Q: I am an architect and a young entrepreneur. It’s fairly
obvious that most of the world’s great entrepreneurs had issues with their
early education. Why is this the case? -- Akosu Paul
This is a very good question, and
one that I am often asked by students around the world as they weigh continuing
their studies against starting up their own ventures and diving into the world
of business. In addition, many also want to know how I was able to start my own
career while I was a young student struggling with my schoolwork, and how I
eventually got people to take me seriously as an entrepreneur.
Looking back, I believe that the
qualities that make for a great entrepreneur -- such as boundless energy, a
curious nature and, sometimes, an obstinate streak -- are not often attributes
demonstrated by top students in the classroom. So it should not be very
surprising that many of the world’s great entrepreneurs and business leaders had
difficulties with formal education.
Often, their frustration in the
classroom was a result of impatience: The greats were eager to get out and
build their businesses, which pushed them to drop out of high school or
forgo college in order to follow their dreams. For instance, Walt Disney
famously dropped out of school at age 16 to found his animation company, while
the great American tycoons of the late 19th century -- Andrew Carnegie,
Cornelius Vanderbilt and Thomas Edison -- had little or no formal education
before they set out to seek their fortunes. Some entrepreneurs, including
Carnegie and Henry Ford, the 20th century industrialist, came from impoverished
backgrounds and did not have the support at home to start -- let alone complete
-- their formal educations. Rather, they set up businesses to make ends meet
and eventually flourished.
More recently, the retail
entrepreneurs Philip Green and John Caudwell made their fortunes in the U.K.
after leaving high school and building businesses at young ages. And in the
tech industry, Steve Jobs of
Apple, Michael Dell, the founder of Dell Inc., and Oracle’s Larry Ellison all
dropped out of college to create their companies, and they all reaped the
rewards of getting an early start.
One thing that entrepreneurs have
in common is a talent for seeing things differently. This allows them to
identify important gaps in markets or the need for new sectors to serve
specific customer demands. But this ability often leads budding entrepreneurs
to rebel against the conformity that is common in traditional education.
I was no exception, and I have
written in previous columns that I was not great at school. I constantly pushed
against rules and authority, and I liked to challenge the way that things were
“always” done. My curiosity often got me into trouble with teachers.
But it was not just my attitude
that was different -- I had dyslexia. When I was a young student, this learning
disability was poorly researched and was often mistaken for laziness or a poor
ability to learn. At school I was thought to be slow, and indeed I struggled to
keep up. I initially channeled my youthful energy into sport, then after an
injury, I got into early business ventures, which failed to take off.
But my learning disability has
never been a setback -- it actually gave me a great advantage in business,
since I have been able to bring a different perspective to problems and
challenges, which often enables me to see solutions more clearly. For example,
I have always hated jargon, and I am confused by long and wordy drafts of
plans. So in Virgin’s early days, I would ask simple questions that others did
not. Over the years, asking the simple questions and striving to answer them
have become some of Virgin’s most important characteristics.
When I was a young student, my
restlessness and curiosity prompted me to set up Student magazine when I was
just 15. Running the magazine actually served as an entrepreneurial education -
I learned to effectively build a team, sell advertising, create content and
market a product. I was my own boss and never needed to ask permission to try
new things, and if I got things wrong, I did not have to fear the wrath of a
superior. After all, a willingness to try new things and fail is important to
becoming an entrepreneur, yet making mistakes flies against the expectations of
traditional schooling.
So in many ways, my education has
been my career. For almost 50 years, Virgin’s varied collection of businesses
and nonprofits means that I have studied and come to understand many sectors -
aviation, banking, media, hospitality and the fitness industry, to name a few.
More recently, my career has also given me interesting new perspectives on many
significant issues such as climate change, conflict resolution and global
health care.
In the end, solutions to big
problems such as these won’t come from doing school reports, but by getting out
there, asking questions, seeing things differently and finding the answers
ourselves.
Source: Richard Branson
