An adult once decided what kind of kid you were. They decided it in about four seconds. Don’t give it four years.

Snap judgments get made about you constantly, in seconds, by people with almost no information: a teacher who saw one bad lesson, a coach who caught you on a flat day, a relative who decided at eight what you were like. Those verdicts are cheap to produce and expensive to carry if you start treating one as a description. Four seconds of somebody’s attention is not a biography.

Name one label you are still carrying and check who handed it to you. If the source was a stranger having a bad afternoon, you can stop quoting them.