(Photo: ElMarto)
Michael Ellsberg has been a good friend since 2000.
In the last few years, he has made a study of self-study. How do the best in business do what they do? Using his findings, he has:
– Overcome a debilitating case of bipolar II (here’s how).
– Landed one of the most powerful literary agents in the world.
– Published not one but two books from major New York publishers, the second scoring a 6-figure advance.
– Found the woman of his dreams and married her.
– Built a well-followed blog on Forbes.com with zero prior blogging experience.
Most recently, Michael has interviewed the likes of fashion magnate Russell Simmons, Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz, Facebook founding president Sean Parker, WordPress lead developer Matt Mullenweg, and Pink Floyd songwriter and lead guitarist David Gilmour. Dozens of iconic figures pepper his list of case subjects.
Why? Because none of them graduated from college, and he wanted to learn how they educated themselves. His findings were then encapsulated in “The Education of Millionaires.”
In this post, Michael will discuss how uber-successful people leapfrog their peers without any formal credentials. By the end of this post, you’ll have a roadmap for hacking “job requirements,” degrees, and the lot…
In the words of Alfonso Bedoya in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre:
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”
There is a surprise ending to this post. Don’t miss it.
Enter Michael Ellsberg
A phrase you’ll see a lot if you search for a job these days is “BA required, MA preferred.” A recent New York Times article was entitled “The Master’s as the New Bachelor’s,” and ended with the following question:
Given how many people are now getting master’s to stand out from those with bachelor’s, “Will the Ph.D. become the new master’s?”
This anxiety around educational credentials has launched a million self-criticisms across the nation…
“Well, if I don’t have my BA, I better not even think about getting that ‘BA required’ job!” Or, for those who have a BA: “Well, that’s just like having a high school diploma these days. I better go back to school so I can spend two years and another fifty-to-hundred grand getting an MA. That way, I can stand out from all those BAs and compete with the MAs on an even playing field.”
The purpose of this article is to even the playing field for you, without the BA, MA, or MBA, and without the student debt. You can get those degrees for other reasons (if you feel they will enrich your life, for instance). But never again should you feel that they’ll give you a massive advantage in job searches or economic opportunity. For your typical job search, those advantages are massively overhyped. They can be sidestepped, outsmarted, and overcome.1
Forget the Formal Job Market—Focus on the Informal Job Market
At age 25, Eben Pagan had a resume that consisted of dropping out of community college after one semester, touring in a Christian rock band, and various stints at manual labor. Most people would say this resume qualified Eben for a life of asking “Would you like fries with that?”
Thinking that he might get into real estate, Eben signed up for a course by a real estate marketing and sales trainer named Joe Stumpf.
“I immediately recognized I had to somehow work for this guy and soak up his knowledge. But I didn’t know how I was going to do that. Here he was, leading big group workshops all over the country, and I was barely scraping by.”
Most likely, had Stumpf’s organization been advertising open positions (which it wasn’t), those positions would have had all kinds of job requirements attached to them. Eben, with his lackluster resume, wouldn’t have made the cut.
This, however, is where Eben began “hacking” the concept of job requirements and credentials.
“I started calling up his outbound telemarketers. These guys are trying to sell you on something, so they’ll talk to anyone! I told them about my experience at the workshop and became friendly with them. I found out they were all fans of Tony Robbins. Once, I found this set of Tony Robbins tapes at Goodwill for ten bucks, so I packed the tapes up and sent them to them. Things like that.
“One day, they sent me some audiotapes of Joe. I called them up and said, ‘The audio on this program is not good.’ I had a background in sound from my band days. So I talked to the general manager of the company, and I went to work for them, first doing audiovisual for their live seminars. I worked there for three years, rising up the ranks.”
The skills Eben learned in those three years, studying from a world-class master of marketing and sales, set him up for the massive business success he’s had in the rest of his career. Shortly after, Eben began selling info-products (mainly e-books, membership communities, Web-based trainings, and in-person weekend workshops) on the Internet. Today, Eben’s company, Hot Topic Media, now brings in around $30 million a year in revenue and employs about 70 people around the globe. He founded it himself, and grew it over a decade with no investors. He is a self-made multimillionaire, and would never have to work another day in his life if he didn’t want to. He runs his business off his MacBook, and spends his time either working from his home office in New York (which has a majestic view of the Empire State Building), or his beach-side home office in Miami.
The story of how Eben got this all-important first job demonstrates a distinction that will be crucial for you in seeking opportunities throughout your life, no matter the status of your formal credentials.
It’s the distinction between the formal job market and the informal job market.
The informal job market comprises all jobs that are not filled through someone responding to a job advertisement. Usually, these are jobs that are filled through relationships. Either there is a position at the firm that needs to be filled, and an employee at the firm knows someone who’s qualified. Or, the firm wants to bring a specific person they know to join the team, and they create a position for that person out of thin air.
If you do some Googling on the informal job market, you’ll learn something shocking: according to various estimates (on CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and NPR) somewhere around 80% of jobs get filled informally. In other words, only 20% of jobs get filled through people responding to job ads (the primary method of job seeking most people do).2
So, how does the 80% of hiring that occurs in the informal job market actually happen? The way Eben did it: by building up a professional relationship with people within the organization doing the hiring, long before the hire is made.
Connections. Referrals. Knowing people who know people.
This means that, in the vastly larger informal job market, human relationships and a solid network are far more important than GPA figures on a resume.
Yet, nearly all the educational and career advice you’ll get (focused on making your resume perfect for recruiters) optimizes you for competing on the much smaller and tougher formal segment of the job market, rather than on the informal job market. Seems a bit ridiculous, given that the informal job market is much larger and easier to “hack” into.
Employers Require Skills, Not Degrees
What’s the relevance of the course content for a BA or MA program to a typical corporate job? In most cases, absolutely zippo. What employers actually mean when they say, “BA required, MA preferred,” is that they want prospects with a certain set of skills, character traits, and attitudes. Specifically, they’re looking for organizational skills, the ability to follow instructions and make deadlines, critical thinking skills, writing and communication skills, research skills, and so forth. Plus, they want applicants with the general maturity, stability, perseverance, respect for authority, and work ethic required to get through a multi-year academic program.
In the formal job market, there’s no easy way for employers to rapidly assess all of those traits without some kind of objective screening tool. Educational attainment has become that screening tool.
So let’s get clear about one thing. Saying that a BA and MA is “required” to do a certain job is BS. These degrees are not actually required to do the job well. Rather, they serve as convenient screening tools for recruiters needing to wade through piles of cold resumes on the formal job market. That’s it, nothing more.
Your entire multi-year, six-figure education is reduced to a simple check-mark used to get past impatient screeners on the other end of a Craigslist ad.
For a person seeking a job or economic opportunity, this whole system of job screening is wildly inefficient.
What if instead, you focused on the informal job market, which is vastly larger and more accessible (especially if you learn some basic networking skills)?
The screening process in the informal job market does not happen through cookie-cutter grades, degrees, scores, numbers, or letters. It doesn’t happen through educational checkboxes and punchcards.
Rather, the screening process is embedded within human relationships: whom do you know, and who knows you? It happens through the layers of trust, credibility, and reputation that occur naturally within flesh-and-blood, offline social networks.3
Thus, in seeking opportunity within the informal job market, your networking, connecting, and relationship-forging skills are far more important than your academic test-taking skills. (I’ll be giving you some specific pointers on how to begin learning these real world skills in a moment.)
Formal credentials are not irrelevant in the unadvertised job market. All else equal, it’s still better to have more educational attainment than less. But that “all else equal” is the kicker, because within that is buried the “else” that actually matters in the informal job market: social-based credibility, referrals, your online and offline reputation, and your portfolio of demonstrable results achieved in the past.
Thus, the informal job market allows for many creative ways to hack “job requirements,” by simply developing relationships with the employers, as Eben did. People like to give economic opportunities to people they know and trust. Requirements be damned.
Create Your Own Damn Credentials; Create Your Own Damn Job
Most people wouldn’t dream of opening a designer wellness center, charging $500 per hour to coach VIP corporate clients on weight loss, if they didn’t already have some serious credentials to their name (at least a registered dietician, if not an MD or a Ph.D. in nutrition).
Unless you’re my wife, Jena la Flamme. Then you do it without even having an undergraduate degree.
Jena dropped out of college her junior year to travel around India for two years using the $6,000 she earned teaching English in Martinique. (You can get a great real-world education traveling around India on $3,000 a year, which is far cheaper than most colleges.)
She had struggled with overeating and binge eating throughout her teens, and was perpetually trying to lose twenty pounds. Through self-education in eating and nutrition, she was finally able to end her struggle with food, and lost the weight. She started coaching other women on how to do this, initially charging $100 an hour for her coaching sessions.
Reading The 4-Hour Workweek inspired Jena to build up an outsourced backend office in India, which allowed her to handle a higher volume of business and ramp up her coaching to the masses, offering one-to-many Internet-based classes. She began studying marketing and sales (learning much of it from college dropout Eben Pagan), and her business exploded.
Soon, Jena’s time became so scarce as her business grew that, if clients wanted access to her training, they started having to pay more and more for it — $200/hour, then $250, then $300 and up. Today, she charges more than a lot of lawyers and Ph.D. psychologists make per hour.
Her credentials? A large following online, free content in her blog and newsletter, a great set of real-world testimonials, her public image and reputation through great marketing, and her personal story.
Jena hacked her professional credentials.
By the end of this post, you’ll know how to do this for yourself.
Common Objections to Hacking Job Requirements, and The Yellow Pages Portfolio Fallacy
“But the higher the degree you have, the more you earn, on average!”
Yes, it is undeniable. The College Board reported the median income for various degrees back in 2010. This is what they found:
– High school diploma = $33,800
– BA degree = $55,700 (65% higher than those with a high school diploma)
– MA degree = $67,300 (21% higher than those with a BA)
– Ph.D. = $91,900 (36.5% higher than those with an MA)
Yet these statistics suffer from a rather serious problem. I call it the Yellow Pages Portfolio fallacy.
Imagine investing $1 million in the following manner: You are to call up companies in the Yellow Pages, in alphabetical order, and see if they’ll take $100,000 for a 10% stake in their company. The first ten companies that say “yes” will complete your investment.
That’s your $1 million portfolio.
Now, compare the financial future of two people who have an identical overall investment portfolio (stocks, bonds, real estate, etc.), except that one person also has this extra $1 million Yellow Pages Portfolio on top of all their other investments. Who earns higher returns from their overall profile of investments?
All else equal, the person with the Yellow Pages Portfolio.
Therefore you should invest $1 million in the Yellow Pages Portfolio, as well.
Uh, actually, no. That is the Yellow Pages Portfolio Fallacy in action.
All the example above suggests is that having an additional $1 million in net capital (no matter how moronically it is invested) is financially superior to having $1 million less in net capital.
The example says nothing about the best way for you to invest $1 million!
The above College Board statistics, which are the basis for nearly all public arguments about the financial advantages of higher education, are riddled with the Yellow Pages Portfolio Fallacy through and through.
All they show is that, on average, people who have invested more in their learning earn more. Big whoop. They will never answer the more important question: Is spending your time and money on formal credentials the best way of investing in your continued learning?
I’m not sure of a way to test that latter question with anything close to scientific rigor. However, we’ve seen that formal credentials have a much higher salience in the formal job market (which is the smallest part of the job market). Cheaper and more informal modes of career development, such as learning to become a great networker (à la Eben Pagan) have a higher bang for your buck in the informal job market, which is vastly larger.
So, my own unscientific guess is that, outside of fields which legally require credentials for licensure, there are far more efficient ways to go about investing in your earning power, rather than increasing your formal credentials. Just as there are far better ways of investing $1 million than in the Yellow Pages Portfolio.
“But degrees are an advantage in a tough market.”
Yes, and it would be an advantage for heightening my wife’s attraction to me if I showed up for our next date night in a custom $100,000 Alexander Amosu suit.
Talking about an advantage in absolute terms, without comparing it to the costs and benefits of other options (i.e. opportunity cost), is pointless.
To extend the analogy: Given the resources now available to me, are there ways I could go about increasing and maintaining my wife’s attraction to me which would be more effective, per dollar spent, than buying a $100,000 suit?
Using the 80/20 principle, I can think of a few things that would go 80% of the way towards increasing her attraction for me, without having to spend a lot of money. Perhaps a thoughtful handwritten poem, a home-cooked meal, a massage afterwards (or even something learned from, um, that section, in The 4-Hour Body). I could live without that last 20% of extra attraction the Amosu suit would get me (hot as it is), and save the hundred grand for other things, like a home for us.
There’s no question that increased formal credentials can give you an advantage. The question is, is it the best advantage you can buy with the amount of money and time you’re going to spend?
A master’s, for example, can cost two years, up to $100,000 in tuition (hmm, similar in price to that custom Amosu suit), and another $50,000-$100,000 in foregone earnings. Sure, that will give you an advantage. But the primary advantage it gives you is in slipping past screeners in the formal job market, where there are such things as “job requirements.” If you get creative in the informal job market (and outside of legally licensed fields like law and medicine), the notion of “job requirements” is—as we’ve seen—negotiable. Thus, the advantage a master’s gives you is far less salient.
I could think of a lot of ways you could spend $100,000 and two years that would give you a better advantage in the informal job market, over having a masters degree or even a bachelor’s. In fact, I’m going to outline an example of how I think you could spend a fraction of that $100K and get far superior results in just a moment.
“So… what should I do?”
There is no good data (and I don’t think there ever will be) on what the best way to invest in your own learning would be. There is only data showing that more investment in your learning is better than less. (Duh!)
In the absence of any data suggesting what the best investment in learning is, you will need to rely on your gut.
If your gut tells you that investing in your own continued learning informally would be the most effective for you, then don’t let the salesmen of formal credentials scare you out of it. The other option, of course, is to spend years of your life in an undergraduate or graduate program, dropping major cash on tuition, incurring foregone earnings, and going into massive debt in order to rack up ever-more formal credentials, so you can “compete” with millions of others getting the exact same credential each year.
If you instead decide to make more informal investments in your learning for success, over your whole life and career, my book is designed to point you on the path to getting started.
In the spirit of blogging, however, I’d like to give you a robust outline of how to go about investing in your own success in the informal job markets. This content is original to this post, and is not even in my book.
As I present this outline, I will assume that you are currently unemployed, and that you’re willing to devote full-time effort into finding employment or creating a practice or business. In other words, you’re willing to invest all the time you’d otherwise spend surfing Craigslist jobs sections, sending out resumes and cover letters (and hearing crickets), to hacking job credentials instead.
I did not follow the path below exactly—my path was much more random and meandering, and took about 10 years through trial and error. Instead, I’ve tried to distill what I’ve learned from this decade into something clear and simple that could be followed by a focused, determined person, in one year. If I were to do it over again, this is how I’d do it.
Without further ado, here are my 9 steps to conquering the informal job market within one year (at a fraction of the cost of a Master’s degree.)
Step 1: Choose Your New Field of Learning
Timeline: Month 1 (Starting out)
Figure out a field you’d like to build a career in. You don’t need to have great (or any) formal credentials. As I said earlier, the more creative and less regulated a field is, the more amenable it is to this kind of job credential-hacking. It’s easier to hack job credentials in programming, design, writing, sales, photography, multimedia, the arts, and entrepreneurialism, or in general “I need a job, any job!” type situations, than in accounting, law, or medicine.
So before proceeding to the next step, you’ll need to choose a field whose formal job credentials you’d like to hack. My field of choice was commercial writing.
Cost: $0
Time: An epiphany in the shower; a long walk on a beach; a few hours surfing Google.
Step 2: Showcase Your Learning
Timeline: Months 1-2
In this step, you will start a simple blog detailing your journey to learn everything there is to learn in this field.
But first, you’ll need to kickstart the learning process: Read one professional, business, or how-to book related to your chosen field per week. Choose a mix of classics in the field, along with some off-the-beaten-path books you discover through your reading and research. These books are typically written by active practitioners in your field; they are not the abstract books written by theorists, which tend to get assigned in academic programs. Thus, these books (written by actual, successful practitioners) will be infinitely more valuable in terms of streetwise content.
Then write one blog post each week detailing exactly what you learned from that week’s book.
This kills at least ten birds with one stone:
- You get the education of reading practical books related to your field.
- You demonstrate to potential clients/employers that you understand content related to your chosen field.
- You demonstrate your willingness and curiosity to continue upgrading your knowledge in your chosen field.
- You demonstrate your researching ability.
- You demonstrate your writing ability.
- You demonstrate your critical thinking ability.
- You demonstrate your creativity.
- Through your writing, you develop and demonstrate your unique professional personality and character, setting you apart from the zillions of faceless resumes.
- You develop and demonstrate your social media skills.
- You begin developing your professional brand, not as a job-seeker in your field, but as a thought leader in your field
Cost: $12-17/year in blog hosting; $10-$20 per book, or $0 per book at the library. (As Matt Damon said in Good Will Hunting: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”)
Time: 1 hour to set up a WordPress blog. 10 hours per week to read two books. 4-10 hours per week to write two blog posts. Do this for 2 months initially, so you can accumulate a portfolio of 16 posts.
Step 3: Learn the Basics of Good Networking
Timeline: Still Months 1-2
Being a good networker is not an optional skill if you want to succeed in the informal job market. It is the skill. You’ll also need to be good at your craft and good at sales (we’ll work on those in a moment). But without a firm base of networking, you’ll get nowhere.
Here is a 1-hour lecture I gave on how to become a world-class networker. It’s the best breakdown of good networking I know of, and it includes two live demos of networking skills in action.
I delivered that presentation to the inaugural class of Thiel Fellows: 24 people under 20 years old, whom Peter Thiel is paying $100,000 each to “stop out” of college for two years and build businesses. Since they’re not getting traditional formal credentials, these brilliant young people are going to need to learn how to get past the screeners of opportunity informally—which is what I taught them in this hour.
If you’re more of a reader, here is a similar post on how to become a great networker. In my experience, the vast majority of people go about networking in exactly the wrong way. The video and article show you how to be one of the rare few who do it right.
Following the advice in the article, find three business owners per month you already know (either offline or online). Over the next two months, have conversations with them about what their challenges are, then do your damned best to start being of service to them. By the end of two months, you will have six new fans. And those are very good fans to have, because business owners know other business owners.
You’ve started to build what I call a “social economy”—a circle of successful business owners whom you support, and who support you. Keep building this social economy as much as possible during the time you go through these steps. It will be your secret key to success in the informal job market.
Cost: $0.
Time: 20 hours a week for the first two months. After that, fit in as much time as possible between the activities of other steps.
Step 4: Within Your Budding Social Economy, Start Working for Free
Timeline: Months 3-5
Begin to seek opportunities where you can practice your skills. Offer small, light services related to your chosen field for free to people in your network.
If you’re trying to hack credentials in design, offer free design services. If it’s copywriting or advertising you’re interested in, offer free copywriting or ad design to small businesses you patronize. (Small businesses rarely turn down free services!)
Say, “I’m training to become [X], and I’ve been meticulously studying the craft to learn how to do it well [link to your blog]. I’d like to offer you [some free services around X] as I build my practice. I don’t expect any payment at all. But down the road, if you like my work, perhaps you can refer me to other people you know who might benefit from it.”
Cost: $0.
Time: 20 hours a week spent in a combination of networking to get the gigs, and actually delivering services. Do this for 2-3 months.
Step 5: Develop Case Studies of Your Work
Timeline: Still Months 3-5
For 10 hours per week (when you are not networking or delivering services), blog about your experiences providing these services as case studies. Lessons learned, triumphs, mistakes, etc. Ask your client if you can use their name in the blog post, and show them what you’ve written before it goes up (so you don’t infringe on their privacy). Otherwise, hide and change all identifying details about the work.
Cost: $0.
Time: 10 hours per week, during the same 3-month period as in Step 4.
Step 6: Develop Relationships With Mentors
Timeline: Still Months 3-5
For the remaining 10 hours per week of this period, reach out to authors of the books you read and blogged about in Step 1, asking to interview them for your blog. The more time has passed since their last book came out, the more likely they’ll be willing to do the interview, as authors are almost always thrilled when someone shows interest in past work. (However, if they’re in the middle of writing or launching a new book, forget it! That’s like asking a pregnant woman for help when she’s about to go into labor.)
Now you are in the process of developing relationships with potential mentors in your field. This will pay off huge over the long run (for your career, personal development, and inner fulfillment).
Cost: $0.
Time: 10 hours per week, during the same 3-month period as in Steps 4-5.
Step 7: Learn Sales
Timeline: Months 6-7
Sorry, there’s no way around this. If you don’t learn sales, you will never reach the level of success you desire. Almost without exception, anyone who has achieved anything big in life was good at sales; if not literally selling products and services, then selling their ideas/vision.
Read SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. In my opinion, this is the best book on sales ever written. The focus is on deep inquiry into the customer’s actual problems, needs, dreams and desires — through asking the right questions and listening well — rather than through sleazy pitching. If you’re only going to read one sales book in your life, that’s the one you’ll want to buy.
Once you feel you have a basic grasp of the concepts in the book, find someone in your social economy (see Step 2) who has some kind of business, whether it’s products or services. The bigger the ticket price, the better, as there is a direct correlation between the ticket price of the sale, and the integrity, empathy, listening skills, and caring you have to have as a salesperson in order to sell it.
Ask if you can sell for them, with zero base salary. Perhaps you can get a commission, or perhaps not. But at this point, you’re not doing it for immediate financial gains. You’re doing it to get experience in sales, and to put what you learned from SPIN Selling into practice. The reason you’re doing it in an already-existing business (rather than your own) is that you want to get lots and lots of experience actually selling face-to-face with pre-qualified prospects, not trying to find people to sell to! My own freelance income nearly doubled when I learned proper, effective, non-sleazy, high-integrity sales.
Cost: $16 for SPIN Selling. And you might actually make money in sales commissions.
Time: Devote 20 hours per week to a combination of studying the book and putting the techniques into practice in a friend or acquaintance’s business; devote the other 20 hours per week during this period to continuing Step 3 and building your social economy.
Step 8: Sell and Deliver Your Services Within Your Social Economy
Timeline: Months 8-9
You’ve got the basics of your craft in place (credentials be damned!), you’ve built up your social economy, and you’ve learned sales. Everything is in place for you to start earning real money in your chosen field. Now you just have to go out and do it!
Have individual meetups with 10 business owners — the ones within your social economy — over breakfast, lunch, dinner, or drinks. Tell them about the portfolio of results you’ve achieved in the last seven months, both online and offline. Have honest-to-goodness conversations about their needs (a high-integrity sales skill you learned during Step 7).
If they have a need you can address, use your SPIN Selling skills to get them excited about the idea of working with you. If they don’t have a need you can address, connect them with someone else in your social economy who you think can help them. (This is Networking 101: refer people to the best solutions for their problems.)
Tell them about the specific type of problem and/or business owner you can help, and ask for their best three ideas for meeting that kind of business owner. You’ll usually come away with several great ideas, and possibly even some referrals.
If you have been following the steps diligently, you’d have to get worse than a 1/10 closing ratio to not get a sale. If you can beat that (pathetically low) closing ratio, you’ve got a sale.
Congratulations! You’ve just hacked “job requirements” in the informal job market.
Cost: $0.
Time: 40 hours per week spent networking, conducting sales meetings, and delivering services on the sales you close.
Step 9 (Optional): Rinse and Repeat
Timeline: Months 10 and beyond…
If you continue to build on all the skills in Steps 1-8, you can carry on as a self-employed freelancer, working on your own schedule (often from a remote location), for the rest of your life. It’s not a 4-hour workweek, but it definitely allows you to “Escape 9-5” and “Live Anywhere.”
This is the lifestyle I’ve built up for myself over the last decade. As I mentioned, I took a much more meandering path than the steps above to get there, but if I was to do it all over again, that’s how I’d do it.
The steps I’ve described above take about 9 months, the time of one academic year. The cost is around $300, mostly for books (less if you go to the library). The entire cost of this program is less than the cost of 2-3 textbooks in college, and is an infinitesimal fraction of the cost of a year’s tuition at a private college. Yet I believe the results you could get from this 9 months of self-study and $300 will far surpass the career results you could achieve through a BA or MA program. With the right focus, these steps can guide you through the basics of getting started in just 9 months. Instead of birthing a baby, you are birthing a new life for yourself, of freedom, and prosperity.
Contest: Win 6 Months of Private, 1-on-1, Free Mentoring
The thing that frustrates me about all the statistics around dropouts vs. graduates, is that they always compare people who stayed in college, to people who not only dropped out of school, but who also dropped out of learning.
Take two cohorts of good, smart, motivated, ambitious 18-year-olds with similar intelligence, discipline, creativity, and work-ethic. Put one through a BA program, and one through the 9 months of self-study I’ve outlined above. I believe the cohort of self-studiers—the kind of people I spent the last two years traveling across the country to find and interview—will kick the BA group’s asses.
In the absence of means to conduct such a formalized study as above, I’d like to propose my own little informal contest.
I’m going to give one reader a chance to have my own mentorship on these steps, free of charge, for six months.
During this mentorship, you’ll have two in-depth phone conversations with me per month, along with follow up emails in between. And, if it makes sense, I’ll try to connect you with some amazing people in my network.
This contest is for any and all readers who were inspired by this article. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, if you’re a high school dropout, are in school now, or a graduate of Harvard Law School. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been unemployed for years, or are successfully employed now but wanting to switch careers.
The only rule for following this is: you must choose a field you have absolutely no work history, credential, or experience in. It must be a completely fresh field for you, starting from scratch.
If you don’t have full time to devote to this, due to school or work obligations, and can only devote your off-hours to this, no problem! I’ll take into account the whole picture of your life in choosing the winners. But no matter how much time you devote to it, the area you compete in must be completely new and fresh to you.
Here’s how to enter:
- Commit to yourself to follow the 9 steps above for the next 9 months
- Create a blog exclusively dedicated to detailing your journey of self-education along these 9 steps (as per Step 2.) It must be a new blog, not one you already own.
- On December 29, 2011 (three months from the date of this post), I want you to post a URL in the comments that links to a post on your blog detailing your progress. I will pick one person from these links to mentor for the remaining six months. I am looking for QUALITY of results achieved in three months, rather than speed of working through the steps. I would rather see someone get up to Steps 4 or 5 really really thoroughly in three months, than get to step 7 in a slipshod manner.
There you have it. My curriculum for excelling in the informal job market. Go out and make it happen 🙂
Final Thoughts
You might think that college dropouts who become successful are “outliers,” and if you look at the statistics, that is true.
But that statistic is misleading, for a simple reason pointed out to me by my mentor Victor Cheng:
Most people who drop out of school also drop out of learning.
If you drop out of learning, you’ll always be stuck in jobs that require little more than a pulse, such as mopping floors, or asking people about their desire for fries. That’s why most dropouts are in dead-end jobs.
However, there are people who drop out of formal education, while still maintaining an absolute passion and discipline for learning—informally, non-institutionally, in the real world (and without the tuition bills or student loan payments). Those are the types of people I interviewed in my book, people like Eben and Jena. They dropped out of school, but they never dropped out of learning.
I spent the past two years interviewing the world’s most successful people who have the least formal credentials for their success. I’ve interviewed almost 40 millionaire and billionaires, all self-made, and none of them finished college. In interviewing them, I was consistently struck by one thing they all had in common: a complete lack of regard for socially-sanctioned formal “requirements” for bringing success into their lives.
No wonder they have so much success!
I’ll leave you with a simple question: What barriers, check-boxes, and credentials do you believe in that are keeping you from the jobs, opportunity, and success you desire?
As you’ve seen, nearly all of these barriers can be sidestepped, ignored, or hacked. It just takes some creativity and a few months of work.
What’s holding you back?
Footnotes
- This approach works better in some fields than in others. I do not recommend trying to “hack” the requirement of a bar certification or a medical degree, if you want to practice law or medicine! This approach should not be used for fields that require state licensure, obviously. However, for non-licensed fields such as programming, design, PR, marketing, IT, entrepreneurship, solo-preneurship, self-employed consulting and service businesses, journalism, sales, non-profits, the arts, and for your average “I need a decent job pronto!” type job searches, these approaches are golden. Back to Text
- There are some debates about exact numbers and percentages. After all, it’s very hard to measure what’s going on informally behind closed doors. However, virtually all career experts I’ve seen quoted on the matter agree that vastly more jobs get filled informally than get filled by people responding to job ads. As Steven Rothberg, founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, says on the MSNBC article, “[a]bout 90 percent of job openings go unadvertised, yet about 90 percent of candidates apply only to advertised job openings.” Back to Text
- Online social networking can be used to enhance/facilitate networking that is also happening offline, but it will never be a replacement. You can’t status-update a handshake or a good look in the eyes, and you can’t replace a two-hour dinner conversation with a tweet. Back to Text
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
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This article is fantastic. I’ll have to confess I did the long expensive education thing. It was invaluable to me, but more for the intangibles. It allowed a “shy guy” to develop hundreds of friendships with wonderful people. It’s opened doors to experiences I can’t fathom being open to me without that training.
However I loved the article because I believe in understanding clearly what we are investing in each moment. And what we are learning. Most college grads can’t remember the names of all the classes, much less the content! Learning what WE need to know to accomplish OUR mission is our own responsibility that we can’t pass off to any schoolteacher.
I have been a huge believer that doing good deeds for others will always be returned to us sooner or later, but that usually those deeds won’t be returned to us directly by those we have services, but rather from something or someone else down the line. Thank you for all your wisdom and for reiterating that belief! I just began reading Tim’s 4HWW and I’m extremely motivated and inspired. Tim and Michael, you guys are terrific!
-Ricardo
I am very truly deeply disappointed that I can’t find Michael Ellsberg’s book “The Education of Millionaires” on iBooks. I’d like very much to buy and read it, but I disrespect authors that don’t consider customer preference. A quality book from a respected author should be available everywhere books are sold.
Tim
I watched the video of your talk with Mr. Rose, the fellow who started OINK. I immediately downloaded OINK on my IPhone. What I found is that it does not work, there seems to be a bug that shuts it down as soon as you open it up. Tim, its not a good idea for you to focus on products that don’t work.
Michael, I have to turn in my progress report early. Enjoy! http://yilovewomen.com/2011/8-steps-to-hack-life-2/
http://millionusd.wordpress.com/
Hello everyone,
Here is my blog…http://simplejosh.com/
That was a really interesting challenge. Thank Tim Ferriss and Michael Ellsberg.
I hope you enjoy!
Feed back is always welcome.
I’m stumped as far as deciding what I want to do.
I love design. I love web dev. I love photography. I love nutrition. I’m probably most skilled in design and photography.
I’m equally passionate for each.
What should I do? All of it?
Since you ask, go for design. Look for where passion, skillset and market need intersect. Photography doesn’t have much market unless you are the top 0.1% of your field. Web dev is leaving these shores, look at eLance rates that’s your competition. Nutrition depends on how well developed of a network you have, and my guess is you don’t have a holistic health fanbase already built up. But good designers are going to be in demand for a long time.
Jason,
Thanks for the response. I’m just now seeing this. I think you are right about design. Design can carry over into the other areas.
Hey Micheal,
Thanks for the great post and video not to mention the book. I’m 19 and have found all your guidance and advice to be most valuable. Thank you so very much for sharing this knowledge with us. Below is a link to what I’ve done with it so far:
http://industrialartsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/create-your-own-career-hacking-informal.html
Thanks again and happy holidays 🙂
Hi Guys
My post seems to have disappeared so am reposting. Apologies if there is a double up.
Our timezone means it is the 29th today so figure now is as good a time as any.
Happy New Year to everyone. 2012 feels like it is going to be fun!
http://makemydiamonddayshappen.wordpress.com
If it weren’t for this challenge, I’d probably still be a-procrastinating, so thank you…
http://theoryofsymmetry.me/2011/12/a-long-journey-still/
A huge thank you to both Michael Ellsberg and Tim Ferriss as the challenge has been absolutely fascinating.
I choose to immerse myself in copywriting and made it up to step 2 by displaying everything I learned so far at http://www.jumpstartcopy.com/
Again I had a great time with the challenge so far, and I hope you all enjoy the website.
Michael,
Thank you so much! You post (and book) resonated with me in a way that few books have done. You said what I’ve thought for YEARS!
That said, I took your challenge. And whether or not I “win” the contest, I won in my own mind because I overcame my self-imposed limitations and now have a job that I absolutely love. And it feels great!
Again, thank you for the post and the book. They changed the way that I look at formal credentials and life.
Wishing you the best,
John
P.S. I’m already looking forward to your next book.
Hi guys,
http://timjwebster.com
After being an artist and a jack of all trades throughout my 20s, my chosen field is entrepreneurism and marketing. Part of that (and for some more immediate and much needed income) has been to learn SEO and become more technical (ie. i know more html/css than before).
My goals over the next 12 months are to develop location independent income (I’m from Australia currently living in Brazil) and move to the US to collaborate with a startup entrepreneur. Creative marketing is what I’ll bring to the table.
The blog is aimed at creative types – people like artists or other young entrepreneurs who need to get their message out. Hopefully I can help them out.
Read more about what I’ve doing the past 3 months over at the blog.
Cheers
Thanks for providing the framework. Here’s my progress so far: http://wp.me/p1Ymla-4Y .
Thank you Michael for this inspiring challenge. Please check out my progress on my blog:
http://educationofalifetime.com/
-Stephen
Hey Michael – This is the website I committed to for the “contest,” in reference to the blog post posted above.
It might look familiar, I submitted to you’re blog post “Established Author Seeks Rockstar PR Apprentice.”
http://www.nickmessore.com
Thanks again to Michael and Tim ;oP
Hey Michael and Tim,
Thanks for lighting a fire under me. Here’s my entry – I’ve been working on Marketing/Copywriting and its been fun. Here’s my “where I’m at” post. Win or lose – my life is very different today than it was 3 months ago – Thanks!
http://garrijung.com/2011a-sense-of-where-im-at
Garri
Loved the blog post and the great information you gave out Michael. Inspired me to devour the book and while I have been wanting to step out for awhile this was the kick in the pants I needed to set a date to get something done. The “gameplan” as I like to call it will make a difference in people’s lives I’m convinced.
My site: http://www.jasonmccain.com
My services are Personal Branding and Social Media Marketing. Combined with career coaching and some life skills I already know or want to pursue out experts in. See “My Story” at the site to see how I got here and learn how I eschewed starting the MBA program I was enrolled in to find something better this past fall.
Here is a breakout on where I stand with the steps:
Step One: Personal Branding and Social Media Marketing.
Step Two: Just got the blog up on Dec 28th and will be populating with the first ten posts in Jan.
Step Three: Started networking and have found eight people to offer free services to. Have already approached five of them and have started working for three of them. One of my first contacts have invited me to his mastermind group on 12 Jan where I will be able to greatly extend my network.
Step Four: I have started working for the three people I have approached who were interested. I will approach the remaining three on my list and develop others through my initial contacts.
Step Five: I will develop these three into case studies in Jan/Feb., and will continue to pursue others in the future.
Step Six: I have identified one local mentor and two virtual mentors. I meet with the local mentor on Jan 2.
Step Seven: I got the recommended book (SPIN Selling) and have been learning about direct sales from the people recommended in “The Education of Millionaires”. You should see some of that flavor in my current web content.
Step Eight: I am targeting March for this step.
Step Nine: I can’t wait to see where I am headed.
While I don’t have all of my progress showing on my site, particularly the blog posts, I have a plan and a good start with a lot of content (which admittedly needs to be cleaned up and made more consistent). I am out there though and really excited about the future.
Thanks for the opportunity to compete in another 4HWW contest.
Jason
Hi Tim and Michael,
I am working on a project to further cultural relations and understanding btw. 2 groups of people.
http://allofasuddenpartjew.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/project-allofasuddenpartjew-2011-recap/
Thanks for the opportunity!
Regards
Xiaoming
Hey everyone, can’t wait to read all the blog posts / contest entries you all are posting today! I’ll be reading all the entries this week and the beginning of next, and will announce a winner in this comments section (and directly to the winner) the first week of the new year.
Have a GREAT New Years and I’ll catch you right around the corner of 2012!
Thanks for participating everyone- and whether you win or not, I hope you got a LOT out of the last few months of study/learning you did in your new field!
It has been really awesome having the blog essentially hold me accountable. Never looked at a blog with that perspective in mind before. Thanks again for putting this challenge together.
Thank you Michael, Tim and everyone for sharing your thoughts, insights and progress! I wish you all the best as we enter into 2012!
http://www.motivational-multimedia.com/Message_to_Michael_Ellsberg.html
Here’s a post from my blog:
http://wannabesocialentrepreneur.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/lessons-life-learning/
The blog is a chronicle of my efforts to become a social entrepreneur.
Hey Michael,
Here is my competition entry
http://diarmuidkidney.com/hey-michael-mentor-me/
I had a lot of fun doing it, and i learned a lot.
Hey everyone,
It has truly been a transformational 3 months for me. I always thought I was going to do I-banking but it never felt right. Michael, your book and this blog post were definitely key in making me realize what I want to pursue, and that’s start-ups.
You can track my progress here: http://www.outsidethebox.thomaschen.net/
and I’ve just started on step 4.
Thanks again Michael and Tim and Happy Holidays!
Mr. Ellsberg (and everyone else),
Below are links to a website and blog I’ve created to chronicle my path towards my long term career goal of becoming a successful Venture Capitalist.
Website: http://vectoringtoventure.weebly.com/
My Plan: http://vectoringtoventure.weebly.com/the-plan.html
Blog with applied learning and status updates: http://vectoringtoventure.weebly.com/blog.html
By all accounts, getting into VC won’t be easy, but I honestly couldn’t think of a job I would love more.
Happy New Year!
Eric
Hi Michael,
Please accept my entry to your contest:
http://chasingphredom.tumblr.com/
Thank you for the opportunity to put this together!
*Best Practices for Viewing My Blog:
1) The most recent post is a video introduction. Watch that first.
2) Go to the oldest post (my first) and start from there.
Here is my blog. Been running into some flaky people with my photography, but have done 1 project. Met one business owner but things didn’t work out. I also got a job that required 60+ hours of work which I still do now. I’m taking a personal training course Jan. 20th. Cheers man
Hi Michael,
Thanks for hosting such an awesome challenge. Since immersing myself in design, this is what my timeline has looked like:
Month 1: Read design books/blogs ravenously and established logo design business Osprey Creative (http://osprey-creative.com), started charging $5 per logo and met many awesome clients
Month 2: Landed a design internship at social media marketing agency working with blue-chip clients such as Electronic Arts, CBS, and Hasbro while continuing to freelance on the side, expanding into web and interactive design (http://ayyhwang.com/)
Month 3: Averaged $600/week from freelance clients alone and offered another design internship in the heart of Silicon Valley at a renowned interaction design firm.
Most of my blog posts can be found at http://osprey-creative.com/blog while more recent ones can be found at http://ayyhwang.com/blog/, here’s one of my favorites:
http://ayyhwang.com/blog/2011/12/08/the-commercialization-of-design-why-you-shouldnt-be-able-to-buy-1-get-1-free/
I’m 18 years old so this has all been done while studying as a freshman at Carleton College in Minnesota, and having your mentorship would be fantastic, Michael — I’ve decided to commit myself to design full-time and aspire to become a product designer at a Silicon Valley startup and eventually start one myself.
BTW, if you post your entry today but it doesn’t get up right away due to comment moderation, no problem, I’ll be reading the entries for the next week. You can also email me your entry through my website. Just make sure to post/email your entry today! All best, *Michael
Dear Michael,
This is my status update to your challenge:
http://assertivehypnosis.com/2011/12/3-month-progress-report
I have been working hard during the last 3 months although at some points University was in the way. As I am seeing how much I am changing people and the world with my work I am considering to quit University. One case study was an Indian guy I went out with here in Scotland who was totally anxious about talking to girls. I managed to help him getting rid of his limiting beliefs and he started communicating with girls easily. I was really happy when I saw that.
I also started networking, and I got in touch with two business owners of which one will teach me (online) marketing and the other one will teach me sales. Both will start teaching me from January onwards. I started to make myself a name by word of mouth, especially through the guy whom I’ve helped above. I’ve also helped other guys but the above story is the most noteworthy!
Thanks very much for your article on Tim’s blog and also Thanks for writing an amazing book (again)!
All the best to you and everyone who gained something through your challenge!
I started a blog/site about becoming truly financially free, through developing passive income sources. I call it “Living a free life.”
Living a free life: http://www.livingafreelife.com
Blog detailing my progress the past 90 days: http://www.creatingafreelife.com
Awesome article! My Blog is at:
http://mikigracecoaching.wordpress.com/
which was inspired by this blog.
All the best to everyone involved in the contest for mentorship!
Michelle
Michael,
Here is my blog:
8stepblogger.wordpress.com
Thank you so much Michael and Tim for this opportunity.
I’m excited to continue working on this.
Jeremy
Three months later and here I am. This article said a lot of things I already knew intuitively, but the guidelines provided an invaluable amount of structure and mapping that I really needed. I’m fairly impressed with the difference even in my attitude towards what the future holds.
This has been really important for me since I want to go into game design. Passion and self-motivation is so important in this field even if you just want to be a worker bee in the industry. (And obviously if I frequent 4HWW I’m not content to be a mere worker bee.)
So here’s my latest post with a little self-analysis of how I did holding myself accountable. Already, this has been a watershed moment for me. Thank you very much Tim and Michael for sharing this information.
http://painteddoggames.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/hacking-myself/
Hi Micheal and everyone who is reading this so they can see the competition.
http://vladimirfefer.com/2011/12/michael-ellsberg-challenge-update/
That is the link to the posting that records my progress.
It is currently 9:23pm Central time. Good luck to everyone.
Here is my entry. Thanks for posting the Challenge I really enjoyed it. I chose to focus on learning and how to help individuals and organizations become better at learning.
http://www.chasinganewdream.com/2011/12/m-e-challenge-update/
I tried posting yesterday and my comment may just be lost in moderation, but I figured I would rather be safe than sorry.
Hey Michael,
Thank you for taking the time to put this
contest together – I know I’ve learned a lot
over the past few months.
Link:http://newbluemarketing.com/ellsberg/ ?
Take it easy,
Mike Lyons
P.S.
Tim, keep up the epic posts man.
Greatly appreciated.
Here’s my official challenge entry:
http://www.pablosanchez.com/challenge/
And a supplemental video as part of this challenge
http://youtu.be/7s2YszUmlmU
Thanks Michael!
Pablo Sanchez
Hi Michael and fellow posters! Here’s my link to the update to this post. Thank you all for this opportunity! http://lavishlynatural.com/who-am-i-and-what-do-i-want
I’ve been reading, reading, reading, and reading some more, on your amazing contest entries… there were way more posts than I thought so I’ve been taking some time with them, thank you for your patience and enthusiasm. You all are some amazing people! I’m blown away. I’m getting very close to deciding on a winner. I’ll announce the winner on Friday.
Hi Michael –
Your post inspired me to start Lucid Lifestyle, http://lucidlifestyle.com a network for lifestyle designers, who help others live a life of their design.
I wrote a short post about my experience over the past few weeks, and wanted to thank you for sharing your advice!
http://lucidlifestyle.com/2011/12/30/using-michael-ellsbergs-8-steps-to-getting-what-you-want-without-formal-credentials/
Thanks again,
Rachman
Hi Michael and Tim. I posted this last night but my link is still awaiting moderation. Posting again because I don’t want to be left out of the party!
http://lavishlynatural.com/who-am-i-and-what-do-i-want
Erica
Look towards the top of the comments for my blog. I posted it on the 29th, but somehow it got caught up with earlier posts.
Thanks,
Henry
Yea, same problem as above. My post was awaiting moderation, then it appears was never approved..
http://www.nickmessore.com
-Nick
okay, just realized it was approved as I typed that.. I’m retarded! ;o)
I have written a long story before, but it didn’t get posted :(.
Amazing how many people need Michael’s help and are willing to do the effort to succeed.
Here is my entry again, so you don’t miss me
http://millionusd.wordpress.com/
All the best and Happy New Year to all the ambitious people around the world.
Hey all!
I’ve posted this several times, but I don’t see it in the comments, so I think it’s been lost in moderation-land. Anyway, loved reading everyone’s stuff, here’s my entry!
http://www.jacquelineburton.com/
Jackie
Hey Micheal,
Just wanted to send a note saying that I tried to post several times before now, starting with the 29th, and have had trouble each time. This is the first time that I’ve seen it posted as “awaiting moderation”, so I think I’m finally in the mix! I also submitted my blog through your website on the 29th, please don’t tell me that I am too late 🙂 I had an amazing time working on this project, thanks for the inspiration! It’s all I’ve been talking about for the past few months, and I’m hoping to report good news back to my friends and family!
Jackie
Hi all,
I have just come across this and although too late to enter I still think the whole thing is great and endeavour to do the 9 months.
I hit my first stage at Step 1 ‘Figure out a field you’d like to build a career in. You don’t need to have great (or any) formal credentials’.
So step one is based on a one month time frame. I have interests outside of my regular job and they include things such as watching motion graphics (dunno why but I love some of these)/3D animation and modelling, watching martial arts related stuff, watching car racing stuff, and psychology .
These have all captured my interest over the last 1 month so I know very very very little about them. I would love to make them my passions and combine them so I could earn a living in fields that interest me.
So I sit here and think ‘Wow what a messed up bunch of interests, how on the earth could I make something useful out of this.’
All of which leads me to be struggling to choose a new field of learning.But what really stumps me is as I am so so new to all of these fields I’m not sure I could have any worthy skills within the initial month.
Take the 3D graphics for example. I imagine it’d take some serious time to become proficient in this area. I know the resources are there for me but to be at the stage where I could market/sell my skills between months 3-5 seems steep.
But take something like’ I enjoy watching car racing’, off the top of my head I cant imagine how to make this into a ‘hacked formal credential’
I guess it boils down to, how good could one become at a completely new skill in a month, especially when you will be competing against seasoned veterans of your field (whether it be music, art, photography, writing etc.)
The other crunch I am struggling with is how to make/combine these interest into one universal thing that will actually be of value to someone?
Am I being too narrow viewed and not approaching this with enough scope ?
My view/mind is ready for exapansion.
“…no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things…” -Seneca
I feel your pain.
I love everything about the human body, but at the same time I want to delve into product design and work on creative collaborations with people that interest me. I love meeting new people and learning how do what they do.
I managed to tie all my interests together by focusing on product design as the driving pursuit but also using my understanding of the human body to help people and build a social economy.
I guess you could do the same.
Pick one interest as your primary focus ( as in something you would consider dedicating the next ten years of your life towards) but continue to use your other interests to build your social economy.
In the last two days I managed to network my way into the creative backdoors of india’s fashion industry. As a consequence I have completely repositioned myself as a “creative consultant”.
Its amazing! It ties all of my interests together.
You read about how I redefined my role and jumped from step three to step six.
http://simplejosh.com/pages/about
Thank you Ko Lai for your post, if I didn’t respond to it I don’t think any of that would have happened. The whole “re-positioning myself” and fashion design project spawned from a random conversation where I alluded to you and how you were struggling with too many interests on your plate. It’s crazy how these things work out!
Hey Ko Lai,
Find out which ones of your interest has the most potential to translate into a service that has commercial value that other businesses need and are willing to pay for.
From your list above, motion graphics and 3d animation has that potential. You can combine this with your interest in psychology which you can use when creating compelling story lines or in writing copy that can move your audience.
Having several passions can have its advantages. You don’t have to make money from all of them or try to combine them all. Just choose the ones that fit best into each other like the two above and use the others as a means to connect to a specific community.
Your love for martial arts and car racing for example is a great way to bond with people of common interest which can be your foot in the door for offering your service.
You get to meet people through this context that you wouldn’t have otherwise and they get to know you as a person first unlike the context of a networking event where we mostly get the impression of being sold to.
Your concern about the learning curve is true as far as getting yourself to be on top of your game, this requires some dedicated time and patience. However there is also a need for lower end stuff as you are move along your learning path. For example, some businesses may only need simple title intro’s as bumpers for their videos, you may be able to do these kind of stuff on your first month of learning, even sooner.
As far as competing against seasoned professionals. Don’t go where the competition is steep. For example, I have two friends who just started photography. They are decent at their craft but in our circle of friends we have a lot of veteran and seasoned photographers who have years and awards under their belt. However, these two were able to carve their own niches.
The first went for children’s photography and offered it first just to her circle of friends who have kids. I’m amazed at how well she is doing in her first 2 months of business just by tapping into her network and word of mouth. Plus, the other photographers we know don’t want to touch that stuff so she also gets referrals from pro’s who are not interested in photographing kids.
The second one tapped on a dance community and has become the official photographer for major dance events. In both cases, they just started out but didn’t go to the typical channels of competing against other pro’s. They went where there was virtually no competition, which was their networks in other fields and other interests.
This is where your interests in other subjects can be an advantage as a means of bonding and connecting to others.
Also, Your initial lack of skill can be offset by how you treat your first few clients (or before they become clients). If they know you personally through other channels outside your craft and find you to be an outstanding and trust worthy person. And you make them feel that they will be well taken cared of, that you care about their success and that they can trust you to do what is best for their business. You can carve yourself a niche where you set yourself apart and don’t have to worry about the competition.
Pablo
Wow…thanks Pablo.
Thanks for the lengthy response. It has shifted my thinking and allowed me to expand my thoughts in terms of the way I look at things.
I thuink I’ll be re-reading the post a few times and absorbing it over and over.
Once again thanks !!!
You are welcome Ko Lai, best of luck to you! ~Pablo
Hi all
Hope this isn’t cheating but my article came out today on one of the most read blogs in Australia. I have been blown away by the response, more than 80 people have signed up for the experiment in less than 4 hours. Amazing!
http://www.mamamia.com.au/health-wellbeing/meditate-on-this/
Amazing article, time. Just one question: If you can go back in time, will you actually go to college again?
Hey everyone, thank you for all the amazing entries! I’m blown away. I’m still reading them in detail – I want to be thorough and give all of your entries the attention they deserve (no quick “committee” here). Sit tight, I’m on it! And thank you all for participating!
Hello Mike,
What an inspiring post.It is amazing the meaning of true knowledge isn’t common knowledge.Education is education regardless of the pattern acquired.
It will interest readers to watch the drama series Harry’s Law season one episode 8 featuring a boy who hacked the credentials of a doctor in a ghetto neighbourhood-he was actually the savoir of the community when it came to cheap healthcare and emergencies.He learned the skills via reading and online courses.The law caught up with him when he was found to save a gang member and the police chargd him for practising medicine without a licence.
Though licensed professions cannot be hacked and should not be encouraged in any way, but such dramas emphasize the point you can achieve education and success alternately.Another interesting one is The Suits series -very interesting too,where brilliant Mike is hired by an associate in a law firm at Wall street.
This post has enlightened many and hope the strategies will be applied positively and ethically for personal and societal advancement.
If anyone or their loved one/friends has problems with infertility without success so far, they can contact me
Knowledge is power Only if applied constructively.
Good luck to all.
Excellent article! I wish I could have participated to the contest, but at least now I have a more clear vision of what I have to do further. Thanks!
Hi again everyone!
Just wanted to say how awesome it’s been reading all of your blogs! I think we are all in great company in this contest and want to wish everyone good luck.
Not sure if anyone’s been checking out my Health Coaching blog, but things are going great, here’s my latest entry on simple ways to integrate Ayurvedic techniques into your daily routine: http://bit.ly/wsD6ah
Be well!
Jackie
Jackie, thanks for this great article and techniques! I’ve been “experimenting” with a couple of Ayurvedic herbs for hair growth (mainly amla) but know very little about this ancient form of healing. I did have hot water with lemon this morning because of you!
Erica
OH awesome Erica! Are you still experimenting with Ayurveda? I’m a novice myself, but I have been sticking with the skin brushing/sesame oil regimen pretty well, and sipping hot water throughout the day. It’s all so relaxing, glad you are trying this stuff too 🙂
I have also visited many of the sites and site back in amazement at how much value this post by Michael has created in people’s lives. Now, that value is going to be multiplied many times over as we all go out and start our personal journeys. Well, I know a winner hasn’t been announced on here so I hope I am still in the running. I have been adding some great content to my site. I have been focused on Personal Branding this month here is a taste http://jasonmccain.com/?p=99.
So Tim, with what you have learned up to this point in life and if you could do it all over again, are you saying your college degree in East Asian Studies and Neuroscience and your mentors Pulitzer Prize winner John McPhee and Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe didn’t help shape what you are today? Your resume you have posted on your sight surely boasts of your academia and accomplishments.
I would have to disagree with you in that, you may or may not be where you are today if it weren’t for the Ivy League schooling, but more importantly, those top two mentors as aforementioned that helped shape your writing and philosophical way of thinking in life.
The important part for you and your blog followers to remember is, in life, many times, it’s not what you know, but who you know.
A huge part of being an entrepreneur is NETWORKING and if you look at the top one percent of successful people, yes they first and foremost had a deep desire to make a difference in the world. But, with making that difference, they realized they needed to surround themselves around smarter people then them, which you did. They obviously needed some type of education as a ENTRY POINT, depending on what their craft, product, or servcie entailed.
So, whether education gave you the jump start or if you would have still had those opportunities without Princeton, nobody will know because you did go to college and you did a huge thing in business entrepreneurship…..called LEVERAGE your KSA’s (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) to your advantage.
With that, nobody can knock you for your “hustle” and self promoting you have done….but, I would have to still say and think, you wouldn’t be as far as you are today without your aforemetioned education or those mentors that shaped you…..plus, you learned a little about the tech world like many of the Silicon Valley types out there today.
Now, your friend Micahel Ellsburg, he too may or may not be where he is today without his Journalism Degree and making connections with various networking he has done.
Of course, you can debate, with the various entrepreneurial success stories from Eben and Jena you mention, but I have noticed a common theme with your success stories….they all have some type of technology variable to them.
What I am getting at is, if you were to share a story about a guy who really was lacking the academic credentials, started a business from nothing, and worked his ass off and HUSTLED his way to becoming a self-made millionaire or multi-millionaire, I would say you were on to something here…..you should have used your old story and invterview on Daymond John below:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2011/04/07/fubu-daymond-john/
Even Daymond John, if he was honest, would have to admit without LL Cool J promoting his gear (clothing) in Rap Videos and being in right place at the right time, no matter how smart or educated one is, there has to be a big break, networking, or some type of connection….it’s like what I have taught in business coursework with marketing.
If the consumer doesn’t NEED your product or service or WANT your product or service, then the bottom line is there won’t be a bottom line.
Enjoyed your article, but still believe the Daymond John’s, the tech savvy entrepreneur, etc….are few and far between and folks without a good education will 99 percent of the time not succeed without it……that leaves I guess the 1-percent that are the top entrepreneurs, free thinkers, the outliers, etc….that everyone wants to try to be like, but most of the time never will.
Peace !!!!
and East Asian Studiesor
Hi Mike
Thanks for the article, its realy inspiring.
I just finished reading right now and im starting to apply these steps straight away.
Well lets talk after 9 months when im well stablished.
Thanks one more time and count me in!!
Mario!!
Has there been a conclusion to this contest?
Hi again everyone!
Michael, for what it’s worth: I’m still whole-heartedly into this contest! I’ve been continuing to post on my blog since October, but haven’t done so as frequently, because now I’m actually in business! I’m excited to report that almost 20% of my income this month has come from my Health Coaching business, and I have some amazing networking opportunities coming up in the next few weeks. This is becoming the most amazing journey of my life! Also, I wanted to mention that I’ve been accepted to several grad schools, including University of Southern California, which is ranked #7 in the country for my program! It’s a huge honor, but I have to admit that going back to school is not where my passion lies anymore. Anyway, just wanted to put it out there, that I still believe that I’m the perfect candidate for your methods!
Here’s my (brand spankin’ new) Facebook biz page for anyone who’s interested:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jacqueline-Burton-Holistic-Health-Coach/232980736786244
And my official Health Coaching website:
http://jackie-burton.healthcoach.integrativenutrition.com/
As always, good luck to everyone!!
Jackie 🙂
New blog post on detox and food pairing for optimal health and hotness 🙂 http://bit.ly/zoVZx1
Hi Guys,
At this point, I think it is pretty obvious this was a marketing tactic between good friends Michael and Tim, they have been friends since 2000, for Michael’s book.
I think the best thing to do at this point is to follow Michael’s plan, work hard, network, and do the best you can and surpass Michael Ellsburg.
As Tim Ferriss stated, Living well is the best revenge.
X
Its obviously a marketing tactic, but I thought that was transparent from the onset. The point is that it was a brilliant marketing tactic.
Agreed, Joshua!
That’s actually one of the things I admire most about Tim (and Michael, although I’m less familiar with him since he’s been “famous” for a shorter period of time)- they are pretty good about being transparent about letting you know what they are getting out of the situation. And in this case, a bunch of us also greatly benefitted- by getting the motivation to start up our blogs and businesses. I’ve loved and benefitted from anything I’ve ever read or watched from Tim or Michael- I say it’s win-win.
Lesson #1: Do not underestimate the passion of Tim Ferriss’s audience!
Holy moly! On the day the contest ended, December 29th, I received over 60 submissions, in both the comments here, and emailed to me through my site.
I suppose I could have outsourced the reading of these blogs people created, to an assistant. But I figured, if you took the time to take this contest seriously, I wanted to take your submissions seriously. So I personally read every word of every post of every blog submitted.
Like those restaurants say, “We handcraft our menu items so please allow for extra time”- I handcrafted my decisions after lots and lots and lots of reading. I apologize to those of you who had to wait a while for my response. If I do a contest in the future, I’ll figure some way out of getting you the personalized attention you deserve without taking so darn long and keeping you on the edge of your seats for so long!
At any rate, thank you for your patience, and thank you all for your amazing participation, I was blown away. And, we have a winner…
http://www.ellsberg.com/mentorship-contest
Excellent post! I was raised to learn by reading, researching, TRYING, gaining experience and making mistakes. My parents never pushed me in academics, but they always were encouraging my ability to learn and find answers on my own. This has given me excellent problem solving skills that I never would have learned in a classroom. My mother taught me to read at age 2, and I have been a voracious reader since. I am a firm believer in self-education. The information is out there. Drive, passion, patience, and a little bit of hustle go a long way. I know PhD’s who are less educated than my father who is a respected expert in many areas and never graduated college (he is completely self-taught).
I thoroughly enjoyed this post and will be subscribing to your blog.
Ok so I am thinking about removing my website from Tumbler and get it to a WordPress site. I believe this is a wordpress site right? If it is, may I ask where you got the theme? Thanks a bunch!
Marketing idea:
If you’re looking to get into marketing or PR, do the above steps with Kickstarter projects, for free.
Find those projects you love, that you would fund, ask to help them get the word out about what they’re doing or get funded. (You could also improve their copy if you’re a writer, or improve their video if you’re an editor)
In return, if their project gets funded and you and can prove you brought something to the table, ask them to write a recommendation for you on LinkedIn (or for a blog post above)
Projects only last a few weeks, not much risk to you. Not much risk to them b/c you’re free. Once you’ve had some success with a few projects and numbers or portfolio of what you’ve done for them, start doing paid work.
Does anyone think this idea is worth a damn?
I’d say: go for it, man!
Just come up with a way to track the contributions coming from you. I have some ideas, if you don’t know how to do that.
Now that we know who the winner of the contest is, tell us about financial success.
Many of you guys here have followed the program and have “hacked” your way into a new career. But are any of you guys making good money from your new career?
Has anybody been able to quit their old job and focus solely on their new hacked career?
Has anybody become rich or even doubled their income from their new hacked career?
I know many people like to think of success in intangible terms and gain value from learning new things, meeting new people, travelling, gaining new experiences. But I would like to hear about financial success. It is important to me because gaining financial success is the ultimate justification for going into a career field.
Any stories?
This is what my boyfriend did. When he was a kid in the late 80s and 90s, he started playing video games and wanted to be a game designer. His dad was a programmer and he would get his dad’s books and teach himself programming languages.
So growing up that’s what he was learning when he wasn’t going to public school and not hanging out with friends. Since his dad was always busy he didn’t help my boyfriend. He didn’t even help him with his first job.
Eventually my bf got his first job at 18 as a Jr. programmer in the late 90s, all on his own. His first professional job. He’s gone to college on and off when he could while working as a programmer.
To this day my bf is still a programmer. It can be done. He also learned how to interview well and write a good resume, and that’s how he lands his jobs. He’s never had the luxury of knowing someone at a company before working there.
He’s thinking of going back to college to get his bachelor’s degree, maybe.
Honestly, I kind of think that college is overrated. Its an outdated model. The teachers lecture the class and everyone leaves after. There are no great debates, no great poet societies. The first 2 years are pretty much a repetition of high school with general ed. classes. Each year tuition and book fees hike up.
I have about only a couple of classes to take to finish my Associate in General Studies but I want to be an artist and I’m not interested in going to college when I could put up my products online through an e-commerce website like big cartel or shopify. I already bought my own domain name. Right now I’m going through the process of sorting which artwork I want to sell and how to market it.
The only classes I’m interested are entrepreneurship classes which I can take at my community college for my art business. The only reason I would be interested in going for a bachelor’s is for my parents. But honestly you can’t live life for your parents. I love them very much but I respectfully disagree with them in this case.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re wonderful people and they’ve done a lot for me and I appreciate everything they’ve done for me but I can’t live my life for them. I don’t enjoy classroom learning and this last year I’ve only taken online classes from my community college. I find them less irritating. I feel they waste my time less. 😀
Credentials will become less important and colleges know it that is why many resort to some direct selling techniques to woo students from degree to terminal degree programs like some state run antipodean unis that commanded instalments for their programs with no sight of completion. Fortunately, I think that the Net is a great equaliser for our thirst for knowledge and will render like some software tycoon said, universities will be put out of business. I think the days where institutions charged a premium for their services would be over. Already, there are some that are giving discounts as more are willing to learn over the Net for free rather than paying for it. A degree does not guarantee a job and a DBA may render some unemployable.
Howdy! This post could not be written any better!
Reading through this post reminds me of my good old
room mate! He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this article to him.
Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
Crowdfunding makes this whole way of life a heck of a lot more feasible! I’m getting the book but mostly because I like to read about things I’m currently doing. Makes me feel less kooky.
This is all too much. I’d rather be on the government dole. It’s soooooo… much easier! Besides, what are you working for? Money. And money is the root of all evil. You can’t take it with you. Live off the system! Better yet, move back in with your parents and live off them AND the system!!
@Max the “love of money” is the root of all evil. Rock on!
This was awesome
$100k suits and a typo in their mission statement, for shame!
I did the Masters thing when I was 30 and it got me a few steps up the IT ladder, now its time to do something I enjoy. this article gives me some great info on how to achieve this without more formal study, great content
Shawn
Yes it’s a great article but honestly… I don’t think everyone can do it. I mean get “what you want” without formal education… Most of us is unable because of FEAR. Very basic thing.
This article is an eye opener for sure, for most of us. But… so what…? 90% will read it and after 15 minutes will be back in their routine.
I have no formal education, no masters or even bachelors. I tried very hard to make it, three times… three different courses 🙂 I spent 3 years of my life trying to get that “paper”.
Finally I realized that this isn’t right for me and decided to make some business instead.
Thanks to all gods out there, it was the best move I have ever made.
I guess what I’m saying is that this path isn’t and can’t be for everyone… and it shouldn’t be! Yeah everything sounds cool and nice but it calls for thick skin because in reality, this is all about selling very unique product… YOU.
Regarding money…
Money is the root of all the beautiful things out there! (and bad things as well… nothing is perfect).
I love money, it makes world easier place to live. If someone don’t like money or think that it’s root of all evil, well then my advice is get your ass up from the sofa and go and try to survive in wilderness for just 24 hours… because that’s how world looks like without monetary system.
And just skills can help one make money (obviously not degree by itself!- we don’t like sloppy thinking right?), however, where one is going to get those skills is a different story.
This is an absolutely amazing blog post. Well researched, and well written.
Thanks.
Did anyone actually end up doing this?
Hello,
This article has spoken to me on many levels I did not get a formal education but I have educated myself over the years I’m 32 years old and right now unemployed I’ve done everything from Fudging the truth on resumes and outright lying but recently I’ve been reading a lot about subjects and I’ve met a few people that and have encouraged me to start writing and I didn’t know how to contact you and see about a mentorship.
I look forward to hearing from.
you thank you
I personally believe that perceived credibility is always more important in real life than diplomas and titles. However, I have to admit that this article opened my eyes even wider. Absolutely great job! Thanks for nourishing my brain with some great stuff before heading to bed. I’m definitely getting your book Michael.
When should I expect my first letter?
F***ing awesome Article!!!
Cheers
Max
I realized the same thing 2 years ago and dropped out of high school. And THAT’S when I started learning!!!
wow.. thank you for this amazing post.
Good education occurs both formally and informally.
I do think you may be contradicting yourself a bit though by saying that it’s okay to get a degree to enrich your career and then say degrees contribute nothing to the job but solely helps the recruiter’s selection.
You may be the modern day Napoleon Hill.
I’m currently working on creating my own job after being consistently rejected for not having “the right degree(s).”
Thank you for the motivating article and technique. I will definitely put it to good use.
Hi,
thanks for this. I was skeptical if I can learn a new skill and market it.
I now will try and give feedback after 1 year.
I am a programmer. would like to become a financial risk manager.
regards
vinodh
Good concept,but I think if whole article divides into 4 -5 other article it would be more fruitful.
Q about Step 1: What questions work to show that you understand what you’ve read and how to apply it?
My mistake. The question I am asking derives from Step 2 of this post. 🙂
wow, thanks!
I am entering a new field without formal credential. This is a very useful post. like a coach on call
Tomorrow is the three year anniversary of this challenge. I’m curious to see if any of the challenge participants are still pursuing their original goals, a modified variation of it or a completely different pursuit using this 8 step method. Anyone care to share their experience?
Michael & Tim,
This article is amazing and found me at the right moment in my life.
I am currently unemployed due to a lay off. Business was slow and they had to let me go, which was fine being that it was only a means to an end and not something I wanted to do much longer. Even so, being at the mercy of employers is not a position I want to find myself in again.
I decided to get into real estate here in Denver Colorado since the economy here is on the ups. I know you said this formula doesn’t lend itself too well for state licensing but is this a formula I can still use once I get my real estate?
A huge thank you in advance!
Dominic
This has been the most helpful post i’ve ever written. Thank you
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wow!! I should have read this article way back 2011. I will follow his steps and hopefully get his attention to spend some time in becoming my mentor.
nice and good work..thank you
I wouldn’t shy away from fields that require state licensing. I was able to ‘hack’ into the construction field by utilizing my experience working in wireless telecommunications. Granted, it took years of experience to get my first General Contractor license, but I was able to use that on my resume to land a job with an engineering company as their licenseholder. This led to an Electrical contractor license, followed by multiple GC and EC licenses in states from Florida to Alaska. I now have engineers, construction managers and 40+ companies that work under my oversight with less than one semester of college under my belt. I have flexible work hours, learn new things about my field and other aspects of business daily, and have taken on expanded duties handling Marketing – something that is a passion of mine but would have required a Master’s to get hired into.
Along the way I have found states with very limited requirements to licensing – one for example that allows you to get licensed as a Building Contractor after a 12 hour online class and showing proof of having insurance. Someone with even the most basic construction skillset with an interest in progressing could get licensed, then use that to write about the steps they took to do so. From there, they could find a company willing to use them as the license ‘qualifier’, and build up their experience both on paper and within the field without requiring a Bachelors.
I know of two individuals that are professional license qualifiers. They work from home, hire assistants to handle the stacks of paperwork that they would typically have to do on their own, and set their own schedules. Their job is to keep their clients in compliance with state and local regulations, and they are on the payroll of 10+ companies in fields ranging from Heavy Construction to Plumbing and Environmental Engineering. Neither has any formal education, and the beauty of it is that all of this is perfectly legal!
Good grief this is one of the most wonderful Zero to Lifestyle Freedom methods I’ve ever read and I’ll be getting your book here shortly.
Thank you both Tim and Michael for putting this up and adding so much freaking value to the world.
You guys are awesome and I look forward to somehow giving back.