Creative and imaginative people are often not recognized by their contemporaries. In fact, often they are not recognized in school by their teachers either.
History is full of illustrations.
Consider some of these. When Thomas Jefferson was a boy, his teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything. Louis Pasteur was rated as a mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College. Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor that she could never write anything that had popular appeal. Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.