Prison is an important part of life. We can't have violent people running around in the streets. (3 out of 4 federal prisoners are serving time for non-violent crimes.) Most competent and qualified kindergarden teachers can tell you who the 5 kids are in his or her class likely to wind up in prison 15 - 20 years from now.
I am a big believer in early intervention.
Systematically identity top designers as early as possible. The best are often not the most experienced.
I think there is such a thing as a bad seed that comes to flower in certain people. The danger with that theory is that we begin to look for those "troublemakers" early on and try to weed them out. That's very dangerous, because it could work against kids who are just routine troublemakers.
I think that if you ask what's made us successful, it's because we've been fortunate enough to identify, in a number of cases, great people early. Then we throw all the resources behind them and are aligned with them.
My grandad and mom would drive me to training all the time, and from then - around seven to eight - coaches were telling me I had something special and needed to stick with it.
That's why I kept going with my school - I wasn't talented. That's what's the difficulty - you want to define key talents when they are 12, 13 or 14? When I was that age I was nowhere near. People had given up on me.
Nowadays, of course, flesh peddlers and scouting services identify the best athletes when they are still in junior high. Prospects are not allowed to sneak up on us.
