“Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune and real wealth.”
This sentence captures one of the most fundamental paradoxes of modern society, although it has to be said that it is an obvious one. From an early age we are taught to believe that the key to success is a degree, good behaviour, good marks, top grades and dutifully following the school curriculum.
Yet when we look at the most innovative and wealthiest people in the world, we find that their success is not built on what they learned at their school desks, but on what they learned outside them. And even when we look at successful and happy leaders in the small Czech pond, formal education tends to get a slightly wry smile from them.
Why is this so? Let us look at this phenomenon from several angles.
Table of contents
1. The trap of formal education, creating standardised minds
The formal education system was created mainly during the Industrial Revolution with a clear goal: to produce reliable employees who can follow instructions, keep to working hours and do standardised work. They can do simple calculations, write them down and memorise things by heart.
School gives us an essential foundation: literacy, basic maths, the ability to function in a group and a certain level of discipline. All of this is necessary to get a job and pay the bills. It gives us a living.
The limitation, however, is that formal education teaches us what to think, not how to think.
“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.” – Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist and one of the greatest thinkers in history
If you have the same knowledge as millions of other graduates, your value on the job market is average. And average value generates average income. You need something extra.
2. Self-education as a tool for building “specific knowledge”
Real wealth (whether financial or personal) is created when you can offer value that cannot easily be replaced. The modern investor and philosopher Naval Ravikant calls this concept “specific knowledge”.
“Specific knowledge cannot be trained. If it could, someone else could learn it and replace you. You build specific knowledge by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion, not whatever is in fashion at the moment.” – Naval Ravikant, entrepreneur and angel investor
Curiosity and passion. Let us remember that.
Self-education is the process of searching for this specific knowledge. It means reading books, listening to podcasts, trying out new skills, building your own projects and learning from your own mistakes. While school has a clear end (graduation), self-education is a lifelong process that benefits from the compound interest of knowledge.
Every successful person will tell you that their first project taught them far more than school did. It is not just about how to make money. It is about how to solve a problem and help society.
“The more you learn, the more you earn.” – Warren Buffett, one of the most successful investors of all time, who reportedly spends 80% of his working day reading and thinking.
3. The ability to adapt in the 21st century
We live in a world where technology, artificial intelligence and markets are changing at breakneck speed. The knowledge you gain during five years of university study may already be outdated on the day you graduate.
What is the one ability that, according to successful people and anthropologists alike, has been valuable for thousands of years of human history?
The ability to adapt, or in other words, to adjust and respond to change.
In this context, self-education is no longer just a path to wealth, but a matter of survival on the market itself. The American futurist Alvin Toffler predicted this very accurately:
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler, writer and futurist
People who rely only on their old diploma are vulnerable. People who actively take in new information and learn to work with new tools gain a huge competitive advantage, both at work and in life.
4. Real wealth means far more than just money
We often interpret the words “wealth” or “fortune” in Rohn’s quote in purely material terms. But self-education opens the door to a much broader idea of wealth:
- Wealth of mind: A growth mindset (the growth mindset concept developed by psychologist Carol Dweck), which helps you overcome life’s obstacles without falling apart.
- Emotional wealth: The ability to understand yourself and others (emotional intelligence), which leads to better relationships and a better life as a couple.
- Freedom of time: Once you learn for yourself how to make your work more efficient, invest or delegate, you are not buying things, you are buying back your time.
School opens doors and is something of a necessity, but it will certainly not launch you anywhere. That is up to you
Formal education is not useless. It is your ticket into the game and, in fact, a certain necessity in the early stage. It gives you a map and a compass. But how far you go, what treasures you discover along the way and what house you build at the end of the journey depends entirely on your own initiative, curiosity and willingness to keep learning even when nobody is making you.
The ability to go against what everyone else is doing. Adapting and responding to change is essential.
While a living gives you the chance to survive, self-education gives you the chance to truly live.
