A skill is something you do well. Skills can come naturally and they can also be developed through learning, experience, and creating feedback loops to learn how to improve in an area.
How much you earn at a job depends on your skill set and how well your employer can monetize it in their business. If you have skills of high enough value you can monetize them yourself directly in the marketplace and keep your full value with no employer as a middleman.
Let’s look at the best skills to develop that help you earn money in either your career or in your own business venture.
10 Skills that are hard to learn but pay off forever
1. Public speaking
Speaking in public is the skill all leaders must develop. This is the primary skill of many politicians, CEOs, and self-help gurus. This is a highly monetizable skill for all the opportunities it can open for you. The majority of people are terrified of speaking to an audience so this is an edge.
2. Being honest with yourself
The ability to be able to do a self-assessment on yourself and your own abilities is a great way to grow and improve. Competence must come before confidence and the ability to see your strengths and weaknesses can help you make the right decisions based on your skill sets. Delusion makes it hard to be successful, but knowing what you don’t know can lead to huge skill improvements. Ego and not wanting to fail holds most people back from even trying.
3. Having confidence
Self-confidence is an underrated skill. If you don’t believe in yourself no one else will either. Carrying yourself with confidence is the first step in showing your value to the world. Confidence is the core skill in getting your boss to pay you more, your employees to trust you, and investors to put money in your ideas.
4. Communication
Listening, motivating, and teaching are the skills of communication. You can learn a lot from listening far more than you speak. You can get more accomplished through motivating others than negativity or threatening. Teaching is a highly monetizable skill if you are a manager, motivational speaker, author, YouTuber, blogger, or eCourse creator. Communication is a keystone skill for all high income earners.
5. Time management
Your time is your most important asset as it’s not renewable. The ability to separate your time from earning money is one of the highest paying skills you can develop as it creates an uncapped ability to make money through cash flow and asset appreciation. If you’re a salaried employee the less hours you need to put in to get results the more you make per hour. The better your time management skills the more you will make per hour in any career or business.
6. Being proactive
The skill of being proactive means that you make things happen instead of things happening to you. Proactivity is the opposite of victimhood. Being proactive is the skill of ideas, being a creator of projects, products, services, and businesses. A proactive person is not bound by their environment they are a creator of their reality.
7. Focusing on the present moment
The ability to focus on what needs to be done in the present moment is a skill of concentration. Too many people get lost in what worked in the past and get too far ahead of their selves with future plans and lose sight of what needs to be done today. This is a skill of right action today, focusing on what must be done to maintain a current level of success and also improving on it. The current work to be done is not a favorite thing for most to want to focus on.
8. Consistency of execution
Most of your competition can be beaten by showing up everyday and doing what needs to be done. The skill of consistently doing the work correctly every single day can lead to huge success over time in most endeavors. Efforts compound to take you toward your goals when repeated over long periods of time. This is a skill quitters don’t possess, that’s why they lose after a strong start.
9. Thinking analytically
The ability to think in math, probabilities, and risk/reward ratios is a skill most highly paid people share. This is also a skill that overrides the errors that emotions and ego can cause in the business world. Things you can measure you can improve. Critical thinking skills help you see what works and focus on those things.
10. Empathy
Empathy is the primary skill of emotional intelligence. The ability to understand what frustrates and causes your employees and business partners to suffer is at the core of having people skills. The saying you get more flies with honey than vinegar is a lesson on getting what you want by giving people what they need. Empathy helps you move ahead in your career and business by naturally networking and making others want to help you.
Which skill makes the most money?
7 high-income skills to learn
Entrepreneurship
Building your own business has the highest potential for creating a high income. It also has a low rate of success but you only need to do it right once.
Business management
Business managers make much more income than other employees. The skill is in managing people from the general manager to the CEO, this skills pays well.
Money management
The skill of managing capital to earn returns is a very high paying skill whether you do it for yourself or at a professional level.
Software development
Whether working for a tech company or creating your own software this skill can pay you a lot.
Web development
Whether you’re developing a website for others or yourself this is a high paying skill.
Project management
Employers will pay well to get a project completed on time and under budget.
Online content creation
In 2022, YouTubers and social media influencers with large audiences can make huge incomes.
Which skill can make me a billionaire?
There are only a few skills that can make you a billionaire:
- The ability to found a company, keep the majority of ownership and take it public and then build it into a multibillion dollar corporation. You will be a billionaire when your shares are worth $1 billion.
- Create a billion dollar company you retain complete ownership of. This is very difficult to do at scale without outside capital.
- The ability to manage billions in capital and produce good annual returns. Your fees and share of profit will eventually grow to over $1 billion over time.
- Create intellectual property worth billions. Good examples of this are George Lucas with Star Wars and J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter and there are many others.
- Become a billionaire through real estate.
- Sports stars can become billionaires if they manage the money they are paid and invest in the right things. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are great examples of this.
- Marry a billionaire then technically you will become a billionaire.
- Divorce a multibillionaire, after the divorce you will be a billionaire if there was no prenup.
If you look at a list of the richest people in the world this is how the majority of them became billionaires.