Now thinking the thread belongs in the rant section 
Seems to descended into over analysis and confrontational willy waving.
“No kidding, Einstein! I grew up in a fishing village in India. I left school at sixteen to start my own business. I graduated privately (night study) from a little known university in a small backwater of a third world country where most people don't speak English. Yet I know how many full stops to use at the end of a sentence.
You want to teach
me that there's education outside of a classroom? If you got irony you'd be killing yourself right now.
BTW, a tip for you: try WD-40, it may cure your sticky key. Spray WD-40 liberally on your keyboard. Turn keyboard upside down. Shake violently. Buy new computer.”
I was nearly with you Clinton until this paragraph. It comes over as a huge chip, background insecurities about your roots with an overly aggressive sarcastic defence mechanism.
You've done well, good stuff, hurrah. You had a poor start and became self made, but it is starting to go a bit Monty Python. "You lived in a boot? I lived in a shoe box..."
Having travelled India, the differences between the bottom of the pile and the emerging middle and upper classes are obvious and obscene. It's the UK 150 years ago, so it must be odd and confusing to meet a UK population who are more blase, but we have evolved again, as will India, and no doubt quicker.
I found it fascinating watching the school children leaving the slums of Delhi and Mumbai, and the poorer agricultural regions. But they were always well turned out, wearing school uniform, with everything the parents had went on an education as it was a ticket out of poverty and social exclusion. It was sobering and made me realise what we now take for granted across the UK, and how far we have come.
Although the media will tell you otherwise, we have little genuine poverty in the UK (ie can't provide any food or shelter versus feeding the family pets or paying for a SKY subscription or second car).
Anyone can go to University (assuming you are academically minded), and success these days is awarded on ability (at least for the most part) rather than the fading requirements of gentlemens clubs connections, daddys money or posh accents. That's the UK I'm proud to live in. Far from the dumbed down reality TV stereotype Britain you see.
But unlike Americans who will shout "USA" at any opportunity and adorn a stars and stripes in the front garden, us Brits are far more self depreciating, dark humoured and very quick to put each other down. Maybe it's our tribal blood, maybe it's our legendary odd sense of humour which few nations seem to understand but has bonded Brits abroad for centuries.
Who knows, and who cares!
Posh accent, regional accent, university, polytechnic, YTS scheme, Tescos or ex squaddie. Life's what you make it. Success (believe it or not) isn't measured in pound coins, because you can't take it with you. It's measured in family, fun, work life balance and enjoying what you do.
I'm unlikely to ever become the CEO of a PLC, and a CEO of a PLC is unlikely to have the amount of flexible time I have to watch my nippers grow up and leave a relatively stress free life.
Horse for courses, this is a small business forum. Running a business is a challenge all of us will understand. Plenty will fail, but those of us who succeed have different aims. Some may harbour ambitions of running business empires, others to have a better work life balance.
Chips taste better at the chippy than off the shoulder, and sarcasm and irony is an Olympic sport in these little isles of ours.
Now instead of deliberately goading on a thread past its sell by date, why not start a new one or contribute to a business discussion which we could all benefit from.
There are plenty of people taking their first faltering steps in to the world of business who would appreciate some genuine words of encouragement, personal experience wisdom or relevant anecdote from a successful businessman.
<slopes off quietly...>
