Specialized knowledge of the sort needed for wealth creation and success may require additional education. Hill addresses that issue here, as well.
At Home With Distant Opportunity
Online learning and home study methods of training are especially well suited to the needs of working people who find, after leaving school, that they are in need of additional specialized knowledge, but cannot spare the time or afford to stop working to go back to school. Today’s cost of living has made it necessary for thousands of people to find additional or new sources of income. This is often true of the older generations who grew up in a time when a college education was an optional luxury and not a necessity to get a good paying job. For the majority of these, the solution to their problem may be found only by acquiring specialized knowledge. Many are forced to change their occupations entirely. Many middle-aged and older, pre-retirement employees are finding that there is no longer a need for the position they have spent their working life filling. They are left with few options.
The Non-Traditional Student
The days of spending your entire 45 plus working years in the same job or even the same profession have largely disappeared. This has buoyed the demand for non-traditional educational.
Interestingly, the start of this need for expanded and lifelong learning finds its roots in the Great Depression, the time this book was written. What follows is a prime example, with a lesson that can go far for people facing career change in the new and ever changing technology age…
Stuart Austin Wier
Stuart Austin Wier was a skilled Construction Engineer who continued in this line of work until the depression limited his market so severely that he could not earn the income he required. He reassessed his situation, knowledge, talents, and needs, and ultimately decided to change his profession to law; Weir went back to school and took the courses he needed to become a corporate lawyer. Despite the fact that the depression had not ended, he completed his training, passed the Bar Exam, and quickly built a lucrative law practice, in Dallas, Texas; in fact, Weir was so successful that he was turning away clients.
Just to keep the record straight, and to anticipate nay-sayers who will say, “I couldn’t go to school because I have a family to support,” or “I’m too old,” let’s add that Mr. Wier was past forty and married when he went back to school. More importantly, by carefully selecting highly specialized courses, in colleges best prepared to teach the subjects chosen, Wier completed in two years the work that takes most law students four years to complete. It pays to know how to purchase knowledge!
The person who stops learning merely because they have finished school or college is forever hopelessly doomed to mediocrity, no matter what their calling. The way of success is the way of continuous education and the pursuit of knowledge.
An Ongoing Pursuit
Education is a lifelong pursuit. As long as you are willing to learn, you will always have a world full of opportunity open to you. Continue to learn and to grow—either formally or informally, and you will always be improving your life.
Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 – 2009
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hi Sean,
Changing your career to a lawyer and going to college is a big achievement for a man over 40 and one who has a family to manage as well. Stuart Austin Weir did manage to make a success of it. He proves anything can be done if we set our minds to it.
To continue to learn and grow is important. It’s an indication that someone is continuing to improving their life.
Jill.