Predictions about the future are often way off base. In 1949 Popular Science magazine made this prediction: “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” If that prediction were true I would have been crushed by my first laptop.
In 1943 Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM said, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” If that prediction were true it was evidently a very narrow market. My office now owns all five of them.
When Debbie Fields tried to sell her idea of marketing chocolate chip cookies the response was “A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.”
The cookies were a huge success. For a couple of years I weighed about as much as popular science predicted a computer would weigh as a result of those unpopular, chewy Debbie Fields cookies. So what’s this “giant step” to creating your own future???
Don’t listen to predictions!
Debbie Fields, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs didn’t listen to the short sighted predictions of their day. Neither did I.
In 1962, a substitute physical education teacher told me I would never amount to anything because I couldn’t catch a football. I still can’t catch a football but I have had the privilege of making people around the world laugh until they need medical attention. And I have been honored to see many lives changed by the message I deliver. Amounting to something is all about being everything God created you to be.
Don’t let someone predict your future, create your own.
What’s your story?
[reminder]If it’s a choice between a Debbie Fields cookie and a fortune cookie, take the Debbie Fields cookie.
Comments
I saw a complete special education department that believed in the theory of self fulfilling prophecy. their theory was that if they felt that a special need student wouldn’t succeed they were going to do all they could to prevent that student from succeeding. Examples; the occupational therapist said my son would never walk or talk so they didn’t work on that skill – he walked on stage in high school to pick up his letter in speech. They refused to let him use his left hand to reach for items or write – he’s left handed. To prove that he was not only physically disabled, but, also developmentally disabled they insisted on giving him an IQ test in English only 3 weeks after he flew from South Korea to Minnesota. Their reasoning, he’ll need to speak English to get around in the United States therefore we do not give the test in Korean (yes the school had an English as a second language program at the time, complete with press 1 for English.) We were the first family in Minnesota to use the open enrollment school policy to have a child who was not yet kindergarten age moved from one school district to another, the procedures were written as we were doing the process. the last we heard, in the 1990 if my memory is correct, that district still denied that any special needs child ever transferred out of the district. So yes I’m quite familiar with incorrect predictions and self fulfilling prophecies.
LOVE this! What would happen if we listened to every piece of “research?” Most of us wouldn’t follow the dreams God has laid on our hearts.
And how about what we “predict” about ourselves by our own negative self-talk? We don’t want to listen to that voice, either.
Thanks so much, Ken, for this reminder to follow God and not the fortune cookie.
Wow, thanks for sharing Ken. It means a great deal to me.
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