I Never Went to College. Read Here How that Turned Out.

Today’s prompt question asks, What colleges have you attended?

“A piece of paper doesn’t give someone intelligence. Life does.”
Wow. That one hits deep for me.

The first time I remember feeling any real hope about my future didn’t happen in a classroom. It happened sitting in front of a TV, watching The Wizard of Oz. When the Wizard handed the Scarecrow a diploma and explained that a piece of paper doesn’t give someone intelligence, something clicked in me. I didn’t have the words for it back then, but I felt seen. If a scarecrow could be declared “smart” with a scroll and a speech, then maybe—just maybe—there was still a place in the world for a kid like me.

School never felt like that place. “I wasn’t failing school. School was failing me.”

From the very beginning, it was clear I didn’t fit the system. Reading was slow and exhausting. The printed word didn’t land in my brain the way it seemed to land in everyone else’s. I could read the same page three times and still not absorb it, while the kid next to me flipped the page and moved on. Letters didn’t behave. Paragraphs felt like walls instead of doorways.

I now know that was dyslexia and ADHD, both undiagnosed and unrecognized back then. At the time, it wasn’t called anything. It was just assumed I wasn’t trying hard enough. Teachers saw distraction. Report cards reflected frustration. I learned early how it feels to be told—without anyone actually saying it—that you are falling short of what’s expected.

The irony is that I was trying. Harder than most.

What no one understood was how I actually retained information. I learned by doing, by watching people, by listening, by being in motion. Put me in a real situation with real people and real consequences, and suddenly everything made sense. Give me a textbook and a lecture, and I was lost. Schools weren’t built for kids wired like me, especially in those days.

College was never really on the table. Not because I lacked ambition, but because the system had already convinced me I didn’t belong there. For a long time, I carried that quietly.

Around the time my peers were talking about graduating from college, my parents were very clear with me: without a degree, I wouldn’t amount to much. My father, an Army-trained draftsman who worked for Boeing in the helicopter division, had hit glass ceilings his entire career because he didn’t have one himself. It frustrated him deeply, and I understood why. The truth was, with a combined SAT score of around 800, I would have been lucky to get into a trade school—but the trades weren’t what I wanted anyway. Even back in high school, management was my strength. I didn’t shine on tests or in textbooks, but I understood people, responsibility, and leadership long before I understood algebra.

What I didn’t carry quietly was my work ethic.

I showed up early. I stayed late. I paid attention. I learned people. I learned responsibility. I learned that when something went wrong, excuses didn’t fix it—action did. While others were memorizing theories, I was learning judgment. While others were highlighting textbooks, I was reading rooms.

Here’s a truth that still surprises people:
I’ve only read four complete books in my entire life—and I am damn proud of that.

That number doesn’t embarrass me. It explains me.

I didn’t learn through pages. I learned through pressure. Through ownership. Through being accountable for outcomes. I learned by making mistakes when they mattered and fixing them fast. Over time, that kind of learning compounds.

Years later—long after school was in the rearview mirror—I broke barriers that were never supposed to move. I became a vice president of one of our country’s Fortune 500 companies while the company’s official policy stated that degrees were required two levels below that position. On paper, I shouldn’t have been there. In reality, I earned it the only way I knew how—by delivering results and developing people.

I retired at 48 years old.

Not because I failed. Because I finished one chapter and chose to write another. I opened my own store. I invested in commercial and residential real estate. I built assets instead of chasing titles. I raised a fantastic family. Today I live very comfortably, and I’m the proud grandfather of seven.

So when someone asks me, What colleges have you attended?
I smile.

I attended the school of responsibility.
The school of pressure.
The school of people.
The school of consequences.

I don’t discount college. It’s a great path—for some. But it was never mine. My brain wasn’t broken. It was wired differently. And once I stopped trying to force myself into a system that wasn’t built for me, everything changed.

I didn’t attend college.

But I built a life I’m proud of.

And I wouldn’t trade my education for anyone else’s.