Pearls from Ms. Paula: Why I Don’t Quit (and You Shouldn't Either!)

Our founder, Paula Smith, wants you keep on moving in the direction of your dreams!

My teachers in high school had me believing and owning that  I could do anything.

They had me believing that I was the smartest person in that school. 

In my senior year of high school, the girls went to Home Economics and learned how to make a dress. The boys went to calculus - and I was pretty good at that. 

I told my family, "I want to study calculus."  We had to go to the Board of Education.

Guess who won?  I won. 

And guess who was number one in that calculus class? 

Not because I was smart. Because those boys made fun of me all year long. They picked on me. They made fun of me. They laughed at me.

And it made me tough. It made me stronger. It made me more determined that I was gonna outpace them, I was gonna outscore them.

At the end of that year, I got the honor of going across the stage as the number one calculus student in America for that school. 

And, you see, that is the kind of experience that makes people develop character.

It would have been easy for me to have gone home and crumbled and said "They're picking on me." 

It would have been easy for me to quit.  Quit! 

That's what most people do. They quit. And I don't understand it. I don't understand why when we hit a wall, we don't strengthen. We don't become eagles and figure out how to fly above it. 

I have never quit on anything. The tougher it gets, the more excited I get!