The Only Skill You Need

"You only have one skill; how to find a job and work for others." Thank you for the man who destroyed my soul last week! Why would you do that when I am sooooo proud of my corporate achievements, my two Master's degrees, and all the other certificates and expertise I have worked so hard for? Seriously, thank you! Truth is your best friend even if you don't like it. I did not like this truth! But hey, we take it, get upset about it, and then use it to our benefit.

We are paying attention to the wrong thing; Skill development. You only need corporate skills when you don't have the one and only skill you actually need.

Imagine two bags. The first one is named, "How to stay employed" and the second is, "How money works".

In the first bag, you have all the skills, certificates, and titles/achievements you have collected and proudly show off on LinkedIn. Rightly so, because you need to stay employed whether you are a full-time employee, a freelancer or a consultant. These skills are related to your job, technical & soft skills. You are super focused on filling this bag with courses/skills such as leadership, project management, negotiation, stakeholder management, influencing, empathy, EQ, resilience, self-awareness, titles, and whatever corporations and the education system tell you that you need. Of course, you are focused on these! Your livelihood depends on them! So you learn how to manage up, down, yourself, and others. You learn how to be the perfect culture fit, how to manage your bosses so you don't get fired and how to be the person they like. You learn how to manage organisations instead of your finances.

The truth is, nobody has ever built wealth with any of these skills. These skills will get you jobs and keep you employed. They make you money but you constantly have to do them otherwise the money will dry up. Hamsterwheel.

In the second bag, you have one skill; "How money works" so you don't have to work for the money. This is the only skill millionaires and billionaires have. They understand how money works for them. Now they might have a skill or two from the first bag that made them some money to start with, but without knowing how money works they would not have wealth. They don't work for the money, the money works for them.

When you watch these millionaires and billionaires being asked if they have been broke or about high-risk investments they all say the same "I have been broke a few times" "It's ok to lose it all, I know how money works I will build my wealth back up". Their relationship with money is very different to those with skills in the first bag. When you know how to do something, it is not a problem or a risk to do it. That's why you keep working too. You know how to do that.

If you pay attention to celebrities for example they all have a team making sure that their money works for them whether it is branding and PR, financial investments, and tax loopholes. They all do the same. Started with a skill from the first bag to make some money and then straight onto the second bag. Some have never even visited the first bag they just knew how money works and went for it. I love it when billionaires are giving leadership advice. They didn't even know the word leadership when they were laying the foundation of their businesses. Millionaires and billionaires never read a leadership or self-development book. They don't have to because they have the one skill they need. Yet we look up to them. Follow them and buy their books on leadership not realising that our attention is on how to stay employed instead of paying attention to how they built that wealth. What a decoy! Any course you do is to keep you employed. People who know how to make serious money and how money works don't care or talk about skills and professional development.

So yes, whenever you feel proud of yourself and post on LinkedIn about your latest certificate, degree, or the position you just got, what you are really saying is "I have mastered the art of "How to get a job and stay employed." You are proud of this because your second bag is empty and that's all you can show. There is nothing wrong with it, but just be aware of it. Once you understand this you can then divert your attention from the mindless collection of meaningless awards, certificates, skills, and courses to the skill that you actually need; how money works for you.

PS: Maybe that's why you are miserable because your second bag is empty and you know that you must keep going. Now, you don't want to be a millionaire but you want to know how money works so you can have a comfortable life without the prospect of working for the rest of your life.

How to design experiences for those who got their first bag full:

Common sense has left HR and we need to bring it back: