It was my physics teacher. Everyone was going up at the end of the year to see their grade for the class. When we went up their he would say something he thought about us. "You are very bright and I see a good future for you." Things of that nature. It wasn't always good either. He just told it like it was. He told my friend "You have a C but I'm guessing you're fine with that." Basically calling him out for being satisfied with mediocrity.

He told me "Sometimes I think you're the brightest students I've ever had, sometimes not." It was not at all what I was expecting him to say. He had been around long enough to have taught thousands of kids. I didn't know how to react.

I hadn't interacted with him directly too much. I dicked around in class a lot but had an ok grade. Nothing exceptional. There were other kids in the class I felt were 10x smarter than me and he didn't say anything like that to them. I think he saw potential in me that I myself didn't see but also thought I made stupid decisions. It really inspired me to do better and actually start applying myself. That one sentence made me really evaluate myself and make a change in a big way.