You won't learn this in school
Nov 26, 2022 7:31 pm
Recently I wrote an article on the 15 things I didn't learn in school. It ended up being one of my most well-received articles yet.
Here's the TL:DR of my 3 favorite items on the list.
1. The true power of knowledge
“Don’t let school get in the way of your education.” – Mark Twain.
My self-propelled education has skyrocketed me beyond my peers in terms of income and opportunity. I don’t say that to brag, although I don’t mind bragging. I say that to attribute.
The books, the online lectures, the courses, the articles, and the study are why I am successful. Not because I’m a genius but because the genius of the world is available to everyone for basically no cost.
Once you learn that knowledge is the key to doing great things and that knowledge is readily available to you – I mean learn that not just know it in the back of your head, but experience it first hand – there is no longer a door that is closed for you. Only ones you haven’t figured out how to open yet.
7. The Benefit of Non-Conformity
It is much easier to be something unique than it is to be something generic but better. And generic but better is often what is requested of us.
For example, 56% of small business owners in the US don’t have a college degree. The reason? Well, it’s hard to say exactly, but there is a good chance that once you’ve gone down the road of paying a lot for an education to get a better job, trading that job to start a business doesn’t look as appealing.
The road with the most traffic, regardless of how many lanes it has, often moves the slowest. The societally approved paths often have the most competition on them. Being a small fish in a huge pond is difficult. Instead, find a smaller pond that you can manage.
This isn’t to say you should be the opposite of everything conformative. That’s a recipe for a socially difficult life. But, again, this is an opportunity to think strategically. The path of least resistance is often conforming to society for the most part and being ruthlessly non-conforming in key areas.
10. How to Take Good Risks
Along with leverage, a super valuable concept to understand is risk. If you take a hard look at the behavior of young adults, you aren’t hard-pressed to find that we are not that good and understanding and analyzing risk.
To better understand, it’s useful to think of consequences as a synonym for risk. The difference is you can’t see the future, so the consequence of your actions is unknown. Easy, of course, to see with hindsight, but extremely difficult to project into the future.
Risk is the probability that the consequences of a particular action are worse than you are aiming them to be.
The key to taking good risks is making sure the worst possible outcome is still manageable and doesn’t kill you. If you were to lose your entire investment, would you still have enough to take another risk? If not, the risk is likely not worth taking.
On the other hand, if the worst-case scenario is easily survivable, the best-case scenario is a long-term net positive, and the middle-case scenario is still desirable, the risk is likely worth taking.
