Bill gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve jobs dropped out of school and they are billionaires. Fact.
There are many graduates who have degrees and are jobless. Fact.
Should we drop out of school so that we become millionaires? Did Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg become billionaires because they dropped out of college or in spite of dropping out of college? Are the unemployed graduates jobless because they have degrees or in spite of having degrees?
It is true that Victor Wanyama makes millions per week using his ‘talent’. So, people often argue that using your talent will make you a millionaire. Is that so?
When Wanyama was nurturing his talent at Kamukinji High school he used to play with at least 22 other gifted young men who shared his big dreams of becoming football stars. We know Wanyama is a millionaire. Where are the other 22? How much do they make per week? If Wanyama is the only successful product of Kamukunji football team, then the success rate is 1 out of 22 which is a meagre 4.5 percent. Wanyama’s success is therefore an exception rather than the norm. Unless we want to say that Wanyama was the only talented young man at Kamukunji high school.
If you went to Kapkenduiywo Primary School and found Kimani Maruge, aged 84 years, seated in standard one class, you will not go round saying that children in standard one are aged 84 years. But we often make this mistake when we talk about success. Survivorship bias.
We tend to focus on those who survive and never talk about those who did not. If we give examples of school drop outs who are millionaires, we should also highlight the plight of school dropouts who are in abject poverty.
If we talk about those who followed their passion and became successful, we should also talk about those who followed their passion and did not succeed.
If we talk about people who are wealthy because of their talent, we should also talk about those who are talented and are not wealthy. The truth is, most wealthy people are not necessarily the most talented.
Maybe the real talent is the ability to survive. The human race has not been able to survive and colonize the earth by following passions, but by making calculated moves, spreading their risk and grabbing opportunities.
In fact, most of us do not have the so called passion. We just want to survive. Besides, if some of us followed our passions we would cause harm to society and ourselves. If someone has a passion for sleeping, It is unethical to encourage such a person to follow his passion.
My point is this: maybe we should assume we are not Bill Gates, assume we are not Mark Zuckerberg, assume we are not talented.
Let’s start from there and do what we need to do to increase our chances of survival.
Life is life
Fabio