No Success Without Learning

With all that’s said about setting clear, specific goals, the fact that many – if not most – successful people took unintended paths to their achievements amazes me. Although their formulas for success differ greatly, persistent and mostly self-directed education is common to all their success stories. It’s mostly what these people learned on-the-street or on-the-job (not in classrooms or in computer courses) that generated success. Learning doesn’t guarantee success without hard work and application, but hard work doesn’t amount to much without knowledge and skill. Reinvention is a common theme of anyone doing well in a down economy. Reinvention is really self re-education.

I discovered that one article I recently referred to is actually part of a larger series available from Wall Street Journal Online called How I Got Here. It’s a thread of career/business success stories showing untraditional routes people have taken to be successful.

I won’t reiterate all the details of these stories here (you can read them yourself), but I want to point out that in one degree or another, each of these people had to learn new things before they succeeded. The list below summarizes what I believe some of these people had to learn, in part, to achieve their successes.

What Some Successful People Learned

Name	Things Learned to Achieve Success
Sam Schillace Google Engineering Director	Learned how to integrate AJAX into web programming applications How to start his own company centered around a great idea He said, “I’m not a huge fan of degrees. I’m much more a fan of going out and learning something that you know you want to understand. I think it’s very easy to fool yourself about your skills if you’re just in an academic program.”
Paula Shannon Executive at Lionbridge Technologies	Learned sales (degree was in languages) How to effectively manage teams of people Leadership
Mike Reynolds Founder of Earthship Biotechture	A lot of contemporary architecture is wasteful and energy inefficient How to get a contractor’s license What he had to do to write, submit, and get a legislative bill signed into law

Get Your Learn On

Who do you see as being successful? What part did learning or self-education play in their success? Do you agree that the knowledge which really accounts for their success is something they’ve taught themselves? Digest other people’s success stories and see what it was they had to learn in order to be successful. Also try to determine how they learned. Don’t wait for a teacher, education curriculum, or company training program to give you the knowledge and skill needed to succeed. Take the initiative to be your own teacher, to determine your own learning route, and to be responsible for your own success. I expect to see you soon in the Wall Street Journal’s How I Got Here series.