Knowledge Is Always Your Most Valuable Asset

In your career, it can easily go both ways – success or failure. Both can also be temporary. You might be successful only for period of time, before you go back to failing and the wheels might continue to turn in that manner. But although it is ups and downs, it comes and goes – one thing remained.

The lessons you learnt that accumulate to be a library of knowledge sitting nowhere else but inside of you. The best part of that knowledge, wisdom and intelligence now gained and stored inside you. It belongs to you.

This is also why I keep on mentioning to students that time is so important. Because knowledge can’t be bought, the only investment to earn knowledge is giving it time. Making time to learn, study, analyze, connect is how you accumulate knowledge.

So if you are the kind of person, who refused to learn or connect, you will get less valuable over the years because you will not have anything amazing to offer.

Possessing knowledge also can really give us a feeling of self-fulfillment and confidence. Knowledge is something that – no matter how many trials we come across in our life – we can always falls back on. In addition, if we find ourselves facing a trial in life, knowledge can enable us to find a solution to the issue that boosts our self-esteem even further. What could be more of a confidence boost than knowing that we used our own skills and knowledge to surmount one of life’s challenges? You do not need certification to do anything I have just mentioned. You need to learn to ask and develop interest to want to improve yourself. And even if you fail after all those efforts learning, the lessons you have will still be of value to someone else or to your future ideas.

I started my first job as an ESL teacher 15 years ago and it went horribly wrong. And it was growing so slow. I did not understand Asian student’s weaknesses in learning English as a second language. I did not even know how to explain a grammar properly. But over time, I get better. Now when I work as top managers in different companies, I knew how to train my teachers and lead them to a common goal of the entire business. And I fix problems in five minutes, no longer five weeks.

And with those experiences, you will be surprised, how many more people you will meet will resonate with you – that forming network, and getting support for your career to get way easier.