When I was sixteen, my Honors English teacher refused to sign my permission slip to join AP English.
During our silent work period, she announced she would come around to sign the slips for kids who wanted to take the class the following year. We sat in alphabetical order, so I was at the back of the class, and waited eagerly as she wound her way through the aisles until she got to my row.
She signed Gabriella Smith’s slip and then breezed right past me.
Confused, I called her name. She turned around, furrowed her brow, and said, “You’re not trying to take AP next year, right?” It was the kind of question where she'd already decided the answer.
“Oh, I thought I would…” I said.
“I wouldn’t,” she replied. A
nd that was that.
Sixteen-year-old Courtney was terrified of authority and confrontation. I lowered my eyes, focused on my paper, and pretended like everything was fine.
For the record, I was an A-student, but this teacher constantly criticized my thoughts (UN-constructively) during group discussions and regularly stopped me in the hallway to check whether my shorts passed the fingertip test. Looking back, I have no idea why she disliked me, but still gave me good grades.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fast forward a semester later: my family moved, and I was sitting in the office of a new school, filling out a photocopied list of classes with checkboxes next to each. My pen stopped on the AP English Literature box.
I looked around for an adult. Surely someone would tell me I needed a letter of recommendation or a previous teacher's sign-off. But the office was empty.
So I just…checked the box, left the paper on the desk, and walked out.
Twenty-three years later, that AP English class is still the best class I've ever taken. It's the reason I studied English in undergrad, the reason I had the guts to apply to grad school, the reason I built a whole career around storytelling and communication.
Nobody came around to sign my slip. I made the mark myself.
I think about this a lot lately, as I watch small business owners and lean marketing teams wait to be invited into rooms they already belong in. Waiting for some authority to give them the green light to do the job they are, quite literally, paid to do.
Authority figures will make you think you need their signature of approval, but you don’t.
Working in corporate, I adopted the phrase “Take the ball and run” when an executive used it to explain why he appreciated one of our Product Managers. (Who was a bad-ass woman, btw.)
You don't need the signature, Reader. You never did. Take the ball and run.
Launch the website. Create the campaign. Ask for the budget you need. Outsource the help you need. Move forward on the project. Raise your rates. Take the 5-Day Challenge. Pitch the Big Fish client. See what happens.
🏃♀️,