Advice to My Younger Self: Insights on Education and Lifelong Learning

The one piece of advice I’d give my younger self about education is simple: master the practical skill, not just the test. When I was younger, I thought education meant getting a diploma or a degree. In the trades, like running an HVAC business here in San Antonio, the real education comes from the time spent in the trenches, turning textbook theory into a reliable, efficient fix. Focus on learning something deep enough that you can actually build a profitable service and reputation around it.

My perspective has completely changed over the years. When I was starting out, learning felt like a requirement I had to check off. Now, as a business owner, learning is our competitive edge. Every year, we see new smart thermostats, higher efficiency units, and better ways to manage a service team. If I stop learning about those things—or if my technicians stop—we immediately fall behind. Continuous learning isn’t just good; it’s the core foundation that keeps Honeycomb Air reliable and growing.

You have to realize that in business, you’re always a student. Education doesn’t end when you leave school; it just shifts from theory to application. The most valuable skill you can develop is that practical, problem-solving mindset—whether it’s fixing a complex refrigerant leak or figuring out a better way to handle inventory. That kind of real-world knowledge is the only currency that matters in the service industry.

If I could tap my younger self on the shoulder and whisper one thing, it would be this: treat education less like a ladder and more like a lantern. It’s not just a tool for climbing upward; it’s a light you carry that makes every path—expected or surprising—easier to navigate.

Back then, I saw learning as something tied to grades, deadlines, and final exams. Over time, life gently rearranged that idea. I realized that real learning is the ongoing, curious hum in the background of everything we do—how we solve problems, adapt to new tools, communicate better, and see the world with a little more depth than the day before.

Today, I treat learning as a lifelong companion rather than a phase. The more I invest in it, the more it expands my flexibility, confidence, and ability to grow in directions my younger self didn’t even know existed.

I grew up in a household that valued achievements highly, so one piece of advice I would give to my younger self is to not use her grades as a measure of how much she learned. I really think that if an adult had said this to me back then, I would have treated myself more gently whenever I got a low grade in a subject I enjoyed and learned so much from. I eventually realized how this became my main drive for studying once I got into college, which placed great pressure on me and slowly burned me out.

At present, I have shifted into viewing learning as a lifelong investment, especially when I found out how essential it was to Cafely’s growth. Learning became more of a dynamic process to me as a result, where I am able to apply what I learned more in real life if I actively engage with other professionals within the coffee industry, be it through conventions, seminars, or workshops.

I would tell my younger self that learning to see is infinitely more valuable than learning the software. In art school, I treated education as a race to master specific tools because I believed that knowing every shortcut in Photoshop was the key to a career. I wish I had understood that software is ephemeral. The version I learned on is now obsolete, but the fundamental principles of composition, light, and color theory are timeless. I spent too much time memorizing menus and not enough time training my eye to understand why an image works visually.

My perspective has shifted from viewing education as a “front-loaded” event to a continuous survival mechanism. Early on, I thought I would learn for four years and then simply execute that knowledge for the rest of my life. Now, with technologies like generative AI upending my industry every few months, I realize that the ability to unlearn old habits is just as important as learning new ones. Education is no longer a degree on my wall. It has become the daily discipline of staying curious enough to not get left behind.

Despite earning a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and MBA in marketing-related fields, I only realized about a year ago how critical personal branding and networking are to career success. If I could advise my younger self, it would be to invest in building relationships and personal visibility alongside formal education. Over my 10+ years in the industry, I’ve watched marketers with less technical knowledge advance faster simply because they prioritized networking early on. My perspective has shifted from viewing education purely as acquiring credentials and knowledge to understanding that learning also means developing your professional network and personal brand. While technical expertise remains valuable, I now recognize that success requires balancing formal education with strategic relationship building from the start of your career.

The piece of advice I would give my younger self about the importance of education is: Stop collecting degrees and start collecting competence. Young me was obsessed with academic validation and collecting certifications, thinking that was the key to success. I wasted energy proving I was smart, when I should have been proving I was functionally competent.

My perspective on learning has evolved from consuming information to mastering functional skill transfer. Education is not about knowing things; it’s about the ability to take messy, complex knowledge—whether it’s finance theory or coding logic—and apply it immediately to solve a real-world business problem that costs Co-Wear money.

The evolution is realizing that the ultimate value of education is the auditable proof of competence. My younger self would have focused on the grade; current me focuses on the verifiable system I built using that knowledge. The goal of learning is to build better systems, not just a better resume.

I would tell my younger self to spend less time trying to do everything perfectly and more time listening and observing. Early in my marketing career, I was so focused on getting every detail right that I missed what really mattered. The most valuable lessons came from quiet moments when I paid attention to real conversations and observed how people actually behaved. Over time, my perspective shifted from viewing learning as mastering techniques to understanding that true insight comes from staying present and receptive. Education is not just about acquiring knowledge but about developing the ability to notice what others miss. This shift in approach has been fundamental to my growth and success.

I have been a lifelong learner since childhood, with a love of reading. In many ways I was self-taught. Now at 67, I look at my training and background and wish I had diversified a bit more. My BA is in Psychology (1981) and my MSW is in Social Work (1985). In 1998, I went to seminary and was ordained as an Interfaith Minister. I would like to have pursued Journalism as a career since I am now a freelancer without formal training.

I would tell my younger self that she was on the right track.