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I've got a question for you.

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Which of you was always top of the class?

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All your life, top of the class?

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Right.

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--Liar (Laughter)

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Well, in precisely 9 minutes and 30 seconds, 
I'm going to make you proud

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that you weren't always top of the class.

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(Applause)

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You're going to go home tonight 
and tell your partner, your children,

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your friends and relatives:

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"Hallelujah, thank God, I wasn't always top of my class!"

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In 2007, when I started blogging, I began studying
the lives of several people

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who were successful in their lives.

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And each of them was successful in their field,
each one succeeded in a different way.

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But there was one thing all these people shared,
just one thing

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which intrigued me, and this was the fact

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that these people, these characters --
none of them had been really successful at school.

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And some of them had even cut short their education

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and others didn't even make it to school

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for long periods of time.

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So this was a little worrying and frustrating for me
when I remembered

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all those years in which parents and teachers

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told us, you must work hard, you must get the best marks,

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you must be one of the best 
to get into the best higher education establishments

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and in the end, I note that the reality is this:

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all those who have been successful at the school of life

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were not necessarily those who were top of the class.

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So this meant we needed an answer to the following question:

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Why isn't it necessary to succeed at school in order to be successful in life?

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Or even: why is there no direct link between success at school

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and success in life?

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Because, to mention people you know very well,
such as Steve Jobs

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or Bill Gates who have businesses - 
they employ people who were top of the class.

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But when did they leave school?

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They both dropped out

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during their fresher year at university.

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So how come, then, that we, who try to be top of the class

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end up working in businesses for people who

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perhaps don't even know how to read and write?

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So that's when I started looking, and luckily

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I took the right approach right from the start, so I couldn't - or I didn't have to - look very hard.

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I started looking by identifying the qualities these people share

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which have allowed them to be successful in life.

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And I found 5 of these.

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Next, I tried to see these qualities in the education system

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all over the world, how are these qualities developed?

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Or at least appreciated or accommodated in the education system?

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And I was shocked to find I had discovered that these qualities --

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not only are they not developed within the education system,

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but they are even punished in the education system.

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In other words, if you are unlucky enough to possess one or even several of these qualities

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you can be absolutely sure that you will be unable to succeed in the education system.

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And when you get to the workplace, you will be needing these qualities.

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So the first of these qualities is about being passionate.

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Just imagine this discussion with Einstein:

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you meet Einstein and you say to him:

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"Now, Einstein, it seems that you love physics, right?"

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And he says to you: "No, I hate physics. 
You know, I'm only doing physics

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because my parents made me do it.

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I hate it...but hey, Hamdullah, I've been lucky,

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I've discovered a few theories, got a Nobel prize, and all that...well, I've been lucky."

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Or it could be that you could talk to Bill Gates, and so you say to him:

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"So, Bill Gates, it seems that you're turned on by computers?"

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And he says: "Nah, it's just destiny that pushed me to get into computers.

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Well Hamdullah, it's really taken off!"

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Can you imagine this type of discussion?

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It's impossible because we know that these people are passionately enthusiastic.

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So, what is passion?

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Passion means having an emotional and sentimental approach

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to a job.

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And if you are unfortunate enough to have this quality as school, you are going to fall in love

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with certain subjects, and you will work hard on those.

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And you'll hate the other subjects, and you won't work as hard on them.

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And as soon as you get to secondary school, you'll discover what we call the subject weightings.

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The subject weightings - the head will never come to you at the beginning of the year and say:

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"So, what do you like? You like maths? Ah! Let's raise its weighting.

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You don't like physics? We'll bring it down."

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It will never ever happen like that.

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The weighting is already set.

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If you're good at maths, physics and languages, we take the highest weighting.

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If you like geography and history, and you work hard at those but you hate maths

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then you'll never get a good mark, or never the top mark, in the exam.

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Which means you'll be hearing this sort of thing all the time:

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"He's a hard worker, in certain subjects, he really is very, very good.

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But in other subjects, he really could do better."

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That's what they're passionate about at school: it's someone who could always do better.

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And that's why those at the top of the class have no feelings.

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They have no passion. They work at everything!

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They work hard in every subject!

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And they are good at all the subjects.

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And this creates a big problem for those at the top of the class.

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Because later on, they can apply to study medicine, law, and accountancy.

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They can do it all.

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At the outset, they are impressed by their abilities.

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But later, when you get to work, they'll say to you:

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"No, no, no: Stop!"

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If you want to succeed, there are two things that are very important, primordial in life.

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If you want to achieve happiness and excellence, you must be passionate about what you do.

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But without passion, you can't succeed at work, nor even in your personal life.

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Yet at school, we've always been forced to take compulsory subjects, rather than follow our passion.

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Second quality: curiosity.