Issue 13: The Dystinct Journey of David Chalk

David is recognised as one of the world's most gifted minds. He is a serial entrepreneur and has launched more than 20 companies in various fields in his successful career spanning several decades. However, behind all that success was a terrified man who felt like a fraud. "I had imposter syndrome. That everything I had done was fraudulent, not criminally fraudulent, but I didn't know how to read. I couldn't spell, and I could hardly write," admits David.

David entered school full of wonder and with a desire to learn like every other child, only to be crushed by a system that wasn't designed to support a struggling child who gave it all he could. At school, David was labelled, bullied, put into a separate section supposedly for "mentally retarded children", and branded a failure but not taught to read. During his early years, David often came home from school crying, humiliated and begging not to go back the next day. However, his mother saw the brilliant child that he was. She reassured him that he was none of the negative labels they gave him at school. Her advice for him was, "Get out of your own way. You are not your mind. You're not what people say. There's this brilliant creativity inside of you. And I believe you are going to do great things."

I got things far greater than that bike.

David's mother's unwavering belief in him was the only bright light guiding him to keep persisting in a lonely dark world where everybody had given up on him. To motivate him to keep trying, his mother promised to buy him every 70s child's dream bike- a Stingray bike with a banana seat and J bars. All he had to do was score a C+. David's mum never got the chance to reward him with that bike, but the experience of trying hard for it year after year taught him an important lesson. "She wanted me to have the Stingray, but I never managed to score a C+. She got me another bike but not the Stingray. But it did more for me in motivation, inspiration, and belief because if I had got the bike, it would've only meant I got a C+. The fact that I didn't get the bike inspired me to never quit. I got things far greater than that bike. The bike represented an objective and just because I didn't get the objective, the beauty was I didn't quit. And that's the lesson I learned."

Renounced to the dumb row and dunce corner of his classrooms, this young child on whom everybody had given up hope wanted nothing more than to learn and prove himself worthy. David loved physics and math and dreamed of becoming an aerospace engineer, an architect, or an airline pilot from a young age. He had repeatedly been told that "he didn't want to learn," but he sincerely did, so in an attempt to kick start his brain, he took on the hardest courses he could all the way up to high school. It was agonising, but he persisted, using just his brute force as his coping mechanism and managed to get out through the other end, still subliterate. "When I entered school, I was happy, fun-loving and had the most positive outlook on life. On my first day, I realised that I couldn't read. Twelve years later, on my graduation day, I was called into the counsellor's office and told, 'David, people like you will have very little opportunity in life and end up in jail or dead on the street.' I was mortified. I had no idea why I was being told this because, throughout my whole schooling, I tried harder than any kid. I left high school believing I was dumb, anxiety raging through my body and nervous as hell," shares David.

The years of persecution and pain he was subjected to at school left him deeply traumatised and uncertain about his future. "The world is not hard to survive in, even if school wasn't a process that you could handle. Why don't you do the things you want to do?" asked David's mum, which made him decide to follow his dreams of becoming an airline pilot. David's excellent spatial awareness and his desire to succeed saw David effortlessly become a pilot flying commercial jets in no time. He did that for a few years until David's curious mind wanted to try something more challenging.