Chapter 4. Can Your Attitude Affect Identity?

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

—Thomas Jefferson

When Rob knew Malika Sue Emerson in high school, she was always the person with ink smudges on her fingers and a notepad within easy reach. In English classes, she made the other students crazy by pleading for extra essay assignments. She wrote poetry and short stories, and she hinted to Rob that she’d started a novel but was a little young yet to have enough experience for the “big picture,” whatever that was.

While the other kids were focused on football games, proms, and who was seen making eyes at whom, she strode the hallways loaded down with a backpack stuffed with books. For a while, she ...

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