A guy mocked his classmate Kemp Knott for studying hard while he coasted on test scores. When college applications came around, Kemp got into Duke and the speaker didn't. He learned that effort actually matters.
I really prided myself on doing school with as little work as possible. I was like, you nerds. I was like, you guys needed to study. I can walk in and hit a 91 with no study. So this guy named Kemp Knott, all of high school, I kind of gave this guy a hard time. When we went to go apply to colleges, I wanted to go to Duke and I didn't get into Duke. I ended up going to Vanderbilt, which is also obviously a great school, but I wanted to go to Duke. Guess who got into Duke? Kemp Knott. And so it was really interesting is that this whole time, like Kemp would go to study hall, he'd be like, teacher, you forgot to assign his homework. Like, He was that guy. I honestly just really disliked him. It probably just reminded me of my own inadequacies of like, I was just unwilling to do the amount of work that he was. And I shamed him for doing the amount of work that he did. I was like, you have to work so hard just to try and come close to me. But in the end, he got into the better college. And so it was this really humbling lesson for me. None of the colleges cared that I worked less than him. They just cared about who had the best applications and who had the best grades.
