I made $24,500 at my first real job and felt like the richest person in the world.
I was absolutely thrilled to be making that kind of bank. I was like a short, skinny Rick Ross. Woke up in a new Bugatti!
Over the years, I received a few raises and started to notice an interesting pattern. The more skills I acquired the more money I’d received. Or to quote P-Diddy, “Mo’ Skills, Mo’ Money.”
The better I got at identifying, acquiring and utilizing new skills, the higher my salary climbed. The challenge is we have a hard time knowing what our skills really are. When you ask someone, “What are your skills?” They often say, “Nothing.” or “People. I’m good with people. And dogs.”
You’ll never get a raise that way. Perhaps even more critical, if you don’t learn new skills, you could lose your job. I remember two designers that showed me that. I met one in Dallas. He told me, “Jon, I remember when I realized that if I didn’t learn how to design for the Internet I was going to become a dinosaur and lose my job.” So he learned new skills, new software and new approaches to being a graphic designer.
The other person was an industrial designer. His company told him that they loved his work but they needed him to learn AutoCAD. He refused, promising that he designed better by hand. For a minute he could keep up, but eventually, you lose the race to a computer. He got stuck and lost his job.
That’s what’s so amazing about new skills. It’s impossible to get stuck somewhere old if you keep learning something new.
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New skills make you stuck proof. The reason why 25% of my book “Do Over” is about skills is because they are critical. If you haven’t read it, I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy. It’s only $11.
How do you start identifying your skills? Well, it’s pretty simple. You just have to ask 5 questions. I even made an infographic for you. Ask these and check out Do Over to really supercharge the skill part of your career. Remember, Mo’ Skills, Mo’ Money.