Thursday 11 March 2010

Dropouts are better than the finishers, aren’t they?


When you see the list of dropouts who made it to the top, you feel, oh really, isn’t the list impressive. Henry Ford –Ford Motors, Bill Gates-Microsoft, Larry Ellison-Oracle, Sheldon Adelson-Las Vegas Sands Corp, Larry Page-Google, Kirk Kerkorian-Tracinda, Michael Dell-Dell, Paul Allen-Microsoft, David Geffen-Geffen Records, Steve Jobs-Apple, Richard Branson-Virgin, Subhash Chandra-Zee TV, Jerry Yang-Yahoo, Mark Zuckerberg-Facebook, etc. It’s a long and a very impressive list. Almost every company is leader in its industry. An interesting fact, the age of people when they dropped out is between 12 to 21 and on an average it is 17 years. And the average age when they reached the pinnacle, is 32 years. When you are really young, new and naïve, hit it hard. That doesn’t mean you cannot do if you are grown up now. Just that you have more responsibilities now.

So what makes them so special? In my opinion, they were already graduates. They dropped out from the college indicating that they were capable enough to sail through in this dynamic world. They are beyond a degree, books and class rooms. They gave finest institutions to the world. They knew what they wanted to do. They knew where their heart was. They had courage to follow their guts. They had the capacity to risk their life. You don’t get chance to get into Stanford and Harvard schools every day. Yet they did what they did. Had they completed their designed courses and colleges, they would have been working in some company with a lot lower salary, lot lower satisfaction and killing their creativity and belief without feeding it enough.

Steve Jobs, among the most influential, biggest industry trend setter, dropped out because he didn’t find value in the class rooms. Schools should not be meant to train or discipline minds, it should encourage pushing limits of mind, exploring and traveling uncharted territory. Life should be made disciplined, not mind. A disciplined mind would always think lot of times before venturing into a risky preposition, resulting mostly in postponing the idea.

There are people who have dropped out but do not figure out in the list. I guess they really needed degrees to make it big, if at all they wanted to. They lacked in passion and vision. They lacked in energy and belief. People who are trained and made it to big, well they were supposed to. They were trained to make it big. People who are trained and yet to make big, well they need to do things differently now. They need to do things the way they never did, to achieve what they never have.

fOoD fOr ThOuGhT: Listen to your heart and do what you want. Don’t get bogged down because of society. At the same time be realistic. If you know that you are not a Steve Jobs, nor you have an idea, nor you have any clue what you want in life, follow the herd. Be in majority. Complete your degrees, make your parents proud and be satisfied, otherwise take risk and do what you want to do!

21 comments:

  1. :)))

    very true...
    but many few could actually stand against...and do that....

    u knw its hard.... to concentrate and listen to ur heart... beacuse when surroundings are against u.... even heart speks thr language..

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  2. truer words were never spoken...learning starts when education ends.

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  3. @Chakoli: The heart always say correct in first instance. But when you give second, third thoughts, things look different. You try to convince your heart, heart becomes confused and then gives up to your wish...

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  4. @Nalini: Schools and colleges always provided information, lots of it. But actual education always happened at our home, among friends, in crisis, in managing an event, in office, etc...agreed!

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  5. @Deepa: Thnx a lot for the appreciation. Showing off on my blog... :))

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  6. i believe not everyone knows their potential in the beginning.. artistic and innovative talents come in rare, and thus the "ordinary" ones in order to be "extraordinary" need to go through the system of education in order to find their niche.. it is very relative, depends upon person to person..
    however i agree that the quest to find your forte is a difficult one.

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  7. Hi, came here via indiblogger..."Life should be made disciplined, not mind"...so true...nice post!

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  8. Totally agree with you!!!
    Dropouts rock!! i am one of them ;-)

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  9. I can totally relate to your post! I am a 11th grade student studying in Mumbai, and I feel schools & colleges here make us study and not learn. The examples that you cited in this post are those who had a passion and a fire in them to do something in their life. Dropping out would have been a risk, but we're glad that they did so, isn't it?

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  10. @thoughtfulrandomness: Yeah, it depends person to person!

    @methodinmymadness: Thnx a lot!

    @Azad: Hahhahaa...hope to see your name up there sometime...

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  11. @Parth: Oh, you are going through it...Each individual's mind is more powerful than the energy generated from a nuclear reaction. It is just that we are tamed right from the beginning. We are made to learn the existing rather than explore the unseen!

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  12. yes... it does... and so we fail na!!
    hw many actually try to listen to thr hearts!!!:((((

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  13. So true..yet seems soooo impossible

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  14. @Chakoli: So true...

    @Ana_treek: Thnx a lot!

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  15. NIce post...we tend to confuse our minds with other minds....many times our own thoughts get adultarated by others...Blv the right and walk that way....anmd we all r in a learning process til the end of our lives...and smtimes after our death we teach others also...
    do find time to visit my space too:
    http://rohini-myweirdestdreams.blogspot.com/
    www.rohinirojindar.blogspot.com

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  16. the school days blog has just put a smile on my face..its the only time in ur life dat u wish u can relive. no other experience in this life can top one's school life..

    Good one...cheers !!!

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  17. formal education can only give you a direction in life..n dat too a vague one...which might be filled with too many influences.

    one has to take the wrong diection once or twice in their lives to understand their true calling in life..!!!

    So i kind of think that dropouts are not better than finishers but were smart enough to realize their true calling in life way earlier than the finishers.

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  18. @Rohini: Great thoughts..."and smtimes after our death we teach others also..." just touched me.

    Thnx a lot. Will definitely visit the blogs...

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  19. @Suruchi: You are correct, school days are best ones!

    And I totally agree, dropouts are much more smarter...cheers.

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  20. Very true.
    There are Indians also in this category. I do not remember who.

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  21. The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought you have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention. send fax online easy

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