This has been the guiding principal of my life and the other one is If another human can do it so can I. My life started with a Dad that went to jail, and a mother that worked three jobs to cover costs. The fact is that I lived with less than most of my mates had and we made do.
Poverty is a bugger and one persons poverty can look like wealth to another. I like to say that most people think they are broke when they are down to their last few thousand, My dad was broke when he took his last 10 bucks and bought lottery tickets in the hope that they would give him a few extra bucks.
I am broke when the fridge is empty, the tank is empty and the next few cents are being looked for in the most likely places. I know that tomorrow will look after itself and have been known to put the last 200 buck in the tank when the last meal was in the fridge. So far we have never gone to bed hungry because, I use that tank of fuel to find more pennies. They always come when you need them most.
Because I grew up without pocket money I know just how important money is. I never finished high school, because haircuts and school shoes were luxuries, yet I have a love for learning. My Grandpa always told me they can take everything away but your knowledge, Your knowledge is what sets you apart from every one else.
I learned to love the written word and would spend hours engrossed in a Hardy Boys book or even a fix it yourself book when something at home was broken and Mom couldn't afford a repair man.
I could tell you tales of a kid bumming a few cents at the tuck shop so that he too could have a Chelsea bun, of pushing trolleys for tips at the Hyper for a little pocket money. I can tell you about checking the local dump for bicycle parts and building a bicycle with other people cast offs, the only parts I paid for were the tyres, the tubes and the two cans of spray paint.
Every other part was recovered or scrounged. Some nuckfut stole that bicycle and I was devastated.
The most important lesson I learned is a love of books. I have used books to learn a whole pile of skills, gotten jobs that should never have been for a kid with a standard 8 education level. Taught myself to code HTML, PHP and much more. I earned 35 pounds an hour in 2000/2001 just by keeping those books readily available to reference when I wasn't sure about something.
People were paying me to learn how to code because I said, of course I can code. Only got canned once in 4 years and that's because they needed someone with more ability than I had in Perl.
Three lessons I want to pass on to you. Lesson 1. If you can read, you can learn. Very simple to understand I think. If you can find the right reading material you can learn about anything from Aardvarks to Zulu history. You can use knowledge learned from books to make your life better.
Lesson 2. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. I will translate this for you. If you know more than every one around you, they will not know that you don't know it all. You are the one eyed man and the people you serve the blind. If the fully sighted bloke arrives he may realise you don't know it all but sometimes knowing just enough is enough to learn the rest while you are doing the job.
Lesson 3. Don't stop learning because even if everyone around you is blind, they may just gain some sight and challenge you, If you continue learning, you will always know more than they do.
Bonus lesson, If some one else can do it, so can you, skills may come naturally to some, but all skills can be learned. An artist friend said to me, Some people are born with art in their extremities, those people will never know the joy of doing a bad job and then doing it better and better every time.
Tony Robbins taught constant and never ending improvement . CANI. If you are better than yesterday, every day, soon you will be the best in your field. Learn a little and get just a little better every day, that's all it takes.