If You're Most Famous for Something Bad, How do You Make it All Good? Here is a photo of me in my hometown Johnstown PA, standing in front of city hall. Unfortunately, Johnstown is most famous for its three floods. I am pointing up above my head at one of 3 High water makers that shows just how high the water level got to during the 1977 Johnstown flood. Click here for larger view.
Today, the stories of that tragedy, told in-depth by the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum, still are the "hooks" that draw visitors to Johnstown, a town of 24,000 that's about 90 minutes southeast of Pittsburgh.
Part of Johnstown's comeback -- after the floods that earned it the moniker of "The Flood City" and its other major disaster, which was the closing of the Bethlehem Steel mills -- is based on tourism.
So what if you are most famous for something negative? Whatever it is, how can you change this negative label that has been bestowed upon you into a positive? Maybe you could change your ways and write a book about it to help others – My life as a Slacker and How I Overcame it. Maybe if you were most famous for being in a gang, you could dedicate your life to teaching young kids how to not get involved with gangs. And fellas, if you were known as a player, how about blogging to teach single women how to avoid Mr. Wrong! Whatever negative label has been put on you, own up to it -- if it's true, make steps to change – if you want to change, and then flip the script and make it work for you in a positive way!
