“Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your inner voice.”- Steve Jobs

When I was in Grade 9, I knew that I wanted to study Commerce. Even though I knew that, I wasn’t good at pure maths but I always told myself that I was going for Commercial subjects.

My classmates would tell me how difficult Commerce was and that I’d repeat the same grade over and over again trying to convince me not to study those subjects. I chose not to listen to them because this was about my career and me and not about them.

When I got to Grade 10, Accounting, Economics and Pure Maths were the most challenging subjects to me and as a result I failed. I told myself that I knew why I chose these subjects and I was not going to give up that easily. I changed schools and switched to Mathematical Literacy.

This gave me an opportunity to work on Accounting and Economics since Maths Lit wasn’t a problem. My results began to improve a lot until I got to grade 12. I passed my matric very well even though I didn’t get a distinction in any of my subjects.

I got an admission to Bachelor’s Degree. What I’ve learnt is that most of us discourage ourselves by listening to the opinions of other people forgetting about what our inner voices are saying.

Tell us: What have people you can’t do and you did it, proving them wrong?