Success is a mindset not a life`s gift

„Mr. Heerde, I only came to thank you. Before the State Examination Board I was marked with a super 1 so the other once from our course,“ said Michael with roots from Congo having passed three weeks ago his History Examination with flying colours. All my students in this year's examination of History and Politics were marked 1 plus, 1 and lowest 2. They are refugees from Syria, immigrants from Belarus, Iran, Ghana, or from Germany, UK and Poland. Some have personal issues like cutting themselves, smoking cannabis, have concentration problems, having to work part-time to pay the monthly school fees of €547 if not sponsored by their parents or spouses. They are all aged between 20-30, all had a professional career before and some are married. One student over 2 meters tall soon with his father will open a gold mining company in Uganda, others cooperate with each other to open a start-up company in the AI-Sector.

Educationalists claim people with no academic family background will mostly not pursue an academic career and be successful in it, will not reach higher society levels and earn more than their parents compared to their peers with better starting positions in life. They do not recognize that personal challenges can lift a human beyond imaginable success compared to people with a better family environment. What is difficult is not impossible. Germans five hundred years go burned Germans as witches who dreamt of flying to moon and Mars.

My late mother was wise in a certain way when I got the letters from my teachers for academic promotion when she said: „My son, you know we are not rich. You know, I am not so intelligent. I cannot help you. You know, no one from our family has ever reached where you have reached now. If you want to go further and take up the challenge, all I can do is to support you with what I have. But remember, my son, you must fight for yourself.“ So, I did; the first in my family to complete A-Level and graduation from Hamburg University in Political Sciences and History. I wrote 26 books (mostly novels), drama play, 1385 popular scientific article with over 2, 3 Mio. reads among other achievements.

„Mr. Heerde, I got before the State Examination Board in Politics mark 1 plus and mark 1 in History. Like you, I will study Political Sciences, especially International Relations at Hamburg University as I find it so fascinating. But be sure, I will not pursue a career as a politician,“ said Marie while I laughed about her comments honoured and joyful. She is married, 28 years old, with a family background of parents not academics themselves.

When students join our Private Academy which will make them pass the first year at a public German or British University with flying colours they all attend in their numbers. Over a period of four to six weeks the numbers go down while they still have to continue paying the school fees. Some intentionally sit in the back rows, constantly checking their smartphones. They answer WhatsApp messages, leave the lecture hall to answer phone calls and arrange flights, doctor appointments, work schedules, friends and family conversation, play online games to win nothing but to relax their minds, look onto the white ceiling to dream their time away or secretly chatting with their neighbours. Some pay attention to our presentations and questions. Some write down on their laptops or paper workbooks' information received; others ask for the sources used by us Lecturers to follow the information up in the comfort of their homes. Some timely come to present their subject presentation before their peers others find excuses not yet to be ready to perform. They are sick (I was never sick at that Academy), come late and are marked as late, show up as they prefer with smiling faces seeing me smiling back telling myself constantly they are adults and know what they are doing.

These times are a constant reminder of what I went through in the past. My one year older the eldest sister got pregnant at the age of sixteen. She never had an interest in school but parties in the Hamburg-Dehnhaide Disco Big Apple with men smoking cannabis which she shared. Supported with food from my mother, she moved out aged eighteen, fighting her mother over life's matters. Having delivered the first baby girl at the age of twenty-two, she came up to me asking for help. Beginning in the 1980s, many Germans wanted to open a Boutique or Sun Studio. While I was pursuing my academic career, never interested in fame or big money, she asked me for a business plan for her dream of a Boutique potentially a chain of Boutiques. Over six months I worked on her dream. When I presented my business plan to her, she was all over the moon. Back on earth, she mentioned she had already inquired at the school in Anckelmann Straße for working Hamburg adults to learn after work three days in the week for two years Business Administration. She had, she told me, arranged everything in her private life to be able to attend this specific free of charge State School...but she never went. Ten years later I was told by my mother she wanted to study at a new University without A-Level but work experience. Her son six months after my mother's phone call too late to attend the meeting I had that day with Olaf Scholz, former German Chancellor, in my place informed me her mother had changed her mind but wants to pursue her talent as a painting artist...the internet does not give me any information about such an artist; now an optician pensioner.

Observing real life unfolding before my very eyes as a Senior Lecturer having personal experiences and knowledge about the life of many others throughout the years, my academic conclusions unlike many Educationalists differ. Academic success as much as financial success is based on the combination of three, free of charge elements, possible for all: character, interest and enthusiasm out of which hard work evolves.