The British businessman Simon Dolan has written in this month’s issue of Reader’s Digest that if you want to make good money, going for ‘higher education’ would probably be a costly waste of time. Doctors and lawyers need college degrees; those who want to make it big in business don’t – certainly not fancy management degrees which cost the earth and teach you little about how to make money in the real world. Dolan’s words should count: he’s worth a hundred million pounds himself, and has drawn attention to other hugely successful college dropouts like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.
We in India could draw up a goodly list ourselves, I guess, with Dhirubhai Ambani right there at the top. So these are my views exactly. You want to make real money (and don’t tell me doctors and engineers make serious money!), trust on native intelligence, hard work, willingness to take big risks and learn from experience – and get into business as soon as you leave high school. If you are even moderately lucky, all your doctor and engineer friends will be envying you by the time you are 35, and maybe asking you to give them jobs.
If, on the other hand, you belong to the (vanishingly small-) tribe of people who value learning for its own sake, because next to doing good to your fellow man it is the grandest pursuit, don’t let thoughts of how much money you are going to make deter you from studying whatever you really love, whether it is history or physics or some fine art. Go for it.
And God have mercy on your doctor and engineer friends, who will miss out on both counts in the end, neither making much money nor finding out how much fun life can offer to the bold and fancy-free...
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5 comments:
Sir,
I have the desire to open up a small business but I don't have the capital. My father is unwilling to provide me the money. How do I raise my finance?
I do also sometime reflect that college education was not meant for me.
Very true indeed! But Sir, I felt that you should have posted this in S.C. bemused.
Regards
Arijit, I cannot give business counsel here, but let me point out that 1) business is about starting small and growing your capital, not starting off with a huge investment which you are quite likely to lose entirely if you don't have it in you; 2)I have seen thousands of parents who are quite willing to spend ten lakhs on a boy's college education in the hope that it will fetch him some 'status' and security, but unwilling to let him risk a single lakh on a venture of his own. Think about it. (by the way, a lot of young people are starting up on their own after doing salaried jobs for a few years, which makes them independent of their parents).
And Sunup, thanks. I put it up here because I wanted to post something new this week, and the article in the Digest had caught my eye, and I had just put up a new post on the bemused blog.
Yes sir you are right. OK after getting a job, and after managing your own capital,you can start your own business. Why do then parents again discourage you from entering into business at this moment? They might give you the suggestion of promotion but will definitely heart fail if they come to know that you are going to leave your job and open up a business.Why so?
May I suggest that if you are still bothering about what parents say at that age (when you have worked and saved up enough to start up a business of your own), you attach far too much more importance to them than is good for you? There should come a time in everyone's life when one finally decides to live it for himself. I started at 17, and though that might be too drastic for most people, 25 should be old enough...
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