Is Education Enough?

It used to be...go to school, get an education and get a good job. Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad brilliantly illuminates how education alone is not enough. Indeed, the world is smaller and flatter. Global competition is a given. In the evolution of free markets, business and owning a piece of the American Dream, is education enough?

Five hundred years ago it was kings and queens (entitlement thinking) , a hundred years ago it was the nation (power thinking), fifty years ago it was the corporation (capitalistic thinking), twenty years ago it was the educated (scientific thinking), today it is the entrepreneur (what works thinking). And what works today is applied knowledge/wisdom. Today's entrepreneurs are the tinkering crafts and tradesman of our time. The applicable "trade" here is owning your own means of production and fulfillment.

We live in a knowledge based society. Do you want smaller challenges or greater skills? Education Inc... Knowledge is a learned. Experience is earned. Wisdom is discerned. The watershed moment when education, knowledge, experience and wisdom converge and flow downstream, as one, is within application (action). Entrepreneurialsim is the new post-graduate course work. However, it's often best served with ongoing education, knowledge, experience and wisdom. Without these things, consequences precipitate. As an example, very few know how to actually analyze, discern and distinguish a viable, sustainable and worthy business "opportunity". Thus, most businesses fail in their first few years.

Education is the freshman class
Knowledge is the sophmore class
Experience is the junior class
Wisdom is the senior class
Entrepreneurialsim (action) is graduate level course work

If you want to compress your schooling and graduate sooner...become and entrepreneur and use education, knowledge and wisdom to serve your mission. Entrepreneurship is a river which flows into the big sea called your future. Floating into the sea is certain. However, which paricular sea you flow into is always defined by watershed moments.

All of this presupposes you are an epic player in a larger story. A larger "love" story with deeper meaning and bigger consequences. "Use the force Luke..." Obewan's whisper to Luke Skywalker. "Do the right thing with the ring..." Frodo's haunting will. Fairytales you say? GK Chesteron said it best, "The reason fairytales are true is not because they tell us dragons are real, but because they show us how dragons can be slain."

You've a dragon after you and thus, you must understand, you are meant and designed for this noble battle, this adventure and rescuing beauty in this world. It's an epic tale.

My hope is that these words might rescue a piece of beauty in you, invigorate the soldier to serve a noble mission and activate the winsome warrier within this Indiana Jones treasure hunt called life. [Jeff Olson]