Note: This article is by Darius Foroux, who tells us about his experience in acquiring a set of skills that helped him achieve career success.
That is because, as a society, we admire and glorify our winners. We look at net worth, champions, gold medalists, and other distinguished people with admiration and awe. But I have to admit: There are many lessons we can learn from people who have mastered a particular skill.
But it is also very challenging. Not everyone desires to practice a skill for ten or twenty thousand hours. We all have other priorities in life, such as family, friends, hobbies, health, and so forth.
Therefore, when people write books and articles about extraordinary people, we may be inspired, but from a practical standpoint, the advice is useless, not because we are unable to put it into practice but rather because we do not want to most of the time.
A More Realistic Approach to Career Success
I always knew that I wanted to live life on my terms. My definition of success is the same as that of American singer Bob Dylan: “A person succeeds if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night, and in between does what he wants to do.”
If you want to be successful by this definition, you need two things: a stable career and enough income. To be clear, you don't have to be the best in the world or wealthy to be successful. All you need is a useful skill set to reach this level of career success
Build Your Own Skills
A discovery I made about three years ago altered both the course of my professional and personal lives. Since I was 17 years old, I have worked at a number of different jobs. My bachelor's and master's degrees were also in business administration and marketing. I started my first job in 2010 and have acquired a variety of skills since then.
Here is my skillset list:
- Productivity and time management.
- Persuasion.
- Wed design.
- Writing.
- Accounting.
- Drawing.
- Project management.
- Marketing.
- Public speaking.
- Education.
I am not proficient in any of these skills. For instance, I have poor drawing skills, reasonable web design skills, average marketing skills, strong production skills, and good but not great writing skills.
It proved to be very successful and effective when I combined all my skills and started blogging. I realized why after reading Scott Adams' How To Fail At Almost Everything and Still Win Big. He refers to this concept as "Talent Stacking" (I prefer the word "skill" because it indicates learning rather than "talent", which implies instinct). He says:
“It is preferable to be good at two complementary skills rather than excellent and skilled in one if you want to succeed.”
Your Success Chances Increase with Each Skill You Acquire
“If you think exceptional talent and an insane pursuit of excellence are necessary for success, I'd say this is just one approach and probably the hardest, but when it comes to skills, quantity often trumps quality,” says Scott Adams.
There are numerous instances of this. Look around you. How many people do you know who are not the best in the world but still do a good job? It is all about improving your chances of success, and having more skills will increase those chances.
Think about it: Your chances are limited if you have only one skill, but you are more valuable if you have multiple skills. This is what career success ultimately means, as it is all about value and how much value you can give to people or organizations.
What Skills Can Make Me More Valuable?
This is the most crucial question because the more interest and skill you can demonstrate, the greater the rewards you will receive. The most crucial question is: What are these useful skills? Personally, I believe in the value of these skills:
1. Productivity
My blog's primary focus is productivity for one main reason: if you are someone who can do a lot of things, you will always find a way to get where you want to go, and if you have strong productivity skills, you can learn anything. It makes all the other skills easier to acquire, so in my opinion, it should be learned first. In other words, productivity is the mother of all skills.
2. Writing
Writing clearly and simply allows you to express yourself in a way that very few people can, and being able to put your thoughts into words makes our work easy.
3. Psychology
We can better understand ourselves and others if we have a basic understanding of why we act the way we do. You don't have to become a therapist, but you will be better at dealing with others and yourself when you are familiar with the fundamentals of psychology.
4. Persuasion
It is the art and science of communicating in a way that people can understand. We perform better in leadership, sales, conversations, public speaking, and other situations involving influencing others when we are skilled at persuasion. Effective communication is the key factor that determines influence more than anything else.
5. Personal Finance
We do not frequently consider money management, but as we get closer to retirement age, we invariably wonder, "Why did I not start earlier?" It is time to begin managing your own finances.
In Conclusion
I firmly believe that acquiring these skills will make you a reliable individual whom you want to have as a partner, brother, sister, or parent, so try the following mental exercise: What kind of person would you hire as your CEO if you were a business owner?
Answer this question for yourself, list the skills and characteristics that this person should possess, and then strive to be that person by acquiring those skills.
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