Keep learning and growing – If you don’t have a formal education, get a self-education

We are moving into the work and business arena of my life. No part of my life was left untouched by my beliefs and paradigms programmed in to my subconscious mind from a little girl. Our beliefs and paradigms are and always will be, the glue that sticks to every part of our life, family, love, work, money, body image and spirituality. They may be more evident in some than in others, but they are always there. So do whatever it takes to keep learning and growing

It is all up to you

I believe that “Everything you do is based on the choices you make. It’s not your parents, your past relationships, the school you went to, your job, the economy, the weather, an argument or your age that is to blame. You and only you are responsible for every decision and choice you make. Period.”

You pay a price for every decision in life. You pay a price for the ones that turn out the way you wanted and you pay a price for the ones that turn out the way you didn’t want them to. You even pay for the decisions you don’t make, because your abdication from making a decision was a choice. Nothing in life is completely free.

I always made a plan to make money

I was considered tall for my age at 11, it was just a pity for me that I didn’t get any taller. What it did do though was make me look older. Because of my circumstances and experience I was pretty mature for an 11 year old. I was a mother at 8 and was running a home for four people from the age of 10. In one town aged around 9, I was able to help the local boys get their newspapers ready for delivery for a cut of their money. They got to sleep late and I made some pocket money.

We moved around a lot when I was young and in early to mid-1977 we moved again.

Money was still tight and the first place we lived in was a converted garage. I was getting taller, I realised that I would soon be able to get a part time job after school to help keep Douglas and I in food. When there wasn’t much, and I wanted some money to spend on myself as I was starting to become interested in fashionable clothes. That first home made it difficult for me to find any work as the nearest shops were in the town, and they’d rumble me around my age. I was never popular at school. We moved around so much that there was never any time to make meaningful connections, I was the loner who always stood out from the crowd, and probably looked a little desperate to fit in. I started Green Way Comprehensive School and got in with a pretty rough crowd. They were into shoplifting from the local shops and supermarkets. I tried it once or twice but was too terrified of being caught. Favours for boys was an easier way in my mind of getting some money, and I was unlikely to get arrested for that, especially in those times. My risk was getting a bad reputation and the risk versus the reward of having some money to buy food, was a no brainer.

Then my mother and step-dad, did the strangest thing. They bought a derelict house next to a social club and embarked on a massive fix it up themselves project. We would be down there every weekend, me looking after Douglas and hanging around waiting for instructions. The house was very close to a railway station with what we used to call a transport café next to it. Sometimes as a treat, or really when my mother and step-dad were hungry, we’d go in there for a big greasy fry-up. That was the way people ate in the 70’s. The owner and her husband took a shine to me. Personally I think it was because her husband was a bit of a letch, and I started working there on Saturday’s and Sunday’s. They didn’t mind much about my age and I liked the money. The only thing though was that the money got split with my mother and arguing wasn’t an option, so I just shut up. I eventually learnt to keep my tips separately and had so many places to hide money that she could never find it all. Finally the house was ready to live in. I couldn’t believe it – a real bedroom of my own. I carried on working in the café but my biggest challenge was that the customers knew I was young. Older men, mostly married, would hit on me all the time and if was very nerve racking. My mother seemed to think it was all very funny. After a while I couldn’t take it anymore. One of the more decent blokes who had a daughter my age, ran a market shop. That’s a shop that buys clothes, gifts, bric-a-brac wholesale and sells it on. You never got the same stock twice. He offered me a job in the afternoons after school and all day on Saturday. I was in heaven. I worked there on and off until we left England for South Africa.

Life in South Africa was substantially easier for me at the start. Both my mother and step-dad had secured reasonable jobs. Labour was cheap and we had a helper who did the general housework and ironing. All that was left for me, was the cooking. I was really glad that we were better off, as it meant that I could have it a little easier. I had almost 18 months of being a “pseudo regular teenager”. I could do after school activities, and see some friends, as long as I looked after my half-brother. Then suddenly there was a massive shift in my mother, I only found out years later that she was having an affair with the man who eventually become her third husband. She became impossible and I decided I had to find a way to get money. In the 1980’s in South Africa kids of school going age didn’t have part time jobs; my only way out was to leave school. I could do this with a Standard 8 school leaver’s certificate, which is the equivalent of GCSEs in England, and I could do it without my mother’s consent. That was it I was going to be free.

Self-Education

The price I paid to extricate myself from the clutches of my mother was a high school diploma. This started long before we moved to South Africa though. It was difficult to focus on school work when I had so many other things vying for my time and effort. I needed to make money for Douglas and me however I could, and I had to run the house for my mother and step-dad. I loved sport and I played in any team and discipline I could. During a hockey game in 1978 I damaged my knee quite seriously, I spent almost 18 months in the Robert Jones immobilisation bandage and missed a lot of school. It was just too difficult to get myself to school as I had to walk about half a mile to the bus stop on crutches carrying my school bags. I just used to stay at home and do my homework from text books. I would get books at the library every week as my mother went every week without fail. Self-education was not new to me. When I completed the school year prior to the graduation year I realised that there would not be a college or university fund for me. On an emotional level I was struggling with my school environment as I could never fit in. I believe it was because I had seen too much in my 17 years, and I couldn’t relate to the various peer groups at the time. As such I couldn’t see any future in staying on to complete my final year. In my singular most defiant and rebellious moment I quit school and got a job.

I did though know the importance of being what we called in England, “well read”, the need for knowledge in order to succeed in life. When I left school the internet had not been invented yet, so we still used cassette recorders and radios to listen to our music. Books were just that – books; no eBooks, no pdf’s and no free reading, and unless you went to the library, you had to buy them.

This was where I spent a lot of my money, on books. What I couldn’t buy I borrowed from friends and colleagues and I thoroughly raided the local Library. All that reading gave me a fabulous general knowledge and working in the sales driven retail shops gave me a good deal of common sense – both would stand me in good stead later in life.

Self-education was tougher before the internet. You had to read papers and watch the news bulletins in the evening to keep up to date, but one thing that was invaluable to me was that I could ask questions. I probably drove everyone insane as I was always asking questions. How does this work? How do you do that? What happens if I try this? I knew that I wanted more and as the years progressed and the access to information became easier through the internet, I managed to provide myself with a phenomenal level of self-education.

Over the years I have worked for and with some amazingly successful people, not all of whom have a formal education. I have experienced the snobbery of those who measure success against academic qualification, I have also met many well qualified people who were broke and unhappy. Don’t let the inability to attend college or university define you and your ability to create the success you desire. Being successful, usually requires you to do things that you may not yet know how to do, accept the challenge and learn along the way.

I am always learning

Through self-education I managed to further my qualifications and over the years I have continued to study – here are some of the fields I qualified in;

Office Administration · Basic and Advanced Microsoft Office · Interior Design · Productivity Training · Corel Draw · Public Relations · Master Coaching in the disciplines of: Consciousness Coaching, Life Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Time Paradigm Technique, Stress Bio Feedback, Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Business Coaching.

• I am an internationally accredited Thinking Into Results (Corporate Coaching Programme) Facilitator, through the Proctor Gallagher Institute.
• I have attended Guerrilla Business Intensive and studied Online Marketing with Alex Mandossian.
• I have attended online marketing and training seminars with Alex Mandossian
• I received Train the Trainer coaching and mentoring from Blair Singer.
• I have studied and continue to study Dr John Demartini’s methods, and he if a frequent guest on our radio show
• I have studied Marriage Fitness with Mort Fertel and,
• I have studied the relationship success disciplines of Tony Robbins and Chloe Maddanes.

I love learning and one of Chris and my desires is to travel the world extensively, learning from anyone and everyone we come in to contact with.

Having read Do whatever it takes to keep learning and growing I would hope that you realise that if you aren’t learning and growing it’s purely because you haven’t placed a high enough value on these critical success creating activities. To learn and grow, you need to read – not just the mindless junk which we all do read from time to time to gives ourselves some form of escapism – you need to read the classics; these are the books which change your personal and professional worlds forever and you can download some of them here.

Although it doesn’t always make you a better communicator, those who read tend to have a more varied range of words to express how they feel and to get their point across. This increases exponentially with the more volumes you consume, giving you a higher level of vocabulary to use in everyday life. Unlike blog posts and news articles, sitting down with a book takes long periods of focus and concentration, which at first is hard to do. Being fully engaged in a book involves closing off the outside world and immersing yourself into the text, which over time will strengthen your attention and concentration span – both being critical success factors if you want to go far in life.

Reading also expands your mind and stimulates your imagination – imagination being the workshop of your mind. Always remember this – you are only limited by what you can imagine, and the worlds described in books, as well as other peoples’ views and opinions, will help you expand your understanding of what is possible. By reading a written description of an event or a place, your mind is responsible for creating that image in your head (a vital piece of the success puzzle used by all the grand masters of manifestation), instead of having the image placed in front of you when you watch television.

If you are a leader, you should be striving to develop knowledge to improve yourself (by reading…), your company, and the people who work for you. To do anything less is to short change your ability to lead.

Questions:

• Have you stopped learning and if yes, why and when did you choose to make this decision?
• What are you doing daily to educate and grow yourself?
• How did the last book you read grow your awareness, and, how have you applied what you learned?
• When last did you study a book, not just read it, but really study it and apply your mind to its precious teachings?

Exercise:

1. Did you know that the word “education” is derived from the early Latin word “educo” which means to draw from within?
2. Go and buy yourself a copy of Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich. Don’t go the free download option – invest in yourself – spend the money – buy the book – do so to honour its creator and content!
3. STUDY one chapter every day. At the end of each chapter write down just 3 things which you’ve learned from reading that chapter. Now, back up each of these 3 things you’ve just learned with one or two actions – this way, you’re applying these lessons in to your life right there and then – you’re doing what all the greats do, you’re turning knowledge in to action!
4. When you’ve studied the book cover to cover – that should take you just over two weeks, start all over again and repeat exactly the same learning and actions process as you did in point 3 above.
5. Do this again and again for 3 months – in that time you will have studied each chapter about 6 times and by the time you’re done (this will be around a 100 day intensive personal development plan) you will have erased much of your current poverty consciousness and replaced it with a new wealth consciousness; you’ll find yourself thinking, feeling and acting differently toward absolutely everything in your life!

Here is a great podcast of ours that teaches a great lesson on The Steps to Success Download this episode (right click and save)

My profound lesson:

I’ve shared with you that I never really fitted in – I was never one of the “in-crowd”- I was never one of those popular girls – the “cheerleader clan” if you will. Given this, one of the most wonderful lessons I learned around the importance of reading was that reading made me interesting and attractive. This went hand in hand with my reading to become smarter. Having a library of information that you have picked up from non-fiction reading will come in handy in any academic or scholarly conversation. All the reading and learning I did meant that I was always able to hold my own and add to the conversation instead of having to make some lame excuses to get up and leave because the level of conversation was above me.

The more you read and the more you learn, the more interesting you will become to others – okay, maybe not to those who have such a huge ego coupled with such a low self-esteem that the moment you open your mouth and they realise that you’re actually really sharp and successful, they just can’t help themselves from experiencing feeling resentment toward you! In addition to this, you will be able to engage a wider variety of people in conversation and in turn improve your knowledge and conversation skills.

Those who want to lead, and I am one of them, must read… Reading and learning from peers within, and outside of, your industry enables you to grow as an employee, business owner and leader. Whether you re-read the same book or article to remind you of concepts, or read content on time management and organization as a constant reminder to work on these things, reading is valuable because it keeps important concepts top of mind. Over and above this, reading something you disagree with can have a big impact on your ability to think, both creatively and logically. Keep reading – keep studying – keep growing – keep becoming more on the inside as through this you will receive more on the outside (results)!

To your Success, with love

Suzanne Styles