Last week, Colfax High School students received an opportunity worth over $15,000. Peter Sims is an award-winning entrepreneur, a best-selling author, and more locally known, a 1994 graduate and valedictorian of Colfax High School. On Oct. 5, Sims returned to Colfax High to sit and talk with students about his past, present, and future. A year ago, Sims’ book “Little Bets” won the praise of Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as both practical and powerful. Subtitled “How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries,” and published under the Simon & Schuster imprint, “Little Bets” pulled together a variety of success stories – from Steve Jobs to Chris Rock to Frank Gehry – to show how methodically taking small, experimental steps can lead to big things. Sims has parlayed the success as a writer (“True North,” a book he co-wrote, landed on both Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestseller lists in 2008) and his own experiences in the business world into speaking engagements that fetch five figures. According to Eagles Talent Speakers Bureau that books Sims to speak at events, the fee for this type of presentation is $15,000-$20,000. But he came to Colfax to interact with students, giving them an invaluable amount of knowledge, for free. In his presentation, Sims said that through high school and after, he was “driven by achievement.” In his first year at Colfax High, Sims recalls a speech he was giving to the student body. As he got up to deliver his speech, a few of his classmates started booing. He remembers “swallowing hard and getting through the speech,” and afterward talking to a friend saying “Man, I’ve got to work on some stuff.” “I had a lot of pressure (from my parents) from an early age to make the most of my potential,” Sims said. “My whole thing at Colfax was to try to be a better person, to try and improve, and to make friends.” Sims tells how he used sports to do just that, and how he was motivated by “external achievements” to prepare himself for college. Sims applied and was accepted to Bowdoin College in Maine. Life on the East Coast, he said, is drastically different from how he grew up in Colfax. “You just parachute into this place ... and people walk a lot faster than you. They have a different sense of humor, just a total fish out of water,” Sims said. “What I learned through that experience is that there are people you are competing with if you want to succeed.” There are people who have certain things that we do not have, but we should not see these differences as a disadvantage. During spring break in his first year at Bowdain, Sims learned something from Tim Russert while he was driving home with him from the set of “Meet the Press.” When Russert asked Sims how he is doing, Sims told him that he was struggling academically and explained that as a kid from Colfax High School it is hard to interact with students from prep schools. Russert told Sims one thing in return that he claims as the most empowering thing anyone has ever told him: “Peter, just remember this. What they know you can learn; what you have, they can never learn.” English teacher Paul Phillips coached Sims on the tennis team and taught him in the classroom. “It’s a great success story of a Colfax grad doing great things today,” Phillips said. “Hopefully kids will get a sense of having great opportunities.” Sims said Colfax High School students have something very special. “It’s common sense, it’s a grounding; a sense of being authentic and real,” Sims said. Peter Sims left students with one piece of advice that he uses continuously throughout his presentation to encourage them to pursue achievement. “Be curious,” he says. “Just be curious.” Colfax High School senior Steffany Dunn is Editor-in-Chief of the CHS Pulse Magazine, a student publication Gold Country Media’s Gus Thomson contributed to this report