7 skills that Will Make You Rich

What kind of skills do you need to get rich? Have you ever heard of “ a lack of money is a bit of a problem?”

Well actually, a lack of money is never, ever the problem.

What do I mean by that? If you lack money, that is a symptom of the problem – but not the cause.

The real issue is a lack of skill.

Have you ever heard stories of lottery winners who suddenly have a windfall of money coming into their life? They win millions of dollars…but only a few years later, they find themselves broke. Sometimes, they are financially worse than they were before winning the lottery.

Why is that?

They have money but they don’t have the skills of the rich. That’s why they can’t keep the money. They revert back to their old lifestyle.

I’m not rich because of my money. I actually started out in debt. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. I am rich because of my skills.

So, today I’m gonna teach you the 7 skills that I have mastered – the 7 skills you need to understand and master because they will make you rich. For every skill, ask yourself where you are on a scale from 0 to 10.

1. The Ability To Talk To Customers Persuasively

I also call this the Closing Skill. Being able to close means to be able to persuade others. Not by manipulation but by showing them how what you do adds value to their lives. You make them want what you have to offer.

Do you know how to close? Can you articulate the value of what you offer for potential clients? Do you know how to ask powerful questions that compel people to buy? Are you comfortable talking to strangers? Can you present your ideas and demonstrate your product or service?

All that is connected to your closing skill. If you can’t close, you can’t persuade others to do something for you. If you are in business and can’t do that, you are in trouble.

In my opinion, the closing skill is one of the most important skills – if not THE most important if you want to become rich.

When you are talking to vendors and try to persuade them to give you better conditions – guess what, you are closing. When you are talking to employees – you are closing. Every time you convince another person – you closed them to follow your ideas.

You absolutely want to master your closing skills, because it will make you rich.

2. The Ability To Speak To Groups

That’s what I call the Public Speaking Skill.

Do you know the number one fear that most people have in life? It’s not snakes, not spiders, not even death. The biggest fear most people have is public speaking.

Why do so many people fear to speak in front of a group? Most of the time it’s because they are worried to sound stupid or look weird. They are afraid because they might say something wrong.

If you look at great leaders almost all of them are great speakers – such as Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins or Warren Buffet.

Public Speaking is also a skill that changed my life. Years ago I joined Toastmasters because I wanted to improve my English and reduce my accents. As I improved my public speaking, I also developed self-confidence.

Are you afraid to speak in front of groups? Are you able to present your ideas? Can you communicate with conviction and certainty? Can you interact with your audience?

Maybe you get sweaty palms. Or you are like me in the beginning and your face would turn pale. Your legs are shaking and your knees are locked. That’s ok. Public speaking is still a learnable skill.

How can you overcome the fear of public speaking? Apparently, even Warren Buffett had a fear of public speaking in the beginning. To overcome this fear, he kept practicing.

So, to master your public speaking, prepare well and practice in front of a mirror. If you keep at it, you will hone your skill and ultimately master it.

These valuable skills will make you rich.

3. The Ability To Communicate With Words in Print

Sometimes I also call this Persuasion in Print or Copywriting Skill. It’s another skill of the rich.

Copywriting is about writing, but I’m not talking about being grammatically correct – although sometimes it’s good to do that. Still, copywriting is less about what you learn in school. It’s not academic writing.

School taught you writing but it didn’t teach you copywriting.

I’m talking about communication. Writing to persuade someone to do something. It could be your webpage, videos or emails. How do you communicate through written words?

Why is this so important?

A lot of our daily communication happens in written form. For example through emails, Facebook messages, LinkedIn posts, blog posts. So, you want to know how to communicate effectively through written words. It gives you a tremendous amount of leverage.

Let me give you a perfect example. Let’s say you create social media posts and you have a decent amount of following. That gives you leverage because what you write is seen by hundreds of people. Maybe even thousands or million people.

In fact, copywriting was the first skill that I developed when I was in my early 20s. It’s the skill that changed my life. I went from losing money constantly and being in debt to earning $10,000 a month.

That’s why copywriting is a skill you want to master to get rich.

4. The Ability To Communicate Clearly and Effectively With Your Team

With this, I’m talking about your leadership skills. In order to be an effective leader, you must also be an effective communicator.

Do you know your company’s vision and are you communicating that with your team? Do you create a great culture? Is your leadership simple yet effective?

All of those are vital parts of your leadership skills.

Business is not a solo sport, business is an intellectual team sport. As an organization, you are only as good as your team. It’s very very important to develop that leadership ability. To inspire, motivate and lead your team.

If you are a great leader you will be able to develop a winning culture in your company. Culture beats strategy anytime, that’s why you want to be able to do that.

Leaders bring out the best in their team members. They develop people. They take others to the top with them.

Your leadership skills determine if your team is failing or succeeding. There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.

Effective leadership is a skill you need in order to get rich.

5. The Ability To Manage and Organize Your Time For Maximum Results.

Some people refer to this as time management. I personally call it ‘Priority Management’. Because we only have 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days in a year. We actually cannot manage time because we all have the same amount of time. What you can manage, however, are your priorities.

What are the important things you got to focus on? What are the things that will move the needle? That will you get closer to your goals?

The problem is, school never taught us how to manage our priorities. During school, you are doing a bunch of different things – like homework and exams. It all gets scheduled for you.

Most people will never take the time to slow down and actually look at what they are doing. They are never asking themselves “ok, why am I doing this at all?” What are the payoffs of these activities?

Most people will never ask themselves those profound questions. They are used to just doing what they always did. They follow the ways they learned back in school and never question it.

At the end of the day, priority management really is self-management.

Manage your time efficiently and effectively every single day. Focus on just a handful of things. The things were you know, when you keep doing them consistently they will get you the results that you want.

Rich people, understand and realize the value of their time. That’s why they avoid, what I call, minimum wage activities. If someone can get the job done, costing you less than what your time is worth – delegate it.

So – when mastered- that’s a skill that makes you rich.

6. The Ability To Read Financial Statements

I also call this Financial Literacy Skills. Again, this skill isn’t taught in school.

In school, how do you measure if you are doing good? By your scorecard, basically your grades. Did you get an A, B or C?

In the business world, we look at your financial statements. They tell you how well you are doing financially. So, your financial statement is like your scorecard.

They show how well you are managing your money. Does that mean I want you to be an accountant? No.

But you do need to understand the language of money. Financial literacy is the language of money. To understand how money works you have to be familiar with balance-sheets, your income statement, cash-flow statement and so on.

If you have no financial literacy, you look at the numbers on the paper and simply have no idea what’s going on. You have no idea if you are making enough money or if you are having a loss this year.

Sometimes, you have to be able to read between the lines to understand what the papers are telling you. Only then you can understand how well you are managing your money.

You have to learn the basic vocabulary like credit score, return on investment, profit and loss, capital gain and depreciation. You can’t improve something that you don’t measure. And to measure your finances you have to understand it.

If you don’t speak the language of money, how can you be clear on how you are doing financially? That’s why financial literacy is such an important skill you must master if you want to be rich.

7. The Ability To Manage Your Own Mind

This is the most important skill out of all seven. I also call it Mindset Skill.

How do you manage your emotions? Frustration, negativity, depression, fear, envy, limiting beliefs, procrastination – those are negative emotions. How do you deal with them? How do you manage your mind?

Can you act on things even if you don’t feel like it? Can you feel fear and do it anyway?

You could get all the other six skills right. You could even master them. Still, if your mindset isn’t right, it’s not going to work. Your mind is the foundation of all your other skills and abilities.

I’ve mentioned Napoleon Hill’S book “Think and Grow Rich” many times. Thinking is part of managing your mind. It’s also about feeding your mind with the right things. What kind of media do you consume? Where do you direct your attention?

How often do you exactly know what you need to do to accomplish your goals and achieve results? How often can do you fail to get yourself to do it because of procrastination?

How many opportunities did slip through your fingers because you couldn’t get yourself to step up and take action? This is all because of self-limiting beliefs.

How often do other people believe in you but you don’t believe in yourself? Managing those thoughts all depends on your mindset skill.

Lao Tsu said it best:

So, those are the seven skills that will make you rich. The mindset skill is the foundation. All the others can be stacked on top of it.

Mastering others is skill mastering yourself is true Power.

Thanks for reading.