The fact that knowledge is a differentiator in life is uncontested across the globe. Knowledge gives people a competitive advantage in this world of deep-rooted capitalism. As Malcolm X said, education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. Nelson Mandela said that education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Statistics have it that developed countries have an average literacy rate of 99.2% compared to 64.0% in sub-Saharan Africa. Over 75% of illiterate adults are found in South Asia, West Asia, and Sub Saharan Africa. With these statistics, you can clearly see a correlation between education and standards of living and welfare. We can confidently say that an increase in knowledge leads to an increase in the welfare of the people.

Similarly, the most successful people in the world read widely on a daily basis. They may not have PHDs or Masters Degrees but they are avid readers. As we shall see, getting academic certificates does not really mean getting knowledge. We have very many educated fools in society today. Bill Gates reads 50 books every year. That is equivalent to a book every week. Warren Buffet reads 500 pages every day. Wow! Mark Cuban reads 3 hours every day. Elon Musk taught himself to build rockets by reading. Today, Space X is the most successful non-government space exploration company. Tony Robbins read 700 books in 7 years. That is 100 books in a year and 2 books per week. I have also made it a habit of reading a book every week, reading numerous articles daily and doing massive research on a daily basis. I can assure you that investment in knowledge will always pay off. We can assert our earlier observation that an increase in knowledge leads to an increase in welfare.

We are living in what most call the information age. Information is the basis of life itself in this era. The more you know, the better positioned are you to make it. Physical strength and beauty are no longer determinants of success. You may have the strongest muscles and still sleep hungry. You may be the most handsome or beautiful person in your space and still be miserable. Over and above these qualities, people need the knowledge to make it. This is why we have seen terms like “Brains over beauty”.

In the 20^th and 21^st centuries, information is at our fingertips. The internet has made it extremely convenient to acquire information. It is fast and cheap. With smartphones being cheap and widely accessible, many people are able to access the internet to take advantage of the information flood across the web. Search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing are also key players in the dissemination of information. They ensure that we get what we want when we want it. You just have to type a phrase or even a word on the search engines and boom, there you have it. All these stakeholders are important in making the process easy and accessible to all. There is no excuse for not learning. Knowledge may be expensive in classes but it is free on the internet. You can educate yourself. You may not get a certificate but you will get what is important, knowledge.

Successful people are selective in their reading. They cannot afford to read everything they set their eyes on. With the information flood, most people are tempted to read even what is not relevant to their cause. They will know so much but it will not help them. The information has to be relevant. It must help you become a better person socially and economically. Poor people know so much irrelevant information. They read fiction books and end up with nothing helpful. Successful people, on the other hand, read self-help books and grow their relevant knowledge base. Poor people will name all players in the national premier league, their country of origin, their age, salary and the number of goals they scored in the previous season yet they are not stakeholders in the sports industry. Ensure that the knowledge you acquire is relevant for it to be useful.

We live in an era where people love certificates more than knowledge. They try to cheat the system but they end up cheating themselves. This is why students cheat in exams. They want the results without the process. This is also why most people go back to school; to get an extra certificate. They think that an extra certificate will make them more valuable members of society. No one can cheat the universe. The key to success is knowledge not certificates. I have nothing against academic certificates; I even have several and I plan to acquire many more.

Most of what we learn in formal education is not enough to bring us success. Formal education was only designed to help people earn a living not to make wealth and change the world. It is self-education that produces game-changers. Formal education produces average people whose greatest goal is to get a good-paying job. Self-education produces people who alter the course of history. People who become jobs rather than looking for a job. Formal education helps people to pay bills and die rather than create wealth and live on in the minds of the people and in the history books even after they are dead. No one achieves anything great without a significant amount of self-education.

I urge all of us to embrace self-education as a daily routine. Make sure you read before you go to bed. That way, you give the mind something to work on as you sleep. It will synthesize ideas that will catapult your life to the next level. Love education more than entertainment. A survey shows that 67% of successful people watch less than one hour of television every day. Investment in education pays the highest dividends. If you want to be great, first educate yourself. Education is the power and the key to the future. With information, you cannot go wrong. Invest today!