Its really about why the ones who have bad grades are often the ones who are the most successful.
A chum who was always a chop in law school, big on books, doesn’t party hardy, always in the library, now has a small office along Gaberone Road, as opposed to IKM, CH, A&K, SMK.
Do you even know where Gaberone Road is?
Now he does.
Off Tom Mboya Street.
This is an ode to all chaps who have failed.
It’s a declaration to the guys any girls who calculated the exact number of points they needed to get in their Bar Exams in order to pass.
This is for all those guys who didn’t get extra credit or get placed on the honours roll.
…and after years of inadequacy and a lifetime of feeling average and unremarkable, your time has come. Someone finally comes to tell you that even if you got you 226/500 and a D+ in High School, that ain’t shit.
For years, society has placed a disgustingly large stigma on bad grades and an overwhelming importance on good grades. There’s a predisposed instinct to strive for A’s and cast anything lower to the side; deem it as unworthy.
Well, I think its past time to let it learn that it’s okay not to be an A student, and it’s okay to fail.
…because here’s a little secret the older generations are unwilling to divulge to you…
It doesn’t matter!
To all those tight-ass intellectuals out there, for all those years that you spent cooped up in the library, poring over facts and defences, soliloquies and Greek mythology, the average scoring chums — the ones partying and getting C’s and D’s — are the ones obtaining the skills that do matter…
Life experiences!
Failing is a life experience.
Not getting that A on the exam you spent all night studying for, is an experience.
Life experiences are a composite of all the skills necessary to get along in the real world. It’s comprised of all those skills that are only learned through failure and the obstacles of life, like how to hold a conversation, get away with a lie or entertain someone you really don’t like. It’s all those skills that high-paying CLO’s in Fortune 500 companies value above all else.
In college, it’s all about grades. In the real world, it’s about experience, balls and drive. Because once you get past the first job, no one is ever going to ask you about your KCSE, Your Admin Law, or how you did on that IP, ICT Law final.
What matters in the real world is your ability to adapt, innovate and get along. There are no scantron sheets or essay exams. There are no CAT’s to hold review sessions, or to help you practice your presentation. Real life is about how well you can bullshit your way through it, and that’s not something taught in a classroom.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Success in law, and in practice Ogolla J taught me, is getting to know exactly where the law is, and where to find it.
The greatest thinkers, leaders and entrepreneurs of our time have been the men to defy the rules and take risks. They were the ones getting C’s or flunking out. However, their ‘failures’ were not a factor of intelligence, but an inability to be weighed down by grades and superficial marking. Purely subjective orals and projoz.Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson, are just a few of the men who achieved unfathomable amounts of wealth, status and success without ever really succeeding in a classroom. They are the men, that by society’s standards, had failed. With their passion and intelligence, they were able to change the world with nothing more than a bachelor’s degree and a transcript of failing grades (sometimes not graduating at all). These men understood at an early age that just because society, and everyone around them, placed an excessive amount of importance on grades, didn’t mean that they were right.
But it’s not just these extreme examples of eccentric billionaires and tech geniuses that should solidify the results of this finding. It’s about yourself and the gut feelings you have towards what is right and what is wrong. Succeeding in life means following your gut and understanding what a bad decision is. Just because you passed your orals with flying colours doesn’t mean you’ll know what to do when your co-worker is talking behind your back to your boss. It doesn’t mean you’ll know how to handle an insubordinate or get together a presentation, Replying Affidavit or Defence, the night before a deadline.
The people who do great things are the ones too absorbed in their own ideas to place too much weight on the opinions of others. Because marking from an marking scheme is really an opinion.
Why should Steve Jobs spend hours studying someone else’s ideas and breakthroughs when he could be out creating his own?
What people fail to see in bad grades is the reason behind them.
Why is this person not getting an A? Is this person doing something that is better?
Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend it’s whole life believing that it is stupid – Albert Einstein.
So for all of you preparing for the BAR, or expecting them with a bitter taste in your mouth, this should be reason enough not to worry.
If you are ending a term with C’s and maybe a few D’s, don’t sweat. There’s plenty of opportunity out there, and it’s the people with the audacity not to care about their grades — the ones who don’t spend their lives in the library and bubbling in correct answer sheets and past papers — who will rule the world.
Because at the end of it all, it’s really about those people with the most passion!
One last thing. For the foregoing to work, you need to pass – because the reason why you know the names of all these successful High School/ College dropouts, is because they are very few! So do good to get at least 50%.
That was my success card to all of you!
C.X.A.
C.X.A. Writer., Songwriter., Stroryteller., Damn Good Lawyer., Posted from WordPress for Windows Phone
THE BOOK OF CHRYSOSTOM 