Richard Branson on Why Entrepreneurs Sometimes Struggle with Formal Education

As far back as I can remember I had trouble with formal education for the simple reason that assignments are pointless. They don't solve real problems and have no personal significance to me, so why do them?

I have never been able to get good at anything unless there's a point-- a reason I want to do it.

It has to be my reason. Someone else telling me simply doesn't work. If the work has no purpose, my eyes will literally refuse to focus... my brain will refuse to parse the words. It's like the very substance of my being goes into revolt. All the willpower in the world won't overcome this. I really tried on many occasions since I could rationally grasp the long term value of better grades, but unless I could find a way to directly link the work to a personal goal my brain would literally refuse to operate. I remember this being a struggle as far back as first grade.

Math is a great example. I never did well at math in school, but when I actually needed to do something with it I found that I had no problem diving deeply into difficult areas like combinatorics, discrete and linear algebra, etc. and really understanding them. I could keep up with professionals in these areas, so it obviously wasn't an ability thing.

My wife is the same way -- probably one of the things we have in common. If something is not meaningful to her she says she literally can't read sometimes. The eyes move but the words are just shapes on the page.