Henry grabbed his own fishing pole and snuck down to the pond to join the man on the wobbly bench.
“Mind if I catch a few?” Henry asked.
The man, never taking his eyes off the water, answered, “Not at all.”
The two chatted a bit and Henry confessed that he was a D+ student, doing his best to screw up summer school as well.
“Are you bad at school because you’re not sharp or just not trying?” the man asked sincerely.
Without missing a beat, Henry answered proudly, “Oh, I’m dumb as a box of hammers.”
It was then that the man surprised the lad with this story.
Once there was a boy like Henry who struggled at school. He valued goofing off with his friends more than studying and his grades reflected it.
One day, it was time for everyone to take the SATs. This boy had no intention of ever going to college but took the test anyway. A few weeks later the results arrived and by some miracle he scored a 1480.
Everyone accused the boy of cheating, but he swore he did not. The principal of the school pulled him aside and told him that any child who could score that high, could be anything they wanted in life.
Soon after, the boy started showing up for class, reading his assignments, and applying himself. By senior year he was indeed a straight-A student.
After graduation, he attended college and went on to become a very successful entrepreneur.
Henry interrupted the old man’s story, asking, “So the moral is, work hard and I’ll be successful?”
“No,” the man replied. “You haven’t heard the best part yet.”
The boy waited. The story continued.
A dozen or so years after graduating high school, the boy who was now a man ran into his old principal. He went on and on about his success and thanked the principal for his encouragement—but could sense something was wrong.
“What is it?” he asked.
The principal told him that a few years after the boy took his SATs, the school was notified that a dozen students around the country were accidentally given the wrong test scores. The boy’s real store was 780, not 1480.
The old man looked at Henry and said, “Do you see it now?”
Henry pondered, then asked, “So, he achieved great things because he was lied to?”
“No,” the old man answered. “He achieved great things because he believed in himself.”
Henry grabbed his fishing pole and dashed home, vowing in that moment to do better.
Before reaching the door, he called back, “Hey mister, what ever happened to that guy?”
The old man smiled and said, “He’s retired, has grandkids and fishes every morning at eight.”
