The background: In my high school I was one of the most well-mannered and intelligent students, but weak in the subject of mathematics. I was always compared to my cousins in the USA who excelled in the subject and supposedly in life according to most of my elders at home including my parents.
I always wanted to be a businesswoman but because I was a women and Business were two mutually exclusive points in our community, everyone gave me a weird look when I would make no bones in sharing my ambition.
Then came MBA another milestone achieved, but because I couldn't go to the top B school of India, in my first job the HR leader would often name and shame me and my colleagues in the smartest ways only known to him, and make us in every meeting realise how average MBA's from the local universities are inept in the subject of mathematics and therefore are from the local educational institute
Where it started from; The reminder that not being good in the subject of mathematics could lead to such life changing outcomes was repeated to me so many times in so many voices, that I lost count of it and along with it my confidence and worth.