4. Learning Over The Long Term.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)(IBD'S 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS)

Byline: Linda Stockman-Vines

When Jill Jameson was a 17-year-old living in Zimbabwe, her father passed along a piece of advice that helped shaped the course of her life.

He said: "Life changes -- the future is uncertain. The things that you invest in today may not last tomorrow. Educate yourself -- there is one thing that can never be taken away from you, and that is your education.

"You could lose your money, your house, your friends, your country through the changing fashions of the times," Middleton Julius Lawrence "Peter" Jameson told his daughter, "but your education can never be taken away from you."

Her father's advice in 1969 was "not only wise but also very far-seeing," said Jameson, who was born in 1951 in Salisbury, Rhodesia -- now Harare, Zimbabwe -- and is currently director of lifelong learning at the University of Greenwich in Woolwich, London.

"I did lose my country. And (my) investment in lifelong learning has therefore been critically important to ensure that I could not only survive in another country and another time, but also (that I could) treasure the concepts of justice, harmony and good will in community relations," she said.

Since leaving Zimbabwe in 1970, Jameson has earned a bachelor of arts degree and several advanced degrees in English literature, education and computers in education. "All this study has sometimes been a bit exhausting," she said, "but it has really, really stretched and developed me personally and helped me not only to take on new skills but also to progress in my career.