I did have a mentor. The man I worked for fifteen years. I did watch him closely and earned his respect to the point that he extended a huge personal loan to me to get my business off the ground. And no, I couldn’t have done it without him. We still have lunch together several times a year. I do not discount what I learned working for him one bit and acknowledge that I would not be the man I am without him…… But that wasn’t the point, was it?….. I was fully aware who you were referring to with your “high school dropout enlistee” was aimed at and that is perfectly alright by me. I work daily with numerous people that are proud of the letters behind their names earned through higher education and I dare say that I am on an equal footing with each of them. I don’t hold myself in higher regard then them and they don’t look down at me. And I find it just a tad bit obtuse that you would suggest that a self motivated individual is somehow not your intellectual equal. Self motivation is a powerful tool. The folks in Ukraine are showing us that.
Just as I know numerous folks who never valued education at all, and have not advanced themselves, I also know plenty of holders of lofty degrees who accomplish little of use to any one. For someone with less formal education than Joe seems to think you should have had MD, you stick out like a sore thumb. Kudos to you for not giving up on yourself just because you had a rougher road ahead to get where you are.
MD, here’s some interesting info on success vs education. “So how is it that America’s least-educated are responsible for so much business creation, especially given that we might associate business acumen with more formal training?” https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/americas-biggest-entrepreneurs-high-school-dropouts/
You'd be amazed at all of the MBA decisions made in a vacuum that I've lamented over the years. The vast majority of them fail to learn all of the seemingly insignificant details that should be considered before pulling the trigger on some of the stupid decisions they make. I've seen it multiple times weekly since 1997 when I began working in larger companies where the need to have MBAs drive the business to be successful is inculcated into the ownership. They seldom get their hands dirty, don't want to be questioned, and tend to base their analyses on what they know, and not what they don't . . . you know, the Ivory Tower mindset. The guys who worked their way up from the bottom learn much more about a business, its idio-syncracies, inter-dependencies, what's been tried / not tried, what works / doesn't, and what has been tried but not given a real chance to work. I value those people far more than the Harvard MBA grad who waltzes in knowing exactly what the business needs, and wants nothing more than a courteous nod when handing over the report he wanted.
I have a niece with a Psychology degree from Penn State and she's making a killing right now selling mobile homes in San Antonio!
I believe that learning is learning, and education is education, even if it isn't formal education. What I don't like are those people, and you have certainly been guilty of this, that put down those people that spent 4 or more years earning a degree. I see that attitude constantly on this forum. To be fair, the Right-wing has always been somewhat anti-intellectual all along. Education isn't a competition, it's a process by which you can develop and grow your mind and extend your ability to evaluate the world around you. If I had a nickel for every Right-wing slur about higher education, I'd be filthy rich. My point was that you were educated by someone that was passing his knowledge onto you and you were willing to invest the time to learn something that you were interested in. That's all education is in any context. Now having said that, I believe qualitatively, work that has real meaning rarely comes without formal education and in some cases, formal education leads to work that has next to no meaning. I think business degrees are lucrative but the work you end up doing has little meaning beyond the wealth you accumulate. If that is your goal, I suppose it has meaning for you. The work teachers, doctors, nurses, and even lawyers do require an advanced degree but while some of those professions are lucrative, they also have meaning far and away more than someone that sells widgets for a living in my opinion. I would hate to have spent my life earing more and more money just to retire and realize that the only person I ever helped was myself. My personal preference I realize but I never have been all that attached to money the way some people are and I definitely look down on materialism. I raised my child to believe that they weren't any poorer or richer than anyone else. I certainly have materialistic relatives but that never influenced anything I gave my kids nor did they grow up to worship money. I've heard 8-year olds tell me that their shoes cost more than any pair of shoes I'd ever owned due to their parent's overindulgence. It just sicken me that someone that young is so materialistic already and it is only going to get worse. Self-motivation comes in many forms. Being self-motivated to earn money is not on par with a formal education. Many, many students are self-motivated AND educated. Hardly mutually exclusive. I think you would do good to tease apart what you think being successful monetarily means from being successfully educated. You can be both or neither and still be a good person.
Choice words from someone whose job it definitely was not to advise students or prospective students to complete or seek their educations informally, rather than spend more of their money or someone else's money on a formal education that wasn't necessary, wasn't a good fit, or likely wouldn't pay for itself.
The one thing that my mentor instilled in me was that it was meaningful to be part of something larger than myself. The widgets we sold were simply a tool to achieve that. I coached little league ball for twenty years and my goal was always the same with those boys. Personal achievements are fine but when you achieve something as a group, it is magical for all…… Now if wealth were my goal, I would clear out the company accounts and go sip boat drinks in Bimini. That isn’t my goal. Not yet anyway. It is folly to think we don’t need wealth to survive on this spinning rock. We do. And I distinctly remember this forum cheering you on when you sold your gold during last years spike in spot prices…… I have a team of people around me that are meaningful to me and I feel a true sense of pride when they succeed.. Being conservative does not align me with the love of money…… I lament the fact that I didn’t aspire to higher education. But I played those cards and now have to do the best with what I got. My wife too did not aspire to higher education and is far and away the sharpest person I know and she holds a very lucrative position in a major university. We both have high hopes for our girl and believe that she will surpass either of us and excel in higher education. She certainly has the knack for learning…. I do not begrudge a learned person. In fact I try to surround myself with learned people because each day brings me an opportunity to learn…. I will acknowledge that there are likely plenty of “high school dropout enlistees” out there that offer nothing meaningful to society as a whole. And I would bet a dollar to a bucket of mud that there are ten times as many that are building their communities and applying themselves toward meaningful roles. They deserve thanks, not judgment.
Awesome reply MD . . . and I love that "bet a dollar to a bucket of mud" expression. Never heard that before . . . a local idiom?
Once again, your post should be a sticky at the top of the forum. One thing I've discovered in life concerning many so-called "educated" people is that they are, in fact, book smart, but simply cannot think for themselves. They just don't have any common sense whatsoever. I'm not saying that each one is that way, but certainly many of them are. I suppose they're wired for learning from books, but don't know the slightest thing about how the world works. They eventually find their niche in some government job or some university job and never venture out beyond their comfort zone their entire lives. I prefer folks with common sense. If they also have a college degree, well, so much the better.* * As long as the college degree isn't in gender studies, liberal arts or some other useless endeavor that colleges are churning out these days.
