It’s a well-known fact that education is often considered a must for those who want to become wealthy. However, according to the University of Washington, more than 50% of college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed.
One can have great hopes for a degree and end up being disappointed and discouraged. However, let’s go through the reasons why a diploma is not key to living comfortably off or becoming extremely wealthy and what is.
You Should Be Motivated and Self-Driven
This point goes first for a reason – it is key. You may be kicked out of school (like Simon Cowell – one of the wealthiest people in the UK based on 2019 data) and face poverty (like Oprah Winfrey) and numerous failures (like Adam Horowitz), but motivation will save you. It can make one go through serious hardships yet still achieve their goal.
Even if you go through job ads, you will see that few of those require only tech skills. These days, employers look for self-driven applicants with other crucial soft skills. They know how much profit these people can bring to the business.
A Diploma Doesn’t Equal Strong Hard Skills
Take, for instance, the students who know professionals from writing essays for money by essayhub – they are often tempted to place an order and not deal with the topic at all. Some of them make an effort to explore important notions and maybe even apply the knowledge in practice.
That way, they get rid of the writing they consider irrelevant to their subject area but still dig the topic to make sure nothing important is omitted.
Yet, if you don’t delve into details and just let someone else do your job in full without making your input, you will be the one with the diploma, and they will be the ones with the honed skills. The latter is much more important when it comes to communication, managing business, and even delegating tasks.
Numerous People Have Succeeded Without It
Another reason why education alone can’t make you rich? There are plenty of people from various industries who managed to succeed in becoming rich without higher education:
- IT: Michael Dell (Dell Inc.), Larry Page (Google), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and, obviously, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates;
- food service: Rachael Ray and Wolfgang Puck;
- motor-vehicle: Frederick Henry Royce, Henry Ford, and Soichiro Honda;
- entertainment: Walt Disney and James Cameron;
- media: Jack Dorsey (Twitter), Oprah Winfrey, and Ted Turner (CNN);
- fashion: Coco Chanel, Steve Madden, and Ralph Lauren.
It doesn’t mean that education can’t offer you better chances of getting a job or becoming rich. It can. Yet, it won’t necessarily do that.
Numerous People Haven’t
The flip side is that a rebel spirit and/or absence of education are not a guarantee of becoming rich either. If you get inspired by the single idea that the people above succeeded only because they dropped out of school, that’s a trap. The key to their success is proactiveness and readiness to explore and experiment. So, dropping out and expecting that it will do magic to your life doesn’t align with reality. According to The Conversation, more than 80% of the Forbes’ list of the most powerful (hence, very rich) people have graduated.
And There Are Those with Diplomas and No Money
Well, this is the majority we don’t need to give evidence about, do we? Everyone has friends, parents, and acquaintances who have a bachelor’s or even master’s degree but either can’t make use of it or just manage to stay afloat. So much for a degree, right?
Finance Management
This is one of the most important things when it comes to things that can make you rich. The inability to manage finance is what leads to significant losses and a lack of balance. As marketing techniques thrive and social standards rise, people tend to spend a lot of money on things they can live without, at least for some time that can be used to become a wealthy person first.
Compulsive purchases are typical for the 21st century. However, those who don’t have to deal with poverty and have ever tried to calculate their extra spending know that it’s a lot of money. Sometimes, it can be enough for a good investment or a much more valuable purchase that will improve the quality of life.
Reality Is Harsh
The events that may follow (or not) just as you finish reading this post can never be predictable. Force majeure situations will always be a part of everyone’s life. So, even if you’re working hard enough to become rich, a sudden change in the financial sector, social changes, the necessity to relocate, or new law regulations will always be around the corner.
This point is not meant to scare you, nor is it meant to make you give up trying. The thing is, no one can ever predict all the possible challenges, and that’s okay. Meanwhile, if you learn how to be persistent and find the source of your motivation, most of the obstacles you may have to face will be manageable.
Summing Up
As you can see, there is no truth in the belief that only people with a diploma become rich or successful. Some of them do, and some of them don’t because of external circumstances, unrealistic expectations, or lack of particular skills. The formula for wealth has several components we’ve mentioned above. So, if you take care of all of them, you will prosper.