Getting a college degree is not as important as it used to be because things are different these days. Centuries ago, formal education is the holy grail of wealth and success. You need to be highly educated in order to run businesses and to be able to make business deals. However, the world has changed and having a college degree does not means that you will be guaranteed with a bright and successful future.
Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire once said that college degree is not enough to prepare the students for the real world. If you only learn and apply what you gain from college, it will not be enough to thrive and become extraordinary. You will lack the practical experience that the real world requires.
Success in your business and career require more than just a piece of degree. You will need skills such as negotiation skills, leadership skills, good habits, positive thinking, and the entrepreneurial spirit to make it big. These requirements are what you will never learn in school.
Elon Musk, the billionaire who created Tesla and SpaceX said that formal education and learning from school are like downloading data into your brain, which can be bad because you are not sure what you have downloaded are going to be useful to you.
The School System May Not Be Ideal For Everyone
During an interview, the marketing expert, and best-selling author, Seth Godin said that our school system trains more followers than leaders. Schools prepare you to become a follower whereby you take a job and do what has been told. In other words, you will become a robot and you restrict and limit your own creative thinking.
Besides that, most schools system and society encourage students to aim for getting an A in their exams rather than aiming to learn as much as possible in school. Thomas Edison, one of the most successful inventors once said, “Tomorrow is my exam, but I don’t care because a single sheet of paper can’t decide my future.”
Sure, if your ultimate aim is to work for someone as a professional white-collar employee, a college degree and formal education can get you there. And that is all that you will get. However, most people do not want to have a job, they want to have a career and a business. And this requires more than just formal education.
Jim Rohn said it well, “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” Les Brown, the successful motivational speaker was once labeled as ‘educable mentally retarded’ and was dropped out from school. However, that did not deter him from chasing his goals and living his dream life. Les became a successful speaker and make good livings from what he loved doing.
If you read the biographies of highly successful people, you will see that what truly makes these extraordinary people shine is not their formal education, but rather, it is their personality, habits, hard work, determination, desire and their commitment that make them successful.
Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Henry Ford, David Murdock, Richard Branson, and more, are billionaires who dropped out of school to pursue their passion and built their business empire.
Why Formal Education Is Important
Before you decide on anything, do understand that formal education and getting a college degree has its own functionality in our world. Undeniably, without education, people will not be able to write, read, or calculate. Education is essential in civilization and developing a country to a better nation.
Apart from that, another important role of education is to differentiate between what is right and wrong, lawful and illegal. Basically, formal education will reduce the crime rate in a country. Someone with a college degree has a higher confidence and will hope for a more stable life.
Formal education will also equip you with necessary knowledge and skill set for work in the real work. Meaning to say, an educated person will always have a competitive advantage over an uneducated person because the educated person is literate and does not have to start from scratch.
Why A College Degree Cannot Guarantee Your Success
Although formal education is important, to be successful and produce outstanding results in life, it will require more than just a college degree. Your mindset and beliefs are important if you want to live a successful life. Sometimes, the best lessons do not come from the college or school, they can come from life itself. Our abilities to self-reflect and to adapt to the environment, as well as our capabilities all, play a key role in whether we become successful or fail.
Another important key aspect in determining someone’s level of success is their vision. Your goals and the dreams you want to achieve in life has nothing to do with education. A dropout from the college can have a bigger dream than people who own a degree. Your dreams and your visions do not limit by education.
When you completed your degree and apply for jobs, who would you want to work for? Probably, you will want to apply for big companies like Apple and Microsoft. The thing is that entrepreneurs are the ones that created those companies. And the entrepreneurial spirit does not consider your educational level. Entrepreneurship is not a career you have to qualify for, it is a calling and a desire that becomes your way of life.
This is why people who did not have a formal education from school can still make it in life. They become successful in their career and also in business.
Conclusion
According to billionaire Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian businessman said that most students have no idea what they are going to get from education and they take in the huge amount of loan blindly. They thought that after they get the college degree, they can get a job and pay back the loan, which is not a good idea.
Therefore, if you are serious about creating a successful future and living your dreams, you must think long-term. You have to know exactly what you want out of your life, and not simply follow the crowd. Formal education is still important, but it does not guarantee your success because your success is largely determined by your attitude, beliefs and also your actions.
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