A4. Is Education essential to have your 1st Million?

Education is considered very important from childhood and all of us and our parents are struggling hard, first to get good school/college and then jobs and even then so on and so forth for next degree/diploma so on and so forth.

Many people focus on academic education. They think to themselves, “I will achieve financial success when I have a better degree or a higher diploma”.

It is the belief of author that it is NOT essential to have Degree/diploma to succeed in Business.

But time and again, many successful people in the world and some of the richest individuals in the business world did not excel in school and some were even dropouts and chose to leave education behind in pursuit of financial success.

Thus academic excellence does not necessarily mean Financial Success in life, though some people may have success in both arenas of life.

From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:

I graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering but have not used it in the last 20 years of my working life.

 I remember in Engineering College, they used to say: “Engineer is Jack of all trades and Master of none!”

In fact, back in 1986, I was the first batch of students in Delhi (India), to enroll for the PG Diploma in Computer Applications. I remember in those days, we had to take out our shoes to enter the computer rooms and our course was delayed for nearly a year because of initial set-up problems.

I also remember that when we entered a keystroke back in those days, there was a delay of a few seconds before anything appeared on screen. The processing power was not only slow, but also very small.

Today, my hand phone has 100 times more processing power, speed and functionalities compared to the computers of that era.

But my point is that to this day, I have hardly used that Degree or my Diploma in my working world. They taught us various skills and we earned the degree but were never specialized and focused.

But what has really helped me in tough times is learning of my father-who was not having even any formal education even but has given me a strong foundation that I am able to face toughest storms in business life.

In no way it is being proposed that you should be an illiterate and not posses any form of formal education. But not possessing that is not the limiting factor and it should not delay the start of business.

The general masses however keep thinking that I will get all those educational qualifications and amass tons of relevant working experience and then go to work and become rich.

This core difference in their thinking makes the rich grow richer and leaves the rest of society behind.

Some people also believe that upgrading their book knowledge by doing Masters of Business Administration (MBA) is going to increase their chances of business success later on. 

However facts have shown that this is not the case. These advanced studies are not essential to business success and lots of time, effort and money is spent on chasing these paper qualifications.

At the end of the day, these MBA degree holders end up working as higher-level Managers and Supervisors.

Only less than 5% of them go on to become successful business people themselves. 

The remaining 95% end up working for business owners who may not be even half as qualified as them. Many of their bossed were the “Duffers” that society had cast away as explained in the previous chapter, but these lesser-qualified individuals have garnered up enough courage to take the less trodden path of starting their own business and have become more successful.

To substantiate it further, there are 100s of different Universities that offer MBA programs and they focus on different areas of specialization. But this “specialization” is still too broad and academic. There is a lack of practical application of the lessons taught. They try to package as broad and wide theoretical give-always and thus this becomes a shortcoming on the part of the MBA programs.

Look at it this way, when we subscribe to the cable TV network, we get a sophisticated set-up box capable of doing a lot of things, including recording our favorite programs, even when we are not at home.

Detailed user manuals, in multiple languages are provided and all one has to do is to read them and learn how to use the systems.

But adults have common complains about the system being too complicated and difficult to operate, even when all they had to do was follow the steps listed in the user manuals.

Children however, can do it better. They seem to be able to just pick up the remote controls and play with it for a while and then be able to start recording and doing all the other fanciful things that adults thought were just impossible to do. And the kids can do all this, within minutes and sometimes even with their eyes closed!

Now what the major difference? With all the advantages of age, maturity, intelligence and more and also with the availability of the user guides, the adults fail because they lack the practical, hands on play of things.

In the same way, all these MBAs being produced have a lot of book knowledge but lack the ability to apply it effectively in the real working world.

Today, huge amount of information and knowledge is readily available on the Internet, the bookshops and even in the libraries. But we need to learn how to choose the relevant information and then learn to adopt it and apply it to our needs to make us the best dollars in our business.

From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:

I have interviewed 1000s of Electrical Engineers in the course of my life. Many of them do not even know how to remove a blown fuse and replace it practically.

What I find even more astonishing is that when asked about the voltage flowing in each of the points in the common household electrical socket, more than 90% of them are not able to give correct answer! This is after 4 years of studying for a degree in Electrical Engineering.

Same things happen in most of commerce graduates, majority of them don’t remember fundamental laws of accounting even.

When their resumes come in for job applications, they look perfect and charming.

But when given a small easy task of even replying to a Business enquiry, they are unable to draft a small letter to general expectations and you get varied degree of results which are really interesting to watch.

I sometimes wonder if the resume they show is written by them really and if they have-where it gets lost in day to day work??

Once again, the gist of this topic is not to limit you from academic excellence or to limit you from studying, but is to help you remove your limiting beliefs that you need academic excellence for business success.

You are on the wrong track if you believe that you need to have a string of academic qualifications and more to excel in the working world and the world of business.

From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:

Though when counting one day, how many who has started with me as fresher are millionaire now, count was over 25 but I think my biggest achievements is;

-helping a man who do not know even spelling of computer but become the president of Computer association of a city which is many times bigger than country of Singapore.

-Helping a man who could not sign his name but could assemble computers.

Look at the World of the Rich and names like Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani and more come to mind that may not have excelled in school but made a big name for themselves in the World of Business.