TRUE SUCCESS

The innovative methods of Teaching have created more certified professionals and degree holders.  Are they knowledgeable?  There are lot of qualified people to do various jobs these days but are they are educated?  Is there a link between Knowledge and Certification, Education and Qualification in the real World?  Great Leaders in many spectrum of life have mostly been dropouts.

When we go to a Physician, we normally do not look at his Certificates but conduct a due-diligence of his success ratio and experience.  The Certificate or the Grades does not matter much.  Here, the importance is given more to the Knowledge of handling similar ailments.  Many of us would still remember the Home-Medicine prepared by our elders which did wonders to our health.  This is knowledge at work.

We find people who are qualified to do a job sitting in various positions in the office and very many solutions have come from people who derived it through their own experience.  This is education gained through experience, at display.  The world educates you through various means and modes.  All one needs is a good pair of eyes and ears to get it in.  To gain this education one does not require any qualification.  One only needs to know the knack of identifying the source of education and wisdom from things that are happening around.

This brings to another interesting terminology, one that is most commonly used; Experience.  A Salesperson who has a fantastic product, goes out selling it and wherever he goes, people just buy it without raising any questions.  If he has been doing this for over a decade, can he be called as a Salesperson with a decade of experience?  Surely, not.  Doing the same thing repeatedly without any rejections and problems, is not experience.  Experience is the extract of suffering.

Many lower ranked workers often provide practical and viable problems to great many problems that normally skip the eyes of the Engineers and Managers.  This is sheer experience and nothing to do with Qualification or Certification.  The application of knowledge is more important irrespective of the source from which it is drawn.  Wisdom gained through formal education or from the real world are one and the same.  The timely usage is what matters.

Many of the readers who are 40+ in age would remember how small the mouth of a toothpaste was before.  A leading toothpaste manufacturing company was having a brain storming session with their top brass on how to increase the Sales.  Hours were spent without agreeing on any marketing strategy until one unknown Junior staff who was there to assist the gathering whispered a simple message to the CEO that changed everything and increased the sales by 40%.  All he said to the CEO was to increase the size of the mouth of the Toothpaste so people would consume more without noticing.

A good idea or expression of wisdom does not necessarily have to come from a certified or qualified person.  It is only a notion and an expectation that people who have gone through the formal education would generally develop such wisdom.  But it is not mandatory.  Wisdom and Knowledge sees no age, caste or creed to enter one’s mind.

Unfortunately, these days, the measure of success is predominantly derived based on the Status and Net Worth.  This wrong notion needs to change.  By now, we all realize that all Rich and Famous are not knowledgeable and not all knowledgeable are Rich and Famous. We may have few exceptions.  This clearly establishes that Status and Net Worth cannot be the measure of one’s success.  Knowledge and Wisdom, one gains is permanent and the Status and Net Worth are temporary situations in life.  A person can be defined as successful if he leaves positive imprints wherever he goes and brings in happiness to people.

(The above article was written as an Editorial for publication in Jan. 2019 issue of PRINCE'S VOICE - my Community eMagazine.)