Success Takes
More Than Good Grades or Formal Education
By Lela Iskandar
“I am a big fan of dreams. Unfortunately, dreams are our first
casualty in life – people seem to give them up, quicker than
anything, for a ‘reality’.” Kevin Costner
“Study hard.” “Get good grades.” That’s what
conventional wisdom says. Success, we are led to believe, will be
based on natural ability or God given talents. But is this really
the key to success? If success is only reserved for the ones able to
do well at school or had been given the ability to memorize and
apply information, what would happen to the rest of us who lack
formal education, have little natural talents, physically
challenged, weak or poor?
Let’s look at certain examples that challenged
these conventional thinking.
One day a boy was sent home from school. With
him was a note from his teacher to his parents. The message? This
boy is too stupid to learn and it was advised that he just stayed at
home. The boy was Thomas Alva Edison.
Another boy was rated the slowest learner in
his chemistry class by his teacher. The boy’s name? Louis Pasteur.
Most people, reinforced by conventional
beliefs will probably call you unrealistic if you said that anyone,
despite not having good grades or formal education can achieve
success just as much as the talented few. You will be told to be
“practical” and stop your childish dreams now. Dreams are .. well,
for dreamers.
But numbers do not lie. So let us analyze the
number games a bit more. These statistics answer it all:
- Half of all the CEOs of Fortune 500
companies on average had C or C minus in college.
- 65 % of all US Senators come from the
bottom half of their school classes.
- 75 % of US Presidents were in the “lower
half club” in school.
- And more than half of all millionaire
entrepreneurs never finished college!
Of course, I am not asking you to abandon
college and start working in a garage like Steve Jobs. All I am
saying is that success takes more than good grades. And the most
important ingredient of success is not natural abilities or the
talent to memorize facts.
People who are not gifted in term of
intellectual abilities realize that this is their handicap, but they
succeed in life because there are certain traits that they all have
or acquire in their path to success. What are those traits?
1. Fire. When Bill Cosby
dropped out of Temple University, he threw himself into career in
comedy completely. Starvation didn’t deter him. He said, “Once
you’ve made that commitment, then your blood has that particular
thing in it, and it’s very hard for people to stop you.”
People like Bill Cosby have fire in their
hearts. Their burning commitment brings the whole body to tap inner
strengths, resources and abilities that they did not know exist in
themselves. It gives them the spark and inspires them to achieve
what they want in life.
2. They Set Goals. The great
Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova once said, “To follow, without halt,
one aim; there’s the secret of success.”
She is right. From the age twelve or thirteen,
Steven Spielberg knew that he wanted to be a movie director. So one
day, after a tour of the Universal Studio he put on a suit, brought
his fathers briefcase containing only a sandwich and candy bars and
walked past the guards. He lived in an abandoned trailer that he
found and using some plastic letters put Steven Spielberg, Director
on the door. Finally at twenty, three years after being a squatter
he was offered a seven years contract to direct a TV series. The
rest is history.
He had a goal, followed it, and adjusted his
strategies until he succeeded.
3. They love what they do.
Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, a college dropout who ventured into
computing said, “I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me
going was that I loved what I did.” When Steve Jobs started his
Apple Computers no one ever thought a kid in blue jeans would
revolutionize the computing world while making himself an icon and a
billionaire.
For others, nothing could deter them from
pursuing what they love, even a criticism from an authority on the
field. Donald Cram for example, was so lackluster in his chemistry
major up to the stage that his professor urged him to change his
field of study. But he insisted that he loves the subject and
persisted to continue.
In 1989, he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Winners like Jobs and Cram are passionate and
excited about what they are doing. That is definitely one of the
most important qualities that lift one person above the rest.
4. They never give up.
Another significant trait of these winners is the fact that they
keep on pursuing their goals regardless of the outcome. They simply
refuse to surrender.
George Bernard Shaw dreamed of being a great
writer – despite the fact that he had only five years of formal
education. He quit his job as a clerk to write; believing that one
day he would make it big. But the path wasn’t easy. It took him nine
years before he could make a living from his writing. He never gave
up his dream even though his total income for those first nine years
was only 30 dollars.
But persistence has its rewards - he
eventually became one of the world’s greatest writers, made a
fortune from his writings and eventually won the Nobel Prize.
5. They believe they can. Ben
Franklin was the fifteenth of seventeen children of a poor candle
maker. Although he had a little more than a year of schooling, he
believed that he could still succeed in life. So he learnt
philosophy, science, finance, politics and four languages by
himself. Lack of schooling or money couldn’t deter him from being a
great scientist and a statesman.
In short, many have succeeded despite the fact
that they lack formal education or are having problem getting good
grades at school. Success takes more than that. What you need is
clearly defined goals and burning passion to pursue it. You must
believe that you can achieve what you want and never give up. Stay
committed, and stay focused - no matter what happens.
Those are the real ingredients of success.
