Steve Jobs said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward – only backwards. Today it appears that everything I chose to study played a key role in my life and business success. Maybe it was destiny? I prefer to think it was the power of a generalist education helping me pull together disparate areas of knowledge to build a business.
I’m writing this for all the kids getting their college admission/rejection letters right about now, my nephew included. Pretend you dug up a time capsule in your backyard, and this was inside…from your future self. I wish I’d left this for me.
Many of us are under the mistaken impression that there is only one way to the top of the mountain. That mountain being happiness/success. By the way, they are not mutually exclusive as some in the spiritual community might have you to believe.
That is old, dusty, musty, crusty thinking. That is SO 1978.
My father drilled into us kids that finding a job, preferably in his profession, and then staying there 45 years until retirement, was THE way to go. That’s what his father did, and what he and his brother emulated. Lots of hard work and long hours, with little time for family, would lead to your rise up the rungs of the company ladder, and who could ask for a better life?
Uh…all three of us kids? Much to his disappointment. That was SO 1952.
It is not uncommon today for someone to change jobs, especially in the tech fields, every 18-24 months. Things be a movin’ and a shakin’.
My father is doing cartwheels in his grave.
You know what he thought of people like that? “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
That was SO 1960.
What about this little nugget. It is imperative that anyone who wants to succeed in life get a college degree.
Haven’t we ALL heard that? Guess who didn’t finish college?
Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and my buddy, Steve Jobs. I can call him that, because he has a seat at my imaginary round table. More on that another time.
Most entrepreneurs get bored and annoyed with school. They are also terrible employees. They can be fuck-ups early on, later maturing into great leaders.
The schools that give them honorary degrees and invite them to give commencement addresses, would not admit them as students today.
I’m not advocating dropping out, I’m just sayin’…
The average net worth of billionaires who dropped out of college, $9.4 billion, is approximately triple that of billionaires with Ph.D.s, $3.2 billion. Even if one removes Bill Gates, who left Harvard University and is now worth $66.0 billion, college dropouts are worth $5.3 billion on average, compared to those who finished only bachelor’s degrees, who are worth $2.9 billion. According to a recent report from Cambridge-based Forrester Research, 20% of America’s millionaires never attended college.
~Wikipedia~
So that kinda blows that theory to hell.
Check out the big brain on Janet, with all the statistics. 😉
Thank you copy/paste.
What Steve (Jobs) was insinuating in the quote at the top, was that the more well rounded individuals may have a leg up on the one way mountain climbers.
They definitely have more fun on the way up. The student that graduates at the top of his class may not end up being as successful as the guy voted: Most likely to live in a van, down by the river.
If you study music, it can facilitate a career in mathematics and physics.
Theatre arts backgrounds help with public speaking and group leadership skills.
Foreign travel aids in resiliency, problem solving, risk taking and general “up for anythingness.”
Being artistic and learning other languages forms new neuro pathways that keep the brain elastic, open to new concepts and creatively innovative.
That is a generalist education. Knowledge in many fields.
So kids, those of us in our 40’s ,50’s and 60’s that were the theatre geeks, the artsy fartsy, free thinking, good with our hands, crafty, able to take stuff apart and put it back together and have it work better than the original, (I’m talking to you, Jim). We paved the way, with Steve, for the appreciation of a generalist education as a stepping stone to success.
You’re welcome.
Tell me about your road to success and happiness. Was it a straight line?
Did you take detours along the way that helped? Please, start a conversation in the comments below.
XoxJanet
