The Teacher Who Changed Everything When I Wanted to Quit | Brendon Burchard

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11Somebody on my mother's side had passed away in Europe and left some money to our family to go to the funeral. And we were a family that didn't have that kind of money. We grew up very poor. My parents weren't using the four of us. There was no money. So this opportunity to go to Europe was like winning a lottery. Wow. from a town where we grew up in an economically depressed town. They've been economically depressed for a century. Like this is a huge deal. This Montana? Where was this? Yeah. Yeah. We were in Butte, Montana, then Great Falls, Montana. And so this was a huge, like for us to go to Europe, this was so outside.

0:48It was unbelievable. And so I went to all my teachers. I said, we get to go to Europe. And a bunch of my teachers are like, oh, that's amazing. Hey, I'm going to give you this assignment. You know, oh, you're going to be in Paris, go to Louvre. You know, oh, you're going to be here, you know, write this little article when you come back and teach the kids, you know, take some pictures and do a slideshow back in the slideshow, like show a slideshow of your trip. It was a big deal. And everyone was excited about it. And then they had rolled out that year in school, though, this new rule that says you cannot miss a certain number of days of school.

1:19Otherwise you're expelled and you miss this semester or the term and you either have to take summer school or catch up the following year. And so the principal calls me and I heard you're going to have this trip. You can't go. You're going to miss it. and we're like, what do you mean? We can't go. So literally he tells me I can't go. I go home. I'm so upset. I cried to my parents. I'm like, I can't go. And they're like, what? So they go in, they talk with the principal, not a nice person. We ended up petitioning the school board and literally in a public school board meeting, which was televised on TV, they literally go, we understand why you want to go young man, but if you could go, then everybody else could go.

2:01you can't go. And I'm like devastated about it. So I'm like F school, F these people. You know, Mark Twain said, you know, there's more of like never let school get in the way of an education. And so I went and I came back and I was never gonna go back to high school. I was bitter. I was upset. I was like, screw these people. I had the best time of my life. I learned about people and culture. I saw something so amazing. You know, it was just when you're a 16 year old kid and you go abroad it's just so eye-opening yes it was life-changing so i came back i'm like i don't why don't you go this but at for one of the teachers i did go back and do the slideshow about the louvre and in the back the high school journalism teacher came in to see the presentation she walked up to me afterwards and she says you're really you have an eye i would like you to come back and be a photographer for the school newspaper and I was like what I didn't have that competency I didn't know what to do and I was just going to go make it on my own in the world I end up learning over summer with her and the photography teacher how to do photography long story short I joined the journalism crew there we all become great friends that crew wins the number one newspaper in all of the United States of America.

3:21I win second place of all kids doing photography for high school journalism. Wow. This group of us with like barely any computers is competing with the biggest high schools in the country. And we're just slaying. We're cleaning up the award because we have a great teacher and we're all in it together. None of us have a journalism background. She teaches us that. But it was just like we created something of greatness, like top award winning things. It It was called the Great Falls High School Inua. And it was an unbelievable, like she had years of students achieving greatness. And a lot of people thought it was her.

4:00It's like, no, the camaraderie she built that opened us up to the idea that we can become world-class at something. Not, are you, not, you know, can you do this? Because a lot of people are around, but what about people? You share a dream, they go, well, but what about taxes? Oh, but what about you have to hire people? But what about, and if you're around a bunch of what about people? That's called like prison, you know? But when you get around people who are like, they believe in your dream, they can see it. But more importantly, they see something more for you than you do. I had a dream of being free from school.

4:35She saw that I could be great at something that I didn't even see. And your life is not just a measure of how great individually you become. Your life is opened up by gates of generosity by other people who see something in you that you never did. And I know as we talk, I know a lot of people never have that. Because I know a lot of my friends never had that. They never had that teacher. They went to that same high school. They didn't have Mrs. Ballou. They never had somebody go, I know you're struggling. I know want to quit i know life sucks but i see something yeah and when someone sees something in you it's just like you you don't even know to thank god yet yeah because you don't believe it yet they they see a possibility in you and everybody listening somebody probably did that for you in life.

5:32The challenge is that most people leave that gate of opportunity to luck or chance or God's grace. Like that, I was lucky that happened to me. Yeah. Hopefully someone shows up in my life and helps me. It was unbelievable. And then when I got in the professional world, I was like, oh, I can invest to be in that room where there's a hundred people who feel that way to me. And when I share an idea, they, they might go great idea. Let me give you the tools, the resources, the connection, but they might even go that that's good kid. But, um, you're kind of playing small. So I just, I just thought I could take a picture and I'd like to take a picture.

6:14She thought I could become like the best in the country.

6:26I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

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7:59Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.