Just One Joey: Success In School At Any Age

Kindergarten to senior year.

Undergrad to a doctoral program.

This is for students of any age.

This is for their parents.

The Key To Success In School.

Act as if you never went at all.

Aaahhhh, me squeeze me?

Aah, bacon powder?

(Wayne’s World quote. I’m 37. If that wasn’t obvious by the reference.)

That’s right, I said it.

Act like you never went to school.

I am not talking about after you graduate (although that will work too), I mean DURING school.

Act like it never happened.

Act like it is not happening.

The Problem With School

The biggest issue in education is the students’ mindset. Well, it’s the parents’ mindset that gets transferred to the kid and becomes their mindset.

Still with me?

Moving on.

Is education is the most important thing to develop en route to success? Me thinks yes. At least top 3.

Is school education? Yes and no.

This is where the mindset issue comes in.

School gives you a baseline of information, but Education (capital E) is much bigger. It is everything you learn in order to live, earn money, and thrive. My point? College gives you a piece of paper that says you have been successful in retaining information and regurgitating it at least at a 70% level. 60% level if it is out of your major in some schools. Once you get that piece of paper, the thing your parents have been focused on since you were 3 years old in preschool, you can do anything, right? It’s the key to your future, right? This piece of paper has been the goal of your life up to this point.

Now you can go earn a living, right?

How many of you college graduates went “Holy s***” while still in your cap and gown?

Me too!

This is not to say that school is not important. Until companies figure out how to filter through applicants based on abilities and potential instead of pieces of paper (at least initially), it will remain necessary. (On a side note, if you are part of the 0.01% that can be ultra-successful without getting your foot in the door with a degree, more power to you. I am not.)

For the 99.99% of us:

The Solution

If you act as if you didn’t go to school, then you will focus your attention on learning things on your own. You will make it a point of connecting with people in your potential profession, and pick their brains on the steps necessary to become a professional x, y, or z. This is how it used to be done. Go directly to the source to get all the info you need.

Most of them will tell you is school. You can say, “No duh, I am talking about everything else. I want to learn about the profession as a whole.” That is where the real knowledge will come. The more people you talk to, the more you research on your own, the more you learn, the more ass you will kick once you get the piece of paper saying you are now free to kick ass.

School is school.

Education is all up to you.

Imagine if you were in middle school or high school, and instead of waiting for the knowledge to come to you in school, you went out and got it? Instead of picking your butt, or building up your Musical.ly following (unless that is your business, and you are already monetizing it, then more power to you) you went out and met people? Started building up a rapport with professional adults?

Making connections, learning in a real world sense of the word? You could be killing it by the time you learn how to drive! Imagine that!

Think of a college student that spent all four years in college studying for their degree, but meeting professionals in their potential field at conferences, during coffee meetings, or internships so when they graduated that had a crystal clear understanding of what that profession is and how to be successful at it. They will have a goal, a game plan and a clear course of action.

While everyone else is moving back home, being confused, getting a job they could have gotten out of high school, you are dominating.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

I know!

That was basically a rhetorical question. If you said “no” I would have puked.

For Parents And Students

It doesn’t matter how old you are. This can be applied at any age. I tell my daughter all the time, the way to be successful is to learn more outside of school than you do in school. Education is key, but school is not “that” key. It will get you in to the arena, but you are on your own from there.

You are the only key you will ever need. It’s best to learn that now.

Think of it this way:

Have you ever heard of a graduate from any top school (NYU, Stanford, Yale, Harvard, etc.) get handed a bag of money when they walked out of graduation ceremony? Exactly! Why? Because that’s when the real education starts, the real work. No one gives a f*** what school you graduated from if you suck at your job. Harvard graduates work next to UCSD (go Tritons!) grads, that work next to Middle Of Nowhere Texas grads, all at the same company. Your real job is to kick ass. I don’t care what your title is.

But what if we started it earlier?

What if we started today?

What if the future was now?

What if we looked at school for what it is, a “normal” factory (which is what they used to call it, because it was designed to create “normal” people to work in factories, remember that), and looked at every hour outside of school as the real learning time?

What kinds of experiences could we have?

What kind of knowledge would we gain?

How much more prepared for life would we be?

I don’t care how old you are, start learning. Start educating yourself. Interview one person a week that works in a field you may want to work in. Contact companies, ask them about skills that they find important, then start practicing them.

Nothing can stop you except for you.

(This will help you get over your fear: article)

It’s time to look at school like it never happened and elevate your success. It all starts with you. It all starts with looking at yourself as the one that will get you to your best. No degree will do it. No college will ever guarantee success. That’s all on you.

Ever wonder why so many people try to get in to the top schools every Fall? Because the individuals that went to those schools kicked ass once they got out and made it look good. Was it the school? Hell no. Maybe a couple teachers here or there helped guide them, but it is the individual that makes the difference. The graduates make the school. Don’t forget that.

You make the difference.

Get out there and start learning.

Right after the bell rings.