Master the skill stack—be the top 1%.

IN THIS ISSUE 

9 min read

• 💸 Money doesn’t solve all your problems, but…

• 📚 Skill Stack

• 🔑 Key Takeaways

MONEY SOLVES PROBLEMS

It's often said that money doesn't solve all your problems, but it does solve all your money problems. Many of life's challenges can indeed be alleviated with financial resources. One of my favorite quotes highlights this idea:

With this in mind, I set out to win the money game. At that point, I didn't fully understand the significance of becoming a millionaire, but the allure and magic surrounding that term captivated my attention. It gave me something to strive towards.

Surprisingly, I achieved the milestone of becoming a millionaire in just three years, which, in hindsight, was quite remarkable. However, the true value lies not just in reaching that financial milestone, but in the person you become throughout the journey.

Becoming a millionaire is less about the possessions you acquire and more about the person you become and the capabilities you develop. Even if my money were to disappear, I would still possess the skills and abilities necessary to earn it back.

Now, this is important because the most valuable investments that you can make are in your skills.

They pay compounding dividends over the entirety of your life, and they can't be taken away from you, even if the market implodes or the taxman comes knocking. The key, then, is to start building your skills as soon as possible, but the most important part of the entire equation is to make sure you're building the right skills.

At the beginning of my journey, I sought guidance from someone far ahead of me, and I asked him what I needed to do to make money. He bluntly stated that I was not very valuable to the marketplace, possessing low-value skills that didn't solve significant problems and were easily replaceable.

This realization led me to grapple with a common question: What are the money-making skills that truly matter?

Before delving into millionaire skills that are worth developing, here's the truth that successful people often don't openly share: You don't need to be exceptionally great at anything to win the money game and become a millionaire. Some of the most successful individuals I know are quite average in various aspects of life. They don't possess above-average intelligence, looks, charisma, or humor. Yet, despite being ordinary in many ways, they have managed to achieve remarkable results.

SKILL STACK

So, instead of being extremely good at something, we can fixate ourselves on become simply “good enough” at many things. The intersection of this venn diagram made by all of our skills, being top 20% in each of them, allows us to score within the top 1-2% of the population for this array of skills.

This is referred to as your skill stack, your personal array of skills.

Now, when you're building your skill stack, it's important that we combine skills that are unique, complementary, and, most importantly, valuable.

For instance, maybe you're an engineer who becomes an above-average public speaker; suddenly, you stand out in a field of laptops.

This week, we’re going to discuss core skills that are the foundations of our skill stacks. Check back next week for skills tailored to money-making.

One of the core skills that everyone should have in their stack is learning. Or moreover, learning how to learn. My life rapidly started changing for the better once I realized that learning is a skill and, as such, it can be improved. Learning how to learn might just be the highest return on investment you can possibly make.

Now, I know some people struggle to learn more than others, especially given the way our school system teaches. But you are a human, and one of the defining characteristics of being a human is that you can learn and become more today than you were yesterday.

Yet, the thing we all share as humans is the capacity to learn, to adapt, to improve, to grow, to do practically anything that we set our minds to.

I know, it can be excruciatingly boring, but it’s really important. So, figure out how to learn your best, keep experimenting, and don’t give up.

The second crucial core skill is a buzzword that has been going around the community—discipline. Simply put, discipline is the action of doing what you said you would do. It’s about treating each decision as important, and taking action even when you weren’t ready.

See, one of the traits that separates high achievers and super successful people from the rest is their ability to stick with a task and to continue moving towards that goal without getting distracted.

Finally, the third core skill is to garner your focus. Focus is your most valuable asset. The quality of your focus and where you place it will have the biggest impact on your results and, ultimately, your life.

Unfortunately, most of us really struggle to control this asset. Most people spend it away on social media, TV, and a million other distractions. Then they wonder why they aren't further along on the path toward their dream life than they wanted.

But it's not your fault; there is a literal war fought for your attention occurring every second of every day, and in many cases, it's you versus an army of brilliant engineers devising ever sneakier ways to separate you from your most valuable asset.

In any case, learn ways to keep focused, and really try to experiment to be try and maximize your focus time.

Now, the question is, how focused are you? How good at learning are you? How disciplined are you? And when viewed as a spectrum with no start or end, then we can be in a constant pursuit of improvement because remember, the goal is just to get better, and better has no finish line.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The most valuable investments that you can make are in your skills. Skills pay compound interest, and can never be taken away.

• Instead of being extremely good at something, we can fixate ourselves on become simply “good enough” at many things.

  • This allows us to become the top 1% at a specific group of skills

• Core skills that we should add to our skill stack is focus, learning, and discipline

(Check back next week for millionaire-tailored skills)

THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE?