You may be well aware of the success stories of billionaires who dropped out of school.

Ellen Degeneres, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg… the list goes on.

But they didn’t drop out of college out of a desire to lounge around their patio and do nothing all day.

They did it because it was a decision that moved them towards their own direction. It propelled them to action, a risk that built the empire they’ve envisioned themselves having.

Many of these wealthy individuals continue to learn and hone their knowledge to this day.

Here are some habits that these elite people do to enrich their knowledge:

• Bill Gates reads 50 books a year
• Mark Cuban dedicates 3 hours a day to reading
• Mark Zuckerberg aims to read a book every 2 weeks

And if that wasn’t enough, a study of 1200 people found that reading is a pastime that they all enjoy.

Needless to say, successful people enjoy reading. They’re always educating themselves, and they are intrinsically driven to carry out their goals.

But is there anything that goes deeper than that? The why?

And can you extract some takeaways to follow the same path too?

Let’s dive into it!

What is success to you?

Success can mean entirely different reasons from person to person. It certainly doesn’t mean copying the replica of someone you just stumbled upon on social media. Nor does it mean mirroring the likes of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

They have their own purpose. You have yours.

Then, it begs the question, what does success mean to you? As a general rule, success could encapsulate important areas of your life. Family, relationships, career, and personal growth are common factors that people actively try to improve in their lives.

Since the definition varies, it can be hard to excavate what it means to you versus what you’ve been conditioned to think it means. Society has implanted the definition of success as one forward path—but not everyone’s destined to become the next big tech CEO.

This distinction is vitally important to reflect upon. Knowing what you want primes you towards the path to scale the mountain of your dreams, not that of others.

The bottom line is: everyone wants to achieve success in one way or another, and not one’s viewpoint likens that of another. Usually, success could mean feeling fulfilled with the things you’re investing your time in; or happiness and health; or being loved and a beacon for inspiration by other people and loved ones.

When in doubt, think of Warren Buffet’s 25/5 Rule:

• Write down 25 of your top goals in your career
• Narrow it down to the topmost five goals in the list
• Cross everything else out that’ll get in the way of the top goals

While this rule’s main intention is for people’s careers, you can tailor it to fit your personal goals too. Once you’ve narrowed down your definition of success, now you have to work for it.

How Modern Technology Changed the Landscape of Acquiring Knowledge

Technology and the internet have made self-learning easier than ever. Anyone can search for a specific skill they’d like to hone in Google and find a website that’ll help them get started in a snap.

You can find great courses online that can equip you with the skills to become a better employee. If you’d like to become a skilled specialist in education, education support courses and childhood education certifications can unlock that potential for you. If you’d like to sharpen your coding and programming skills, there are numerous boot camps online that’ll teach you a programming language of your picking.

With many avenues to self-educate, you have more opportunities than ever before to become a trained specialist in your desired field. You just have to discipline yourself to learn as much as you can. Once you achieve that, you’ll become one step closer to achieving your career dreams.

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What’s the Importance of Self Education?

Age plays no part when it comes to learning skills. Regardless if you’re a high school student, an unsatisfied employee, or a budding entrepreneur, self-education equips people with lifelong tools.

What exactly drives home the importance of self-education?

1) It will enhance your ability to think critically

Critical thinking skills are important both inside the workplace and outside. They grant you the ability to solve complex problems logically and strategically, which is crucial for business success. These are the people who’re competent, independent, and reflective — assets to any team.

By self-educating, you’ll develop and improve your ability to reason things out in a more sensible way. It’s a soft skill that can apply to numerous fields, making it a very important skill to possess.

2) You will increase your knowledge about the world

You’ll go through middle school, then high school, perhaps university, and that’s the end of learning, right? Nope.

The world has no shortage of things to do and discover. By self-educating, you’ll expose yourself to a larger subset of knowledge that can alter your worldview. It gives you access to new facts and knowledge that you never knew existed.

This can help you navigate situations of uncertainty better and understand reality through a wider lens.

3) You will create more opportunities for yourself

Let’s face it: you can’t become a master programmer or a trained physician if you’ve never put in the work to learn.

By self-educating, it’ll naturally follow that you’ll know more things. You’ll possess the necessary knowledge to help you grow. You’ll become more marketable to employers, and you’ll also feel better knowing that you’ve grown in a way you’ve never done before.

How do I Educate Myself?

So you’ve realized the importance of learning, great! There are many ways you can fuel your newfound motivation towards bettering yourself.

Here are some ways you can educate yourself:

• Attend seminars and workshops
• Find online courses
• Read educational, non-fiction books
• Search for ways to gain experience
• Find a mentor

Once you’ve taken the first steps, you’ll gradually become a more competent force in your desired field. Understand that there’s no fast route towards success and that stopping to enjoy the process is just as important.

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