Keith Kellogg

Once upon a time there were a group of tree frogs who arranged a competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants.

As the race began, no one in the crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would ever reach the top of the tower. You heard statements such as: “Oh, WAY too difficult!!” “They will NEVER make it to the top.” or: “Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!” The tiny frogs began collapsing one by one. Some kept climbing higher and higher. The crowd continued to yell, “It is too difficult!!! No one can make that!” More tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But ONE continued higher and higher and higher. This one wouldn’t give up! At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

All of the other tiny frogs wanted to know how this frog managed to do it? A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal. It turned out…. he could not answer that question because the winning frog could not hear the question because was DEAF!!!! His secret to winning the race to the top was that he could not hear the crowd telling him that it could not be done.

I’m sure you are thinking, great Heath another cute little child’s story about frogs, but nothing like that ever happens in today’s world. Well here are some people who turned a DEAF ear to negativity like our story’s winning frog.

WinstonChurchill flunked the sixth grade- a good thing he ignored that teacher.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team lucky he was deaf to that coach.

Albert Einstein had one of his teachers describe him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” lucky for us he did not listen to her.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh and Jimmy Johnson won a TOTAL of four games in their first seasons as NFL head coaches. Between them, they went on to win 11 Super Bowls- turns out they were deaf to the fans and media that wanted them fired.

For the life of me I don’t know why people feel the need to crush other people’s dreams. It seems like anytime you build something new there will be people against what you are doing. As we begin to build Tama County’s economy, there are going to be times where we find ourselves on the receiving end of the negative words and actions of people. These people seem hell-bent on doing their best to derail whatever progress and/or success we’ve achieved (or strive to achieve) simply because they want to drag us down. We need to turn off their noise and become DEAF like the winning frog.