 It was a sunny afternoon that day. I was standing under a shed after walking for several minutes, trying to locate a prospect's office. I was tired and nearly fagged out from walking under the sun. Some weeks before, I had collected some audio messages of this man, transcribed them, made them into a book, and had hoped to sell the manuscript to him. As I later found his office and we sat to talk, I was so excited about the idea I did almost all the talking. Desperation to sell the manuscript showed through my voice. Far as I was concerned, I was a sincere young man seeking to build a small business around ghostwriting. But as far as the prospect was concerned, I was an overexcited ignorant entrepreneur who was giving away too much without proper negotiation skill and haven't done my due diligence about the legal side of ghostwriting. After over 30 minutes of super-excitedly charging the client about why he must get the manuscript, I walked out of that office convinced I would get the deal. More than a year later, I still hadn't gotten the deal, and at the time I was dead broke. It was then it dawned on me that sincerity doesn't usually make you succeed. Knowledge, coming through copious learning alone, makes you succeed. The power of learning. My excitement hit the roof when I discovered I was a sophomore at a university. I had looked forward to studying at the university, and now that I was finally here, I was overly excited. However, within just one month of attending classes as a sophomore in that school, I became frustrated. I felt like dying. I discovered I hated the course I was studying more than anything else in this world. And also, I found out that I didn't even have a flair for mathematics. Although I had just put in for an engineering course, I would have to struggle through this for seven years. Don't ask me why I couldn't get out of that hell hole, considering where I was coming from. I just couldn't. However, my life changed in my third year when I discovered the power of learning. I found love in books. I started to read books and wrote loads of them. Where I had been frustrated for three years because of some mistakes, I found a world of learning saving my life. What my money meant for food and provisions, I would buy loads of books. Years later, the knowledge I gained from reading those books helped me to shape my life financially, emotionally, meritably, and psychologically. Listen to this. If you don't love to learn, you will not learn to succeed. Brian Tracy said, Keep learning because how much you learn determines how much you earn. I have met people who really want to succeed, but who have not read a single book on money. Someone recently walked into my bedroom, sold us tax of books I had on one side of the room, and exclaimed, Who reads oldest books? I read them. People want to succeed, but they are unwilling to learn. I have found that the simplest way to get ahead of my peers, to achieve result they are not achieving and will not achieve in the future, is to know more than they know. Businesses get over their competition by learning much more than their competition. When T. Harf Ecker, the author of The Secret of a Millionaire Mindset, was struggling financially, even though he was working so hard to be financially successful, his father's friend told him, Rich's is not first a result of hard work, it is a result of knowing how the rich think. Poor people think in a certain way, and so they remain poor. Rich people think in a certain way, and so remain rich. If you want to be rich, think like rich people think. Well, there was no way he would learn to think like rich people without reading books by people who had become rich, then ensuring that he started to mingle with rich people, so he wouldn't understand how they think. Yes, your learning alone should not come from reading books, good as they are, they should also come from your environment. When we talk about learning, most think that they should limit it to books. No, there are people who are street smart or business smart, and from whom you can learn so much about business, if you would befriend them. If you want to become successful in a particular field, find people who have become successful in that field, and be their friend if it's possible. As much as you read, build friendships with people who are on the same path of success as you desire. Recently, I spoke with someone who had been in business for many years and became street smart by just asking his advice about a business deal I had gotten into. I made thousands of extra cash and also saved so much money and stress. Just by learning something from him, I couldn't have learned otherwise. If you hate to learn, you hate to succeed. Don't fight to succeed when you're unwilling to learn. Random learning doesn't guarantee success. Some weeks ago, I was speaking with my boss asking him a question about why so many smart people, people who are so talented and are considered intelligent by society, are often broke. My boss answer was challenging. It's simply this, just because you know so many skills doesn't mean you will be rich. Just because you can do so much doesn't guarantee you will succeed. The proper kind of knowledge is the one that guarantees success. You could read all the books in the world. It doesn't guarantee that you will succeed. Learning must be deliberate. Recently, my boss asked me a question about some tools. I was surprised he didn't know how to use the tool. And also, there were so many other tools I could use, which he couldn't. Yet, he is 10 times richer than I am. Why? Well, just because you have some technical skills doesn't mean you will succeed. Researchers proven that soft skills are more likely to make you successful than hard skills, negotiation skills, leadership skills, good decision making, human psychology, good financial management, etc. are essential to succeeding. So when I talk about learning all you can, do not limit it to just learning as many skills as you can. If you want to succeed, focus on learning things that guarantee success, read books in human psychology because you need to know what humans want before you can know how to get their money. Read books and finances because most do not manage their money right. Yet, they want to have more money. Read books and leadership as leadership is essential to people management and repeatedly successful people have to learn to manage people if they must remain successful. This is what I have realized. You may learn in the dark, but what you learn in the dark will bring you to the light. You may pay a high price for learning now, maybe giving up a cheap job opportunity or something, but what you learn now if it was strategic will put you over later. If you want to get to the top and remain there, don't stop learning. If this video inspired you, subscribe to our channel. We love you.