Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending time with an old high school friend who has created a home-based business after retirement from the corporate world. His entrepreneurial adventure is creating annual revenues exceeding a million dollars with minimal overhead expenses.

This is the same man who had a high school teacher once tell him, "You are not smart enough to go to college, Chad. Figure something else out for your life."

Rather than allowing that stinging comment to defeat him, he used it as a source of inspiration to proudly earn a college degree. For frosting on the cake, he has also developed into one of the most interesting persons I’ve ever met on his road to becoming a self-made millionaire.

On a personal basis, when I graduated from high school in 1962, the fifth of six children with a widowed mother, there were no funds to help me continue post-high school education so I took a job in my hometown bank. Several people whom I had known had chosen that career path prior to me went on to become bank examiners or small town bank presidents.

That was fine for them—but not for me. I hated going to work every day but never told a soul for a year.

While visiting my sister, Ann, in California the second summer after graduation she asked me how I liked my job. For the first time I admitted my true feelings about it to someone whom I could trust.

"It just isn’t for me. What I really want to do is teach high school English."

"Then do it, she urged. Don’t even go back to Iowa. Live with us long enough to establish California residency and start going to a community college here. Mom can send you the rest of your clothes!"

Although I did not act quite that impulsively, I made her a promise that within six months I would save money, quit at the bank, and enroll in a nearby community college back home.

Thanks to Ann’s encouraging words, student loans and part-time jobs—I graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in January, 1968–four and one-half years after that conversation in Santa Cruz—with a Bachelors Degree in English and a teaching certificate. I was able to follow my dreams because someone cared enough to give me just the boost I needed at exactly the right time.

Several years later another significant dialogue took place. I had been teaching at St. Edmond High in Fort Dodge, Iowa when a man by the name of Don Ritchie came to speak to our students. He had developed throat cancer and, after surgery removing his vocal chords, talked by using a medical device known as a stoma. Don shared that if water came through it during a shower he would drown. The fifty year-old Mr. Ritchie made it his mission in life to get teenagers to quit smoking so that they would not have to endure what he had gone through.

During a break between several of his sessions I asked him a question, "I have been smoking a pipe for nine years. Is that a problem?"

"Do you inhale (prior to the famous Bill Clinton line)?" he asked.

"No," I replied, feeling quite smug that I could continue my habit.

Then he stunned me with another question, "Have you ever seen someone without a tongue or a lip?"

That was November 14, 1974–thirty-three years ago as this is being written–and I have not had tobacco of any kind since that moment.

Can you recall a time when someone made a life changing comment to you? If so, I would love to hear about it in a comment at the end of this piece.

Consider the power of what you say every day in your personal and professional lives. You may never know the impact that you could be having on someone, but it is happening.

Toward that end, I encourage you to choose your words carefully and thoughtfully. They have the power to build or destroy.

My hope is that you will always choose the former over the latter.

Bill Sheridan—"Sheridan Writes: Bio under Guest Authors

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