In 1986, Adam Sandler was at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, the department for artists and filmmakers. An acting professor said to Adam, “I want to take you out for a beer.”
They went to a bar where the professor told Adam, “You have heart, but you have no talent. You should stop wasting your time with acting and think about doing something else.” The professor sent a letter to the department head recommending to have Adam change majors.
Years later, during the height of Adam’s fame and success, Adam was at a bar with three friends, when by chance, he ran into that same professor. Adam said hello, introduced him to his friends, and then said to his friends, loud enough for the professor to hear, “This is the only teacher to ever buy me a beer.”
*There’s a video of Brad Pitt asking Adam if that story is true , which Adam confirmed it is.
Many times other people told me what I could or couldn't do or asked me why I was doing what I was doing. But I had professors who really liked me and promoted me forward. But there was one, my advisor at Stanford for my MS in industrial engineering. When I saw him seven years later walking across campus while I was attending an alumni week, he declared, "It's good to see you without your wheelchair." By that time he had a laboratory for graduate students that I would've loved to work in. But my whole time in conferences with him, I was walking and didn't get into a wheelchair until many years later.
Ron