One thing that few of us can deny is the importance of a college education. After all, you learn valuable skills which can allow you to live a much more fulfilling life, one in which you are able to earn a high salary while working in a field you enjoy.
By graduating from college, you embark on a career, as opposed to just having a nine to five job. At the same time, college is seriously lacking when it comes to providing you with experience and confidence which is necessary to get ahead in the aggressive and icy cold business world.
This article will go through rules that are not taught in college, to help you succeed in life, regardless of whether or not you have a degree.
1. Being a leader or manager – If you do not know how to lead others, then this means you’re going to have to follow someone.
While there is nothing wrong with being a follower (not everyone can be leaders after all), you will forfeit a large portion of the success and fame that most leaders gain.
For example, if you’re a great leader, you can become like Henry Ford, but if you’re a follower, you will have the role of one of his engineers.
The fact of the matter is that the history books only record the achievements of Ford, not the many engineers who labored under him.
The biggest problem with college is that it teaches you how to be a highly paid employee and little else.
2. Negotiation – Negotiation is a critical aspect of the business world, and most college courses don’t pay enough attention to this critical topic. If you want to do business with someone, you must be able to negotiate with them.
If you do not know how to negotiate, you will often find yourself in positions that you would prefer not to be in, giving in to ideas and deals that you don’t really prefer.
The only way to become a really good negotiator is to practice. While college can teach you the fundamentals, you must practice in order to become a master of this art.
College has fallen behind the time when it comes to Networking
You would think that with the prices colleges charge for tuition and books, they’d actually be on the cutting edge of networking. However the truth of the matter is that colleges have fallen behind the times.
No college professor engage in teaching you how to establish a network, a network that is comprised of people. Many of these new networks are now being set up on computers, with the aid of the Internet.
On the Internet, you can build a network by joining a community and showcasing your skills. Those that share similar interests or are in need of your skills can connect with you.
While colleges can show you how to network in person, the Internet is clearly the future of networking.
Another important life skill is the ability to generate your own work, as opposed to expecting someone to give it to you.
In college, students are used to receiving work from their instructors, which just trains them how to be great employees.
However, to survive in the business world, you must be capable of creating your own projects, assignments, and ideas. This requires you to have a large amount of creativity and imagination.
The World of Business
While your college professors may be hard on you, most of them want you to succeed. In the business world, the people you are dealing with could care less about you: they are ultimately only concerned with one thing, and this is their bottom line.
These people will only deal with you if you can help them get there, and if you cannot, then they will not deal with you.
When conducting business, you must remember to be very carefull before trusting anyone.
Always do business with contracts and agreements, and never rely on verbal agreements, especially when lots of money is involved.
Keep your intellectual property protected at all times, and never tell people more than they need to know.
