4

Finding the Diamond in the Rough

The Fact and Fiction of Recognizing Potential

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were

what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

—attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer, physicist, biologist, and artist

When Barack Obama entered the White House, a reporter asked him if he had a favorite app. Without
hesitating, Obama named the iReggie, which “has my books, my newspapers, my music all in one
place.” The iReggie wasn’t a piece of software, though. It was a man named Reggie Love, and no one
would have guessed that he would become an indispensable resource to President Obama.
Love was a star athlete at Duke, where he accomplished the rare feat of playing key roles on both
the football and basketball teams. But after two years of failed NFL tryouts following graduation, he
decided to shift gears. Having studied political science and public policy at Duke, Love pursued an
internship on Capitol Hill. With a background as a jock and little work experience, he ended up with
a position in the mailroom of Obama’s Senate office. Yet within a year, at the young age of twenty-six,
Love was promoted up from the mailroom to become Obama’s body man, or personal assistant.
Love worked eighteen-hour days and flew more than 880,000 miles with Obama. “His ability to
juggle so many responsibilities with so little sleep has been an inspiration to watch,” Obama said.
“He is the master of what he does.” When Obama was elected president, an aide remarked that Love
“took care of the president.” Love went out of his way to respond to every letter that came into his
office. “I always wanted to acknowledge people, and let them know their voice was heard,” Love
told me. According to a reporter, Love is “known for his exceptional and universal kindness.”
Decades earlier, in Love’s home state of North Carolina, a woman named Beth Traynham decided
to go back to school to study accounting. Beth was in her early thirties, and numbers were not her
strong suit. She didn’t learn to tell time on an analog clock until she was in third grade, and in high
school, she leaned heavily on a boyfriend to get her through her math classes. Even in adulthood, she