Obvious importance doesn't mean most important
There is such an incredible emphasis on education and, within education, a huge emphasis on grades, test scores, and reputation/prestige of attended schools. There is not an argument to be made against having better grades, test scores, or attending reputable/prestigious institutions. However, what's often missed, at least in reading material and the media in general, is everything else that actually matters in one's success in life.
For example, school doesn't really teach any true level of structured leadership, management of groups of people, personal (or professional) finance, and certainly no requirements around "innovative" or "creative" thinking (that is, inventing unknown or new solutions to existing problems, however trivial they may be).
Or, at a more granular level, schools/universities definitely do not teach persistence, focus, discipline, relentlessness, charm (charm school?), passion (or lack thereof), curiosity, imagination, visioning or other high-level thinking, like-ability, emotional intelligence, articulating/teaching/persuading/selling others, and even just general interpersonal and relationship management/health.
It's these other dimensions that are all a part of our personalities that don't really get tested, scored, or otherwise "evaluated" when it comes to general academic excellence. It's troubling to me, even tragic, to see parents who are so overly obsessive of their children's academic performance when they pay no particular attention to their child's tendencies when in groups of friends, behaviors at large family events, or even just "getting things done" in a productive manner outside of school.
While not discounting the role and importance of education and raw intelligence, the argument to be made here with this post is that ALL aspects of our personality are in some way instrumental to our success. Each aspect and dimension of our personality has an interplay with one another that will ultimately determine our true success. Meanwhile, why do we pay such little attention to these other dimensions which many are as equally, if not moreso, important than academic success or raw intelligence? Perhaps it is time to evaluate yourself against the things no one else ever measured you by.
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