School teaches us a lot.
It teaches structure. Discipline. How to follow instructions, meet deadlines, and absorb useful information. Those things matter. I’m not anti-school, and this isn’t a criticism of teachers or formal education. School gives us an important foundation.
But somewhere around seventh grade, after being in the system long enough to stop just following along, I started asking a question that wouldn’t leave me alone:
Where will my education actually lead me?
Maybe it was becoming a teenager or seeing my older brother start high school. But I started to care and think about my future.
The Seventh-Grade Question That Changed How I Saw School
By seventh grade, school had become a comfortable routine. Wake up. Go to class. Do homework. Study for tests. Get good grades. Repeat.
And then I started noticing something else.
People I admired who had real freedom—the man down the street who owns buildings, the neighborhood landscaper who runs his own business, the people with control over their time, money, and choices—didn’t necessarily take the expected path every step of the way.
They understood that education mattered, but it wasn’t the whole game.
That’s when the question hit me:
What do the people who don’t follow a pre-determined path do differently?
I wasn’t looking for shortcuts. I was looking for understanding.
What School Is Actually Good At
School does some things very well.
It creates structure when you’re young. It teaches fundamental knowledge in subjects like math, reading, writing, science, and history. It trains consistency and responsibility. It shows you how to operate within systems and expectations.
Those skills are important. You need them.
But here’s the distinction that changed how I see school:
School teaches knowledge, not ownership.
What School Doesn’t Teach — But Assumes You’ll Figure Out
There are entire areas of life that quietly shape your future, yet school barely touches them.
No one explains how money actually works.
No one teaches how to manage yourself when no one is watching.
No one shows you how to make decisions when there are no grades, deadlines, or instructions.
Leadership, self-management, long-term thinking, and financial literacy are treated as things you’re supposed to “pick up along the way.” Most people never do.
People like Robert Kiyosaki talk openly about this. Whether you agree with everything he says or not, the core idea is hard to ignore. School trains people to be good employees, not necessarily good owners or leaders. Financial education is optional, but most people never choose it.
How Reading Changed the Way I Thought About Education
Questioning school was only the first step. Reading is what expanded my thinking beyond it.
Books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, Atomic Habits, The 48 Laws of Power, The 5 AM Club, and others didn’t just give me information. They gave me perspective. They showed me that there are multiple ways to live, lead, and build a future—and that the path most people follow is only one option.
What stood out was that these books weren’t telling me what classes to take or what grades to get. They focused on how to think about behaviors that influence your life long before any career begins: habits, discipline, time and money management, power dynamics, and personal responsibility.
After that, school didn’t feel directionless. It felt incomplete.
I stopped seeing education as something that only happens in classrooms and started seeing it as something you choose every day. School became one part of the picture—not the whole thing.
That shift changed everything.
This Isn’t Blame. It’s Responsibility.
It would be easy to complain and say school failed us. That’s not true.
School was never meant to teach everything.
Once I understood that, I stopped expecting it to fully prepare me for life. I can appreciate school for the foundation it provides while intentionally building the rest on my own.
Grades still matter. But they aren’t the finish line.
Why This Realization Matters Early
Most people don’t ask these questions until their twenties or thirties—after they’ve already committed years to a path they never questioned.
As a teenager, I don’t have everything figured out. Not even close. But I do have one advantage. Time.
Time to build habits.
Time to learn how money works.
Time to practice self-leadership.
Time to experiment with smaller risks and bigger lessons.
The people who end up ahead don’t reject school—but they don’t worship it either. They think differently and use school as a foundation while quietly building something more.
Filling the Gap Yourself
If school doesn’t teach ownership, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn it.
Ownership starts with how you think. And the sooner you take responsibility for what you aren’t taught, the more control you gain over where you end up.
That gap gets filled when you read beyond what’s assigned, learn how money and value creation actually work, pay attention to your habits and how you use your time, practice making decisions instead of avoiding them, and start thinking in years instead of weeks.
That’s what I’m trying to do now—not perfectly, but intentionally.
If you’re doing everything right and still feel there has to be more than good grades and hoping life works out, you’re not alone.
We’re not behind.
We’re early— and that’s our edge.
