What Could You Learn For a 1.50 In Late Charges?

"See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna staht doin some thinkin on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certaintees in life. One, don't do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f**kin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library"

Before you start pelting me with emails about misspellings....that's the heavy Bostonian accent at work and it's one of my favorite lines from one my favorite movies Good Will Hunting.  In the scene Will, the main character, is defending the honor of a young lady he's met at a "Harvard Bar" and finds himself being attacked by some over educated ego induced "Michale Bolton" wannabe about his lack of education.  It's a classic scene and a powerful lesson all rolled up into one.

You see Will never went to college but is "wicked smart."  He's an off the chart genius and consumes books like nobody's business.  In one scene his little one room apartment is shown and he has a bed and books - that's it.  He immerses himself in his quest for knowledge and I find that fascinating.

So what in the world does this have to do with Rippling?

I believe life's journey is truly enriched by one's own desire to continuously learn.  For me it's not about what education level one has or how much knowledge was acquired way back in college but what they are learning now and how they use that knowledge to contribute to the here and the now.  And reading offers the key to that contribution. 

I was recently coaching someone on the job search and asked them how much time they spent at the library?  The predictable response was none.  We proceeded to talk about the top business books that many of today's business leaders and HR professionals are reading and just how many of them he wasn't reading.  To go out to Amazon and purchase many of the books that I know my professional colleagues are reading would cost this poor lad hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars which he clearly couldn't afford.  But the library offers him the chance to read all of those great book for free (minus the cost of a library card).

And it's not just business books that the library offers.  Any subject in any genre awaits you at your local library.  I read constantly and encourage you no matter where you are in life to do the same.  You never know when a great idea, a spark of inspiration or just a relevant passage from a book can be leveraged to better your connecting efforts with others.

So what could you be learning (and then sharing) "for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library"?


Ripple On!!!