It's hard to imagine that it was the Scots who invented the telephone, the television, penicillin, anaesthesia. Some of the most important discoveries and inventions of our modern world have come from our shores and yet there is definitely a shyness, a deliberately self-deprecating streak in the culture of Scotland.
I personally find this modesty rather endearing in a world that is bursting at the seams with grandiosity and self-importance, and yet at times I worry that our light is in danger sometimes of being extinguished or at least subdued.
I caught a piece on BBC news relatively recently that spoke of a malaise that had cast its net over young people in Scotland; which suppressed their belief that they were capable of achieving their dreams and goals on account to being Scottish, and that in order to succeed in life they believed that they would have to leave Scottish shores.
As a teenager growing up in Scotland I too believed that I was operating at a disadvantage in this world. If I was English or American, I reasoned, my live would be much more exciting and full of possibility.
It is only with age that I have come to recognise "Scottishness" as one of my greatest assets and one that has played an enormous role in my success.
When I began to travel extensively I was shocked to discover that I was viewed as exotic and unique.
I came to realise that the world loves the very idea of Scotland. From an outsider's perspective it seems we possess a mystique and a magic in our land that we ourselves are seemingly oblivious of.