A country preacher once said something that is one of the most intelligent things I have ever heard.

He said “be who you is, because if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t.”

Ok, class dismissed. Ha

So many times in life we are tempted to try and be someone other than who we really are. What the country preacher said is so very true and one of the greatest pieces of advice you can ever hear. Just be who you are. That advice is good in our personal life as well as in our business life.

The best I can tell, education can only take you so far. Wisdom and understanding is really what we all should be seeking. Education teaches you the knowledge of a subject but it is wisdom and understanding that allow you to know how to use the knowledge.

I like looking at the history of successful people and how they made it. The following is a list of a few billionaires who made it and never graduated high school. Not college, high school. John D Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Francois Pinault and Richard Branson never graduated. You know John D. and Henry Ford’s history but did you know the guy who invented Gucci, Christie’s, Samsonite and Puma was Francois Pinault who quit high school because all the kids made fun of him for being poor? Did you know Richard Branson suffered from dyslexia and quit high school at 16 and went on to overseen 500 companies? These were just a few billionaires. You would be surprised at how many successful tech companies were started by high school and college dropouts.

My point is this. Like the country preacher said, just be who you are. Education is great but the two things we should seek is wisdom and understanding. It is those two things that enable you to become who you really were meant to be. KT