Total Rethink

6Work on Your Strengths, Forget Your Weaknesses

“If you had two like him, you could march into hell and put the fire out.”

—Jim Monroe (on Drew Dix, the first enlisted Special Forces soldier to receive the Medal of Honor)

“I began a revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I would do it with ten or fifteen and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.”

—Fidel Castro

Because I achieved good grades in high school I was allowed to get out into the world and look for a work project halfway through my senior year. I chose to work at the Watertown Massachusetts Police Department. Going out with the detectives was an exciting experience and I decided, at the age of 16, that I wanted to become a cop. This was despite the fact that I had already been accepted to a couple of colleges: St. Anselm in New Hampshire, where I knew I would be able to play ice hockey, and Georgetown University in Washington, DC, which was more highly rated academically. To be honest, I was a little ambivalent about college because all the men I knew in our area were contractors, cops, or firemen. It was just what everyone did.

“I've applied to be a cop instead of going to college,” I told my father one evening when he arrived home from work. “They've told me I'm going to make the training program.”

To my surprise he was totally relaxed about it and, as usual, totally supportive. “If I was you, I think I would consider going to college first and then ...