Most of You Are Sitting on Skills and Talents That Can Transform Your Life

Unlock your hidden potential to get an unfair advantage in life.

Photo by Emmanuel Ikwuegbu on Unsplash

Wasted talent gets me fired up.

I spend so much time interacting with people online. After a while all their problems start to look the same.

The biggest problem I see is the average person doesn’t think they have skills or talent that are unique or in demand.

And they think they can only sell their skills to one customer (their employer).

(hat-tilt to Aaron Will for the title of this article)

The hidden source of potential

If you currently earn an income the market has already validated you have talent and skills with value. Congrats. 99% of you reading this are in this category.

I say it so often but let me repeat…

Your 9-5 job skills are what can transform your life. You don’t necessarily need to go and acquire new skills or become a cringeworthy “digital native.”

Nope. You just have to think more broadly about where else your skills can be used.

Repackage your skills

When you package your skills up with a 9-5 job title they’re worth less.

Few understand.

There’s something about labels that make money flow. The labels of consulting, contracting, and advising attract the most money.

If you work in a call center (like I did) you can be seen as low on the food chain. As soon as you start selling those same skills to another call center as an advisor the paycheck goes up 3X.

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A few years ago I was the “victim” of a crime.

The police kept using that label. It pissed me right off.

“Stop calling me a victim. I’m an idiot that let this fraud happen.”

The policeman was taken back. I was more emotional about the label than the crime itself. That’s because labels such as consultant or entrepreneur or change-maker can empower us.

But labels like “victim” can ruin us. We can start to think we’re owed something or act in a way where we want everybody to feel sorry for us.

Never forget what labels can do to your life. Choose the uplifting ones.

Cheat on your employer

Screw em.

They’ll happily fire you the next time a bat virus goes global. Take your skills and reuse them after hours. Sell them to another buyer. Message people on LinkedIn in the same industry and see if they’re looking for help with a specific problem.

The more niche the problem, the better.

For example I worked in credit card fraud for a bit. I learned the fraud tools inside and out. If I contacted any bank employee and told them the problems I already solved in my 9-5, they’d be impressed. Then I could quietly contract to them after hours.

You can too.

(Oh and non-compete agreements are BS. They exist to scare people. But anyone with half a brain can get around them. Follow Jonathan Pollard on LinkedIn to find out how.)

Sell for a higher price

The more money you earn for the same amount of work, the faster you can invest that money and buy your time back.

The truth is your skills are probably not earning you the most amount of money. Your employer needs to exploit your skills for the lowest cost possible to stay in business.

No point getting pissed with this fact.

But you can simply shop your skills to other employers.

In fact when I had my last job, I was shopping my skills on the daily. I kept wanting to see what other perks or upgrades I could get.

When you sell your skills after work hours for a higher price, I’ve found, you get less drama. Your after hours employer just wants a result. They don’t care as much about politically correct culture or tracking useless KPIs in Excel.

Selling the same skills for more money is the fastest way to financial freedom.

Every upgrade starts to demolish a psychological barrier as to how much your skills are worth in reality.

Because the fastest person to undersell your skills is YOU.

Why you don’t unleash your potential

All of this sounds simplistic. Yet many of you reading this don’t act on it.

I’m guilty. I sat on my ass for a decade with powerful entrepreneurship skills that built me an empire in my 20s which I walked away from.

Here’s what holds you back:

It’s easier to delay

“When I have time” is what holds us back.

You’ll never have time. If you want to awaken the giant within you have to take some tiny action each day. You have to start.

The misconception of fear

Fear stops you. Reusing your skills or getting more money out of them is probably something you haven’t done before.

So, when you start to think about it, discomfort will set in.

Once it does it pretty quickly turns to fear. When we feel fear our ancient brain tells us to seek comfort.

What I found is this: fear tells you the opportunities you’re missing out on.

All the time I get emails from people who say “I don’t know what to do.” Obviously I can reply and guess what the problem might be.

But I don’t need to.

If you’re one of the people who doesn’t know what to do, write down a list of all your fears. What you need to do is on that list.

When I did this I realized my undiagnosed mental illness that scared the crap out of me was the thing I always avoided doing.

So, I decided to tackle it. I got help. That led to my massive transformation.

Fear tells you what to do next. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

The lame game of comparison

Before we decide to rethink what our skills can do for us we start to compare.

Problem: the people you compare yourself to have no clue.

They don’t want what you want.

So comparing yourself with other people to justify your own situation is stupid. Don’t worry about what they’re doing or how they did it.

Your path will be radically different.

Quick and dirty attack plan

1. Defeat afraid-to-fail with small bets

The threat of failure is what devalues your skills. It’s easy to defeat.

Make a few small bets. If failure does happen it doesn’t freaking matter because you’ll have multiple balls in the air that you’re juggling.

Just don’t bet big on one thing, otherwise you become a gambler.

2. Experiment

Kids throw mud at the wall to see what sticks.

Skills are the same. Try some stuff on. Let curiosity lead you rather than false beliefs that tell you it’s not possible.

Through daily experiments you’ll find a way to use your skills to do something more awesome – and make more cashola.

3. "Talent is cheap. Dedication is expensive."

Aaron Will once said this. He’s right.

Your skills don’t matter. What matters is what you do with them. Dedicate yourself to using your skills every day. Make reusing your skills a new habit. Find new and inventive ways to apply your skills more broadly and serve more than one customer.

4. Let social media 10X your skills

One of the challenges I see is people have great skills but nobody knows.

They’re quietly sitting on million-dollar skills and the buyers of those skills can’t purchase them for 6 and 7 figures. The antidote is to post regularly on social media.

LinkedIn and Twitter are the easiest.

Share what you know. Teach people for free with your skills, then your inbox will light up with high-paying opportunities.

5. Make better use of after hours time

“Take one hour off a day from watching TV or with people that don't inspire you and focus on making a side business using your skills and talents. Just 7 hours a week = 364 hours a year invested!” – Coach Lee

Now you’ve got the mathematical formula to increase the value of your skills.

Final Thought

Your skills are far more valuable than you realize. It’s time to resell them, charge more, change the labels you work under, and teach online to attract opportunities.

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