Education VS Schooling
Education can lead to success, but it definitely doesn't always mean you have to go to school to be educated. Nor do you necessarily have to go to school to be wildly successful. You can be self-taught. In fact, when I visit big cities, I notice that many of the buildings are named after famous and successful people; university campuses, museums, parks, libraries, and other famous structures are mostly named after people who don’t always have extensive education. That's because most highly educated people are not wealthy, they are middle class. The wealthiest people in the world are usually people who saw problems and found solutions to those problems, people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Ted Turner, Kim Kardashian, David Geffen, Paul Allen, Henry Ford, Russell Simmons, and thousands more.
Successful people know there is a lot to learn, and learning is infinite, so they invest in self-learning. Regular people think they know it all or don’t think they have to learn anything new. Successful people average around $10,000 a year in books, seminars, and other forms of self-teaching, while regular people average around $10 a year. Learning is not just memorizing facts for a test the next day, it’s about learning things that will make you more successful. Formal education will earn you a living, while self-education will make you wealthy. I recommend investing in both, so you have more choices.
I was talking to my friend Justin, and he was lamenting that he had invested two years of studying and paying for a degree, and then only practiced as a therapist for one year before going into real estate. Actually, 40% of new graduates don’t work in the field that they studied. What Justin was not considering was the benefits of the scaffolding effect. When a large building is being built it must be built level by level starting with the foundation. You can’t skip to the next level until the one below it is built or the building can become unstable and collapse.
Although Justin was no longer working as a therapist, he had built his intellectual foundation with the school. Having the degree under his name allowed him to get a loan from the bank to buy his property. When you’re a new graduate and don’t have a work history, banks will accept a college degree instead of showing a steady work history. They do this because statistically, your expected income will be higher when you have a college degree. Therefore you are lower risk, and it’ll be easier for you to qualify for loans. Once he got his building, he started remodeling and started a successful short term rental business that replaced the income from his job and allowed him to not have to work as a therapist anymore. This gave him the opportunity to start his own multimedia marketing business. As you can see everything scaffolded on top of the next step: 1. Degree, 2. The property, 3. Short term rental business, 4. Multimedia marketing company. So even though Justin may never work as a therapist again, it was worth the investment, because it allowed him to build his foundation and scaffold other businesses on top of that one. His foundation will always be the degree that he obtained to get him started.
He may have been able to come to the same end through a different route. But the degree definitely helped him bypass the years of work experience banks want you to have in order to qualify for a loan. When you have a college degree, banks will lend you money based on projected income, rather than the traditional looking back and seeing what you’ve already accomplished.
The same can be said for anyone who goes to college. Even if you don’t practice what you studied, it doesn’t mean it was a mistake. The study gave you an intellectual base to build upon and allowed you to scaffold upwards to other fields. Learning new ideas and concepts will never be a drag on your career, but rather a boost.
Make learning a habit; most successful people in the world read about one book a week on average. Set a personal goal for yourself to read a set number of books each month. Besides being a wise person, being financially literate will give you more options, and allow you to see things uniquely. It takes wisdom to recognize wisdom. This is what sparks innovation, creates big ideas, builds new companies, helps you resolve complex issues, and creates shifts in culture. Keep reading books and watching YouTube videos to help you learn and explore new ideas.
The more you learn, the easier it will be for you to recognize opportunities and act on them with confidence. Successful people work smarter, not harder, copy good ideas when they see them. You'll also be able to help others around you who may need your wisdom. You'll be better prepared to conduct business, you'll be much more knowledgeable, and people will trust you. If you decide to make investments in formal education, you will be increasing your earning potential, and you can deduct student debt. If you live in a city, take advantage of all of the museums, cultural events, and lectures. Picking up knowledge wherever you can, will help you build your knowledge base faster and more profoundly, giving you some unique opportunities to be successful.
People are a one-of-a-kind combination of culture, race, sex, family values, religious beliefs, environment, traditions, and the imprint of every person and experience they've ever encountered. You are a one-of-a-kind irreplaceable being, that will never again exist. Your perspective on anything can never be replicated, never because it's not possible. If you can enhance your abilities with wisdom, you can be a game-changer like the world has never seen. That's just a fact of life.
Education will help you manage your money better, and you'll be less likely to lose it. Most people are never taught how to manage money. In school, you don't learn how to do it; and after school, most people don't take the time to learn how to keep the money they earn.
Recently, a famous person applied to rent a house from me; I was shocked because I assumed he lived in a mansion in Beverly Hills. I wasn't sure why he needed my place. Once I ran his credit, I was reminded of all the famous athletes and performers you hear about, who lose their fortunes and end up bankrupt. Many of these folks had extraordinary talents that helped them come into wealth very quickly. Unfortunately, they didn't take the time to learn how to manage those fortunes. So, instead of investing the money and protecting it from others, they squandered it till it was all gone, and all they had left was pleasant memories.
In the nursing homes I visit, I've met many people who were once wealthy but never developed the know-how to make that money work for them. So, once they stopped working, they stopped producing, and they steadily spent all of their money till they had nothing left, and the only place where they could afford to live was a government-funded nursing home.