I Wasn’t Groomed for Greatness

R3ciprocity.com - Prof David Maslach: Innovation; Research Life; Striving Towards Happiness · Jun 18, 2026 · 10m

I wasn’t trained for greatness. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how strange it feels to be a professor of innovation when I grew up in a tiny town in northern Ontario where none of this was ever expected of me.

I was the kid least likely to “make it.” I was in special ed for years. I was bullied. I was the one everyone quietly assumed would end up cutting trees in the bush or working at the mill, because that’s what people did in Dryden. No one in my extended family had ever gone away to university. Traveling 24 hours to school felt like moving to another planet.

And still, somehow…