The Experts Are Not
Always Right...
The Wall Street
crash of 1929 was followed by the Great Depression. The crash came as a
complete surprise to many "experts." A month before the crash,
Charles Mitchell, former Chairman of the National City Bank, announced,
"The industrial condition of the United States is absolutely sound."
Prominent economist
Ervin Fisher said nine days before the crash, "I expect to see the stock
market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months." Even the
Harvard Economic Society Bulletin announced, "A depression like 1920-21 is
clearly out of the question."
Finally,
non-economist Calvin Coolidge put the times in correct perspective when the
former president observed, "The country is not in good condition."
(From The Blunder Book by H. Hirsch Goldberg)
And the experts
could be wrong in many other areas, as well. In 1949, Popular Mechanics
magazine stated, "Computers in the future may weigh no more than
one-and-a-half tons."
I personally
remember reading a detailed account of why landing on the moon would be
impossible, and that if we did succeed in landing, leaving the moon would be
out of the question.
Along these lines,
I'm always intrigued with the number of "unbreakable" records that
continue to be broken. The truth is, records are made to be broken, so maybe
you will be a record-breaker who will do the "impossible" some day.
I suspect that all
of us, at one time or another, have been told we couldn't do something only to
learn later that with commitment, preparation and intense effort, we could do
far more than even we had imagined. The message is don't always listen to the experts
-- listen to your heart. Give it your best shot, and even if you don't make it
all the way, you will still have "won" because best effort always
makes you a winner. See you at the top!
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