Success is About Self Education - Post 430

We're taught all of our life to go to school, get a good education, go to work for a good company. The reality is that that's not how you create wealth.

It's about self education.

Jim Rohn once said, "Formal education will make you a living. If you become self educated you can create a fortune."

Over the years I have attend a lot of different seminars. I've met a lot different people that have done extremely well and have become financially independent in different niches in all types of different markets and the only thing they have in common is that they became personally educated and not just formally educated.

Over the past year I've met more than a dozen people that we're all making over $1,000,000 and I was just trying to define, what's the common denominator? 

Here's what I think the number one thing in common was. The people that made it had reasons for making it. Strong driving reasons. But the other thing that I found just as fascinating was that of the ones that had a college degree, none of them were making their fortune in the field that they had studied in college.

Whether they went to school or not, every one of them realized that you have to do something different. You have to pay a price maybe, that society doesn't tell you that you have to pay. 

There's a lot of people that go to school, get a good education, go to work for a good company and they have this attitude of entitlement. "I did what society told me to do now I'm entitled to make a good living and where's my money?" 

That was me. I worked my tale of to put myself through college to become a pharmacist. That was my attitude afterward. It wasn't until I lost it and was not able to find permanent employment for two years that I realized that success, financial freedom, was up to me and not to my job or my degree.

I've heard it said that all the "A" student's end up working for the "C" students and it's really true. Over my lifetime the people who have had the most success hired people to work for them that were all sharper than they were. The people that they hired all had skill sets that they didn't have themselves. They hired a lot of people, highly intelligent people to work for them. Really highly intelligent people that were "A" student's who ended up working for them.

During the world war, a Chicago newspaper published certain editorials in which, among other statements, said Henry Ford was "an ignorant pacifist." Mr. Ford objected to the statements, and sued the paper for libeling him. When the suit was tried in the Courts, the attorneys for the paper placed Mr. Ford, himself, on the witness stand so he could prove to the jury that he was ignorant. The attorneys asked Mr. Ford many questions, all of them intended to prove, by Mr Ford's own words, that, while he might have considerable specialized knowledge relating to manufacturing automobiles, overall he was ignorant.

He was asked questions like, "Who was Benedict Arnold?" and "How many soldiers did the British send over to America to put down the Rebellion of 1776?" 

In answer to the last question, Mr. Ford replied, "I do not know the exact number of soldiers the British sent over, but I have heard that it was a considerably larger number than ever went back to England."

Finally, Mr. Ford got tired of the questions, and in reply to a particularly offensive question, he leaned over, pointed his finger at the lawyer who had asked the question, and said, "If I should really WANT to answer the foolish question you have just asked, or any of the other questions you have been asking me, let me remind you that I have a row of electric push-buttons on my desk, and by pushing the right button, I can summon to my aid men who can answer ANY question I desire. Now, will you kindly tell me, WHY I should clutter up my mind with general knowledge, for the purpose of being able to answer questions, when I have men around me who can supply any knowledge I require?"

There's a lot of good logic in that reply.

That answer floored the lawyer. Every person in the courtroom realized it was not the answer of an ignorant man. Any man is educated who knows where to get knowledge when he needs it, and how to organize that knowledge into definite plans of action. 

Through the assistance of his "Master Mind" group, Henry Ford had at his command, all the specialized knowledge he needed to enable him to become one of the wealthiest men in America. It was not essential that he had this knowledge in his own mind. 

I don't care what society has told you. Formal education makes you a living. If you become self educated in the right industry at the right time you can create a fortune. 

You can create a fortune here and it's not difficult. Just do simple things over and over and over and over and teach others to do the same.

I ask you, "do you want to fail or do you want to succeed?"