To be a successful state, we must nurture successful children.
I was a tomboy. And one of my first recollections of great success was playing baseball with the boys.
Success happened little by little for me. I tasted the flavor of fame in small doses: I started at 10 years old when I won a music contest; I was performing at birthday parties, company meetings.
I did my first contest, and I got third, and my dad was, like, 'Wow, she has potential.' And I went back when I was 7, and I won. And my dad's like, 'All right,' and then he dropped everything.
I did very well when I was younger, and I am fine.
When I was eleven, I just got good.
There is no correlation between a childhood success and a professional athlete.
I was improving in the sport at age 10, 11, when I was getting my triple jumps - and it was suddenly very isolating. I was doing really well in competitions, and it felt strange because people that were my friends became almost jealous.
There are resources to help and simple steps that parents, preschools, businesses, and communities can take to help our kids succeed, because we're all in this together, and that's what the Too Small to Fail Initiative is all about.
There are few successful adults who were not first successful children.
Creating my own world in a comic or selling my first penny newspaper aged nine was a way of gaining recognition and acceptance by my peers.
