I have met many successful people. Some have degrees and others have what some call street smarts. Both bring value and both have limitations and understanding those aspects are the key to success.
Full disclosure, I have a formal education so this is being written from a point of view held by someone who went through years of “school.” I know a lot of things and one thing I know is how to learn. How to research and how to find out stuff.
OK, so if that is so great, what is up with the title of the blog post. You just said how you have all this education and can go learn things, so what is limiting? The thing about all that learning is that it focuses your thinking along “formal” lines. It is easy to be blind to what is in front of you because it does not conform to what you have been taught opportunity looks like. It blocks you from creativity and can make it difficult to become an entrepreneur.
Someone who did not go through a post High School educational program has had to adapt and learn using their own intuition and, in many cases, their stubborn determination. That stubbornness and belief that you can do something is far more powerful than the thinking that, “I don’t know how to do something so unless I can take a class in it, I can’t do it.” It is unlikely that someone with a formal education would say that to themselves, but many end up there.
If I was not taught how to do it, I can’t/won’t do it!
That is the key phrase that sets up the entire “problem” statement. I was not taught!
In the book, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” Richard Feynman shares a story about teaching in Brazil. He was excited about the opportunity to work on his language skills and teach classes about physics in a foreign country. If you don’t know, Richard Feynman helped develop the Nuclear Bomb and won a Nobel Prize for his work in Physics.
While working with his students in Brazil, Feynman makes a discovery, they all know the text, they all know the definition, but they do not know what it means. They have not translated the education they have been given into the knowledge they need to move forward in the world. This is frustrating for a man who learned much of what he knows through experimentation and tinkering. There were no books on how to build a nuclear bomb, so Feynman and hundreds of others had to figure out how to do it.
For those of you reading this that have a “formal” education, you should start asking yourself the question, “What do I not see because someone taught me not to look for it?” This question will help you see opportunity where many see problems and will propel you into a world where real problems get solved and things get better.
For those of you reading this that don’t have that “formal” education, well you have your own issues to battle. Mostly the ones about having to figure everything out yourselves. That learning only comes from doing. That is powerful, but it is also exhausting when you can simply pick up a book and learn about what others did to solve the same problem and you can avoid the mistakes they made. A formal education opens you up to a world of knowledge and a way of thinking about what history has taught us and tapping into that can create a short cut to what it is you want.
The beauty of this whole “problem” is that there are lots of solutions. Learning is not limited to school. If you are a lifelong learner, you know that reading and taking continuing education courses are great ways to improve existing skills and learn new ones regardless of your formal education level. The key to success in solving the problem, however, is in recognizing the limiting thoughts that hold you back and where they came from!
Gramatges Consulting 