Every Friday my wife and I attend a dancing practice session. We’ve been learning to dance for 18 months now and we love it. We’re not particularly good but we enjoy the music, the social side and it keeps us fit (well a little!).
On the way to the dance session, we pick up some friends and normally have a quick chat in the car. Normal stuff like, “How’s your week been?” or “Isn’t the weather terrible?” Standard stuff.
This week, our friends started talking about their daughter’s performance at school. They have twins and one did well at school and one not so well. During the conversation we found out our friends had performed poorly at school. Both had left school with almost no qualifications.
“I just didn’t like school,” was the reason given. “I just sat there and watched the clock all day.”
My wife and I were surprised! Really surprised! We came home afterwards and were still a little shocked. Why? Well the husband, Neil, is high up in the IT world and the wife, Amanda, runs her own business.
- How come when they both failed so miserably at school?
- How can you have such a great successful career with no exam passes?
- How can you run your own successful business when you failed every single exam at school?
- Have you noticed how the cleverest kids at school are not those who make it in life?
- How well do you remember your school days?
I’m really referring to the actual lessons and the teachers. What did you learn?
FACT: facts!
Your main purpose for being at school was to remember facts. The more you remembered, the better you did. You studied hard a month before the exams, cramming all those facts into your head. Testing yourself time and time again. Then you either passed or failed the exams.
Sometime, those that fail at school are not interested in facts or the way the teachers teach the facts is boring. Some kids just don’t have good memories or have short concentration spans. It doesn’t mean they are stupid. But they are often thought to be, because they have no qualifications.
It could just mean their creativity and imagination hasn’t been fired up by school or some boring teacher. Employers seem to take on individuals due to their past exam results and not on their desire to succeed.
As long as the want is there, the desire is in the belly there’s no limit to anyone’s achievement irrespective of how well they did at school. Just look at Sir Alan Sugar. One of the UK’s richest businessmen. He left school with no real qualifications but he has massed over $1billion by having the desire and the confidence.
Michael Dell did not excel academically at school and he’s now a multi-dollar-billionaire.
I know you can say people who have such success are few. That’s true but they have achieved their success with little academic qualifications.
There’s no syllabus or exams for the subjects, “success”, “desire”, “positive thinking”, “assertiveness” and “motivation”. Those traits come from within and by self-learning.
I’m not saying go and fail at school. What I am saying, is that we are all capable of much more than we thought we were while at school.
No matter how bad you did at school, you can still achieve so much. You can still have a great career, material possessions, a loving relationship – everything you want.
It’s all down to you.
“Education is what you learn after you leave school.”
~Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad Author
Andrew Rondeau is a Master Internet Marketer from the UK,
and is giving away his FREE Guide on how to Build
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