Success Is Not About What You Know

August 23, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

Success is less about what you know now and more about how quickly and effectively you can learn and use new information.

This is the most important thing I learned in my 15 years of teaching and mentoring teens.

Success depends on skills. Build up a skill set and help others do the same and you will succeed.

There are over 20,000 high schools in the US and most of them focus on test scores and teaching specific subjects not success skills.

Schools were designed in the Industrial Era to pacify kids and produce citizens who follow society's rules and conventions, work guidelines, and their manager's directions.

This is perfect for working retail or on an assembly line.

The problem is that many present jobs call for creative problem solving - the type that does not follow specific formulas or directions but requires original ideas.

This requires learning and applying information on the go. To be useful, such real time learning must be efficient and effective - the information must be understood quickly and applied almost immediately.

The life success test does not involve filling out bubbles and answering multiple choice questions. It calls for providing the most affordable and advantageous solution to a problem a person or a group of people faces.

Again, this requires application of skills not being capable of winning on Jeopardy. ("Learning How to Learn for $200 Alex.")

The most important success skill anyone can use is being able to learn and apply new information quickly.

This is of course extremely useful in school because it can help a teen earn better grades. But it goes beyond that...

Being able to quickly absorb, understand, retain, and use new information in the age in which information grows exponentially is anyone's key to success.

I lay out the path to achieving this in a series of short lessons in my new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier.

The critics say:

"If you are a kid, get this book. Use it. Learn it. Apply it. Grow because of it. Invest in yourself. You deserve it."

"Oskar writes in a conversational and easy to understand tone."

"Through activities the students will discover how their brain learns, how it impacts their learning style, and finally, how she or he can apply that knowledge to learn 'smarter not harder'."

The book is now on sale for $19.95 (33% OFF the regular price of $29.95) until Thursday, August 30th. You can grab it here.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Hi! I'm Oskar. I teach, write, and speak to make learning better.

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tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids