Uneducated E-Book

Giacomo Giammatteo

• Herausgeber: Inferno Publishing Company
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 198

Beschreibung

Did you ever find yourself at a dead—end, not knowing where to go, or which way to turn?

I’m sure Steve Jobs did, or Bill Gates, or Leonardo da Vinci, or Ben Franklin, or any of our twelve presidents who didn’t have degrees. But that didn’t stop them. They didn’t give up. They gathered their wits, made a plan, and persevered. And look where it got them! 

Not everyone becomes a billionaire, obviously, but it *is* achievable. Many of the people in this book did it. You can too.  

Leseprobe

Uneducated

37 People Who Redefined the Definition of ‘Educated’

Giacomo Giammatteo

Inferno Publishing Company

Contents

Uneducated

1.Uneducated

2.What Is an Education, Exactly?

3.The Successful Ones

4.The Arts (Acting, Directing, Music, and Movies)

5.Jay Z

6.Madonna

7.Steven Spielberg

8.Robert De Niro

9.Sean Combs

10.Jennifer Lopez

11.Andrew Lloyd Webber

12.Business—Ted Turner

13.Mary Kay Ash

14.Henry Ford

15.John D. Rockefeller

16.Wayne Huizenga

17.Richard Branson

18.Engineering and Inventions—Alexander Graham Bell

19.Thomas Alva Edison

20.Nikola Tesla

21.Architecture—Frank Lloyd Wright

22.Fashion—Ralph Lauren

23.Food—Rachael Ray

24.News—Walter Cronkite

25.Politics—Abraham Lincoln

26.Benjamin Franklin

27.Social Media—Jan Koum

28.Mark Zuckerberg

29.Evan Williams

30.Technology—Paul Allen

31.Michael Dell

32.Bill Gates

33.Steve Jobs

34.Steve Wozniak

35.Writing

36.William Faulkner

37.Edgar Allan Poe

38.Jane Austen

39.Mark Twain

40.Ernest Hemingway

41.The Arts (Painting and Sculpting)—Leonardo da Vinci

42.Michelangelo Buonarroti

43.Last Look

44.Records

45.The World’s Best at a Glance

46.Summary

47.Bottom Line

48.A Thought

49.Where Would You Be without Them?

50.In Closing

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Giacomo Giammatteo

Inferno Publishing Company

For more information about this book, visit, http://giacomogiammatteo.com

ISBN: 978-1-940313-15-3 (ebook)

Copyright © 2016 by Giacomo Giammatteo

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-940313-15-3

Created with Vellum

This book is dedicated to my son, Tony, and my nephew, Nick. They have both achieved what is important in life—happiness.

Uneducated

Did you ever find yourself at a dead—end, not knowing where to go, or which way to turn?

I’m sure Steve Jobs did, or Bill Gates, or Leonardo da Vinci, or Ben Franklin, or any of our presidents who didn’t have degrees. But that didn’t stop them. They didn’t give up. They gathered their wits, made a plan, and persevered. And look where it got them!

Not everyone becomes a billionaire, obviously, but it is achievable. Many of the people in this book did it; in fact, 32% of the world’s billionaires are people who do not have a degree. You can do it too.

Uneducated

37 People Who Redefined the Definition of ‘Educated’

I told all of my kids to go to college. I tell my grandchildren the same. But if I were to meet someone who didn’t attend college or who attended but didn’t earn a degree, I certainly wouldn’t tell them life is over. It may just be beginning.

It might be more difficult to achieve what you want without a degree, but it’s been done before, and it will be done again.

It’s like driving down the road and coming to a toll bridge and the only payment accepted is a degree from an accredited institution. If you have one, great. If you don’t have one—don’t cry about it. Make a U-turn and find another way to your destination. It might take you longer, but the path is there. Work hard enough, and you’ll find it.

This is not a discourse to dissuade anyone from pursuing a degree. It is not a book meant to bash the education system, either. This book is meant to be an example of how someone might be successful regardless of circumstances.

Some people go through life with no problems—everything is laid out for them and planned so that nothing goes wrong. But for the rest of us, things usually do go wrong. Things do happen. And circumstances must be taken care of.

To be successful, they say, you must obtain an education. But what is an education?

What Is an Education, Exactly?

According to dictionary.com, the definition of education is: “the act or process of acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning, and preparing oneself for life.”

Take a look at that again. Nowhere does it state that the education must be verified, or accounted for, by an institution, or that a person must be educated in a particular discipline. People are so accustomed to judging degrees, especially by the institution who issued them, that they forget what education is about—learning.

It doesn’t matter where you learn something, as long as you learn it. You can learn through reading books (which is basically what you do in college, anyway), or by talking to people (classmates), or by listening (lectures).

When you can explain the difference between learning something at a university and learning the same thing somewhere else, call me. I’d like to know the answer. Learning is learning. It doesn’t matter where you learn it.

If you teach my six-year-old how to recite addition and subtraction figures, or if a teacher at school teaches her, what difference does it make as long as she learns it?

Professors/universities don’t hold a monopoly on the secret of how to instruct. Perhaps they will reach some people better, but perhaps others learn better in other ways. Who’s to say? And it’s not something you can control. It’s like eating broccoli—you either like it or you don’t.

They have schools for just about everything. I once observed a bricklaying class so that I could compare the professionals versus the old-school types who learned on the job. There wasn’t even a contest—the old-school bricklayers demonstrated a far greater skill than the others, even though both had spent the same amount of time on the job (three years).

Perhaps it was because the old-school types were able to choose their educators. They were apprenticed to someone—usually someone they selected—not assigned to be taught by someone. It’s a subtle but meaningful difference.

But bricklaying isn’t engineering, you might say. It’s true. Bricklaying isn’t engineering. It’s also not ballet, or carpentry, or language arts, or music, or religion. It’s not any of these other disciplines. It’s bricklaying. What difference does it make? Learning is learning. No matter what the subject.

Did Galileo have a degree in astronomy? Did he have any degree? The answer is no. His father sent him to the University of Pisa, but Galileo dropped out. Did this stop him from becoming the “Father of Observational Astronomy” or the “Father of Modern Physics”? Nope.

According to a report by Menachem Wecker in U.S. News and World Report, thirty-five of the Fortune 500 CEOs did not receive college degrees—that’s 7 percent of them. So where did these people receive their education? They got it where everyone gets it—books, other people, and experience. They simply didn’t have a piece of paper from an established institution to verify it.

Also, keep in mind that this percentage (7 percent) represents the Fortune 500—some of the largest companies in the United States. If these men and women are savvy enough to run these companies, wouldn’t they also be good at running another company? Of course they would, but if job descriptions are to be adhered to, they’d never stand a chance. In thirty years, I have never seen a job description that did not list some kind of degree as a requirement.

And why is that? Why do all job descriptions require degrees? Or at least most of them? It’s simple. We have been trained to think that way. We’re taught from the early days of school that everyone should go to college. We’re led to believe that if you don’t go to college you’re somehow a failure.

Please tell that to the people on this list, or tell the 32 percent of the world’s billionaires. I’m sure that news will rattle their cages.

Think about it. Millions of people pay anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands per year for a college education. Of course the institutions are going to tell you that you need a degree. And they’ll do their best to convince you that the degree needs to be attained right there, at their institution.

Universities are businesses. Everything they do is geared toward making a profit. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone needs to make money, but it does make you wonder about the pressure colleges put on parents and kids. And this pressure starts from the day you or your child starts school. It’s more like propaganda than anything.

Let me pose a theoretical question. Suppose someone attended a university for almost four years, but something happened during the final two months that prevented them from receiving a degree. Suppose further that this person had been at the top of their class all four years. Who would be more educated—the person who excelled but did not receive a degree, or the student at the bottom of the class who was awarded a degree?

I’m not saying this happens or that all people without degrees are similar to the one cited in this example, but it could be, so why not let other factors come into play? Why not write job specs so that performance is the primary screening factor instead of education? The moment you let education factor into a job description, it makes the other requirements secondary.

With something visual, it’s easy to analyze a person’s skills. If you’re interviewing a carpenter or bricklayer or ballet dancer, you simply ask for a demonstration. Ask them to get up and show you what they can do. Once you observe a performance, it’s easy to decide who’s better or more suited.

The same applies to any job. You simply have to know what to look for. A candidate might not be able to show you their skill during an interview, but their performance in past positions can. All you have to know is what to look for—and how to conduct references.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on to the real issue—How did so many make it through such a rigid corporate screening process to become successful—in spite of it?

Here is a statistic to chew on:

“Unwelcome news for educators: Net worth of Forbes 400 members known to have graduated from college is around $625 million. The average for those who never attended college: $652 million.”

—Forbes, 1990

Before you say, “Whoa, that was waaaay back in 1990,” remember that while 1990 was awhile ago, many of the world’s richest people have prospered with the advent of new technologies. Consider Bill Gates (ranked number one and now worth $87 billion) or Larry Ellison or Mark Zuckerberg (both in the top ten now. Back in 1990, they weren’t on the list.)

If anything, the years since 1990 have tilted the scales even more, with the rise of people like Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, those mentioned above, and a host of others.

The Successful Ones

(Those Who Were Successful in Spite of Their Situation)

Along with the thirty-five CEOs at the top of the Fortune 500 (or the 32 percent of the world’s billionaires), there are many other examples we can look at. I’ve decided to break them down into a variety of disciplines so that people who are prone to criticize won’t say “These are all from the arts, etc.”

The fields I chose to use as examples cover a wide spectrum—the arts, business, engineering, fashion, food, inventions, medicine, news/public speaking, politics, science, social media, technology and computing, writing, etc.

Examples can be drawn from all fields. These are but a few.

Special Note

While some may think it’s easy to make it in nontechnical areas, such as music, movies, real estate, and the like, the facts don’t bear that out. In the past thirty years, there have been more billionaires made from technology than from any other field (by non-degreed people).

Perhaps the reason is that more of the new technology companies were made successful by young individuals focused on getting the job done or solving the problem. Formal education never entered the picture.

It’s the way it should be in all industries. If you can do a good job, do it. We don’t care about your formal education or lack of it. All we care about is performance.

Consider this short list of technology successes. The founders of all of these companies (along with many others) were non-degreed.

MicrosoftAppleFacebookTwitterPayPalTumblrWordPressOracle (SW)XiaomiDell

You may think it’s more imperative that a person has a degree in this industry, where we’re dealing with high technology/engineering, but the record speaks for itself.

At one point, the two biggest software companies in the world (Microsoft and Oracle), the three biggest hardware companies, and the largest social media companies were all founded and run by non-degreed people. Is this a coincidence? I think not. These people had the gumption and perseverance to make things work, and they did—despite the odds.

So what did these people have that others didn’t? They came from different socioeconomic backgrounds, from broken homes and happy homes, and from a variety of ethnic groups. In fact, the only thing I could identify that they had in common was perseverance. Whenever these people failed—and they all failed—they got up and tried again. They never gave up, no matter the odds. That perseverance—combined with a healthy dose of innovation—drove them to ultimate success.

I learned a lot while researching this book, but one thing stuck out—it was obvious to me that optimism (tainted with realism) combined with perseverance and innovation is a key part of success.

If you don’t have enough perseverance, you won’t make it through the tough spots.If you don’t have enough optimism, you won’t even try.And if you don’t have enough realism, you won’t be able to make the tough/necessary decisions you’re bound to face.Innovation provides the tools to move ahead, but the other factors are the drivers to success.

Note

Some of this content was enhanced by articles found on Wikipedia. I used various other sources, like CNW (Celebrity Net Worth), Forbes, and The New York Times, and where appropriate, proper attribution/links have been provided.

I understand that some people question—even dispute—the accuracy of some information on Wikipedia, but most of the facts I used were checked and verified using other sources. I’m confident that when a fact is cited, it is accurate.

Almost all financial facts and figures dealing with wealth were verified using Celebrity Net Worth and Forbes. If there was a discrepancy, I typically cited Forbes. Other insignificant facts I did not verify but used the information originally cited. For example, if the source mentioned that in 1985, two million computers were shipped, I did not bother verifying that fact if it had no relevance to the topic of discussion. On the other hand, if the source mentioned a company was the largest in the world or number one in a particular field, I did my best to ensure that was accurate.

The Arts (Acting, Directing, Music, and Movies)

This is the industry I expect the most flak about. People seem to think it’s easy to make it in music. For example—all you have to do is know how to sing, right?

But that doesn’t tell the whole story. You only have to think of the people like MC Hammer, who sold a lot of records and made a lot of money, then lost it in bad investments or spent it on unnecessary items. It’s one thing to make money and another to invest and use it wisely.

The people on this list represent those who not only made money but then did something productive with that money.

Take Jay Z, for instance. He made a lot of money with his singing, yes, but not $500 million. In addition to his music, his business ventures include a record company, a nightclub, a basketball team, and a clothing line. His money is not going to waste. It’s growing.

The same can be said for Madonna, P. Diddy, J. Lo, and others—successful people who not only made the money but figured out what to do with it, and all without a university degree.

So how did they do it? Did they surround themselves with the best and brightest? Maybe so. But if they did, that shows an even rarer talent—the ability to recognize your own weakness and where to go to resolve it. That’s an ability not many people possess. If I had to pick a desirable trait for an aspiring CEO, it would be this one.

Tim Cook is quoted by Macworld (in the December 2012 issue) as saying, “Maybe the most under-appreciated thing about Steve (Jobs) was that he had the courage to change his mind.”

Don’t get me wrong—he had an unbending will when he felt he was right, but if you showed him differently, he would change his mind. Best of all, he had the wherewithal to surround himself with people who knew how to tell him he was wrong and were brave enough to do so.

With all of that said, let’s explore the world of music.

Jay Z

Jay Z (Music)

Shawn Carter, who most people know as Jay Z, is a rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. He may be almost as well-known to those outside the industry as the guy who married Beyonce. And that’s fine, as he would probably have never met her if he hadn’t been a success already.

He is one of the most financially successful hip-hop artists in America. Several years ago, Forbes listed his net worth at almost $500 million. According to CNW, Jay Z is worth $650 million. Combined with Beyonce, his estimated net worth is well over a billion.

Jay Z has sold fifty million records and has been awarded fourteen Grammy Awards for his musical work, as well as other nominations.

Jay Z is consistently ranked as one of the greatest rappers of all time. He was ranked number one by MTV in their list of “The Greatest MCs of All Time” in 2006. Two of his albums, Reasonable Doubt (1996) and The Blueprint (2001), are considered landmarks in the genre, with both ranked in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the five hundred greatest albums of all time.

Jay Z owns a nightclub and was part owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets basketball team. He is also cocreator of Rocawear and former CEO of Def Jam Recordings and cofounder of Roc-A-Fella Records.

He holds the record for the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard—twelve. Jay Z has also had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100 and is lead artist on one of them.

On December 11, 2009, Jay Z was ranked as the tenth most successful artist of the 2000s by Billboard. He was also ranked as the fifth top-solo male artist and as the fourth top rapper behind Eminem, Nelly, and 50 Cent. He was also ranked eighty-eighth greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone.

Jay Z was born and raised in the tough neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, but that didn’t stop him from succeeding. He was only twenty when he began his career, and he quickly became wildly successful.

In 1988, in Bedford-Stuyvestant, Jay Z had plenty of choices to make regarding his future. He could have been a drug lord, a street thug, or gone into any number of criminal occupations; instead, he made the decision to be a success in the music industry.

I say he made the decision to be a success, and I mean it. He would have had to persevere, as becoming a success was not a given. Plenty of others made that same decision, and he faced a lot of competition.

He must have made the correct choice, because something inside of him rose to the top, and through drive, perseverance, and hard work, he made it when others didn’t. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey, in the October, 2009 issue of ‘O’ Magazine, Jay Z said, from his own mouth: “I’m a thinker. I figure things out. I don’t have a high level of education, but I’m practical—and I have great instincts.”

The music business is tough; the rap business may be tougher. Either way, Jay Z made it a hell of a long way when others didn’t.

Oh, and by the way, he never received a formal degree. He has one from the streets.

Madonna

Madonna (Music)

Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958) is a singer, songwriter, actress, director, dancer, and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance.

She released her debut album in 1983, and followed it with a series of albums that attained immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV.

She has sold more than three hundred million records worldwide and is recognized as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records (no small feat).

Considered to be one of the “25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century” by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, she is known for continuously reinventing both her music and her image and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.

Many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including “Like a Virgin,” “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Into the Groove” “Like a Prayer,” “Vogue,” “Frozen,” “Music,” “Hung Up,” and “4 Minutes.”

Whether you like Madonna or hate her, you must admit she has become a success. She’s not only made a lot of money through her music, she’s had the wherewithal to do the right things with her money.

To move to NYC by yourself, especially at that age, had to be traumatic, but Madonna succeeded beyond her own, or anyone’s, wildest dreams.

She made a career for herself and influenced the lives and careers of countless others—and all from a young woman who dropped out of college. As of this writing, her estimated net worth is $800 million according to CNW—not bad for a girl from Bay City, Michigan.

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg (Movies)

Steven Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and studio entrepreneur. Over that last four-plus decades, Spielberg’s films have encompassed an impressive variety of themes and genres. His early science-fiction and adventure films were the forerunners of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking.

In later years, his films addressed social issues, such as the Holocaust, slave trade, war, and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the cofounders of DreamWorks movie studio.

In the 1990s, Spielberg won two Academy Awards for best director—one for Schindler’s List and one for Saving Private Ryan.