4 Traits More Important to the Market Than a Fancy Degree
You know who cares if you went to an Ivy League school? Massive corps looking for a mailroom clerk and your mom. You know who doesn’t care? Everyone you want to do business with. If they are going to give you their money, they want to know you can do the job, not where you learned to do something in the same line of work as what they want done. The same rule applies when it comes to working with other companies. If you run a startup, or you’re a contractor or you are coming in as an employee to learn the system, where you went to school is much less important than whether or not you can get the work done. The data is clear. Where you went to school is no indicator of how you will perform the work. Your potential is decided by how much you know and how you apply this knowledge in the workplace. No matter what you are doing, what you understand and how you apply that understanding will determine your upside or ceiling in the marketplace. Your pain threshold matters more than your alma mater. Criticism hurts and work is hard. Your ability to rise above, improve, and get your hands dirty is a much better indicator of success than where you paid for your formal education. Leaders are not always the best students, but leaders should always be students. Look, you may not have gotten the best grades in school. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get the knowledge you need to grow as a leader and make the best possible decisions for your business and your team. Finally, your attitude matters. I’m not saying be all cotton candy and helium balloons. Sometimes you
will have to be a jerk. The attitude most important is one focused on the goal, cognizant of strengths and weaknesses, appreciative of resources and committed to moving forward. When it comes down to it, your attitude really will help determine how far you rise. Roman Temkin is a successful entrepreneur from NYC.