I want to tell you the story of one of my older friends called P’ Job. "Troublemaker" was the label that was given to him by his teachers. They also said that he had no future and no hope! But now I suggest that anyone who said that should say "sorry" to him. He now owns a small secondhand bookstall in Paknam Market which makes him enough money to live on and also to support his mother.

He told me that after he finished grade nine, he went to study at a technical college that is infamous for fighting. He was a pretty bad teenager so he became one of the gang leaders there. Many of them carried weapons such as big knives, axes, guns or even bombs just in case they had a fight on the way to college. He also got caught many times for fighting and carrying weapons during the three years he was studying there.

After he graduated from that college, he had nothing to do so he just hung around by the market with his close friends. They grouped up as a gang and gave themselves a name. Soon after that, the team became very famous and got bigger very quickly. A year later he still lived in a dangerous world the same as when he was at college.

It looked like nothing could change his life and that his teachers were right that he had no future. They had told him so many times that he was stupid that he had started to believe them. That is, until one sad day, the day that his father died. That changed everything and woke him up. He quit the gang and stopped hanging out with his friends to go to help his mother selling food by the side of the road.

After his father died, his mother had to work very hard to make enough money to support the family. He told me that he really pitied his mum after his dad died. He felt that he needed to do something to earn some money rather than let his mum work alone. He loved reading cartoon books and had been collecting them for years. As his family was short of money he decided that he should sell them. He did this by the side of the road where his mother was selling food.

Soon he realised that his books were very popular. So he decided to set up his own business. His mother only sold food from early in the morning until about 7am. So, after she had packed up, he then took over the stall to sell second-hand books.

He started his business by going around buying cartoon books from other people. He bought them for 25% and then sold them for half price. This means, if a new cartoon book costs 35 baht, he would sell it second-hand for 18 baht and make nearly 10 baht profit.

These days, he doesn’t have to go around looking for cartoon books because there are always people coming along to his shop to sell their old ones. He chooses to buy the books that are still in a good condition. He doesn’t accept any tatty ones. He now has a monthly income of about 50,000 baht and a monthly expenditure of 30,000 baht. That means, he earns about 20,000 baht per month! I was very surprised.

He was a "troublemaker" to his teachers but he is a hero to me. If you are judged by your teachers as a "bad student" or as someone being "stupid", I suggest you ignore what they say. Just do your best in everything. Don’t give up so easily. Believe in yourself even though no one else does. If you think that you can do it, then you can. But if you think you can’t do it, then you will never succeed. Believe me, one day you could be more successful than those persons that insulted you!