10 Life-Changing Things They Don’t Teach In School
How much of what you learnt at school do you use in daily life?
If you’re like nearly everybody out there, the answer is very little.
As a youngster in the classroom, it’s not something you stop to question.
However, as you grow older, you notice more and more gaps in your knowledge that you think school should have been there to fill.
Alas, school was not designed to teach you anything useful but to mould you into a useful and compliant worker.
So how can you make up for this deficit?
The first step involves identifying which subjects are useful to know about.
The second step is to go about teaching yourself those topics you think will be most useful.
To help you on your way with the first stage, we have assembled a list of subjects that they don’t teach you at school but are well worth knowing.
Combine them to become an unstoppable force.
1. How to sell
“To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business.”
We are all salespeople. It’s just that we don’t think of ourselves that way.
That’s because most of the ‘selling’ we do in life isn’t for money.
Instead, it’s for things like convincing someone to spend their free time helping you with an uninspiring task.
It’s arguably the most important life skill because no matter what your role is in life, you will at some point have to convince others of something.
So why aren’t we taught even the simplest tips?
Things such as:
Selling is more about listening than it is about talking.
It isn’t easy to sell something you don’t believe in. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible.
Selling is about transparency. Trying to ‘fleece’ your customers is a short-term strategy that always backfires.
2. How to fail
“To teach someone a real skill, teach him how to take risk & fail. He will never learn this in school. No non-risktaker can ever teach it.”
This one’s a biggie.
We all face failure in our lives, and learning how to best deal with it is seriously valuable to your mental well-being.
School doesn’t do a great job of teaching us about failure because it demonises it. If we don’t do well in exams, we are classified as a failure.
The negative associations of this teach us that it’s best to avoid failure, which has consequences for our personal development.
Learning the following three truths at school age would be a big help:
Failure is part of the learning process.
Failure can’t be avoided, so there’s no point trying to do so.
Don’t give up at the first hurdle. Most people quit just before they’re about to succeed.
3. How to manage your finances
“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
Is it really more helpful to memorise dates of obscure battles in history than to know how to manage our personal finances?
Ok, so money won’t buy you happiness but not having enough money sure makes you miserable.
So why is it we are allowed to go out into the world with almost no financial education? How much could finance associated stress be avoided with a few lessons on savings, mortgages and investing?
Personal finance is up there with the most useful things you can know because it gives you freedom. Not only from money worries but also the ability to live life on your own terms if you get it right.
And it’s not that hard.
Most people don’t realise that you can ensure you don’t find yourself up to your eyeballs in debt and living from paycheck to paycheck by following these three simple rules:
Live below your means. i.e. don’t spend more than you earn.
Save 15% of what you make. Do this before you pay your other expenses.
Build an emergency fund. Start with one month of living costs and aim to grow that to 3-6 months.
4. How to think long-term
“Our struggles are the short term lessons we learn to achieve long term success.”
It could be argued that one of the keys to success is the ability to think long term.
It’s not a bad thing to have short term goals but learning to live with one eye on the future is a smart plan.
Too many of us make the mistake of choosing the easy option now instead of the harder one which will take longer to bear fruit. Our need for immediate gratification is simply too great!
In truth, the ability to delay immediate wants and instead invest in the future is a common thread that runs through all success stories.
Remember, success doesn’t happen overnight, and it requires not just discipline but long-term planning.
With this mind, here are three prompts to help you think long term:
Ask yourself where do I want to be in 5, 10 and 25 years?
Write down what steps you need to take to reach these milestones.
Think about how the world might evolve in the meantime and how you might position yourself to take advantage.
5. How to present ideas
“No one can remember more than three points. ”
Everything in the world started as an idea.
But that doesn’t mean making your idea a reality is easy. Invariably, you will need to convince others of the potential that you so clearly see.
It’s for this reason that learning how to present ideas is so critical. After all, it’s not the best idea that wins but the most well presented.
So why aren’t even the following three tips shared by teachers?
People don’t want facts. They want a story.
Don’t use complicated language. Simple words are best.
Demonstrate clearly how the idea solves your audience’s problem.
6. How to make decisions
“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
On average, we make around 35,000 decisions a day.
That’s quite a few.
The quality of those decisions dictates how good our lives are. Even just one bad decision can ruin your life.
So how come this isn’t deemed important enough to learn about at school?
It’s bananas when you think about it.
Learning to make better decisions confers so many benefits that even some rudimentary teaching of the subject would pay handsome dividends.
For example, these three pointers would be a good start:
Don’t make big decisions in ‘hot’ emotional states. E.g. when you're tired, hungry or angry.
Give any significant decision the ‘overnight test’ I.e. sleep on it!
Research to see how other people have made similar decisions in the past.
7. How to solve problems
“Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.”
What’s the longest you’ve gone for without experiencing a problem of any kind?
Not very long is the likely answer.
Life is essentially one never-ending problem-solving task, and it's almost unbelievable that this topic is never formally discussed with school children.
As with decision-making, every single day involves some measure of problem-solving.
So why aren’t we teaching kids about it?
Even the following three points would be a step in the right direction:
Learn The 5 Whys exercise to identify a problem’s root cause.
Treat this cause and not the symptoms.
If you're finding it difficult to solve the problem, then invert it. What would you do to achieve the opposite?
8. How to start a business
“The biggest risk of all is not taking one.”
Imagine how much better society could be if every child were taught how to start their own company?
A whole host of new solutions to existing problems would be created.
But most children don’t become entrepreneurs.
Why is this?
Because the standard narrative is still geared towards specialising in a subject and then making a career out of it.
This is increasingly no longer the safe option.
Ok, so starting a business isn’t easy, but learning about some of the common pitfalls can help you avoid costly mistakes.
Here are some pointers to consider when doing so:
Start a business to solve a problem not because you want to get rich.
Everything takes longer than you think, so don’t quit your day job too soon.
Build your company in public. Share your journey as you grow. Transparency is endearing.
9. How to communicate effectively
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Communication is another thing we do every day so you’d think teaching that to kids might be useful.
And yet that doesn’t really happen in school.
Sure, you learn how to write but you don’t learn how to speak or listen properly - two very important elements of communicating.
If you are able to master all three, then you will become incredibly persuasive. It will take you less time to explain things to others, and you won’t need to repeat yourself so often.
Sounds good, right?
Here are three things to bear in mind when it comes to communicating well:
Repetition is the key to good communication. Don’t assume people have understood something if you’ve only said it once.
Learn how to listen actively. Remember, we have two ears and one mouth.
Don’t try to look fancy. Always use clear and simple language and visuals.
10. How to negotiate
“A negotiator should observe everything. You must be part Sherlock Holmes, part Sigmund Freud.”
It’s easy to think of negotiations only in a business sense, but the truth is negotiation is a daily occurrence.
You negotiate with your boss, your colleagues, your partner and your children.
It is so important a skill that Chris Voss’ excellent book Never Split The Difference should be on every school curriculum’s reading list.
Alas, it’s not, and so as adults, we often find ourselves on the losing end of a deal.
If only we were taught some of the following basics:
Make your opposite number feel like a partner in helping you shape a favourable outcome as opposed to the enemy you are trying to outwit.
10 minutes of face time is worth 100 emails.
Seek mutual gain. How can you both come away feeling like you’ve won?
At 42courses we focus on the key skills needed in today’s fast-paced, increasingly automated world. Essentially, we look for subjects you should have been taught at school but probably weren’t.
Discover more about our courses here.
