The HIGH INCOME SKILL I learned from a fiction character — After this, you’ll read books and watch movies differently.

What’s the best lesson you extracted from a book or movie?

You’ll love this particular one that I’m about to share with you, and when I tell you the results it has brought me, you may even decide to use it for yourself.

With non-fiction material it’s all about lessons, no doubt about that.

The sales and financial books that I read and write are basically aimed at sharing practical lessons that the reader must know and act on them.

That’s the main purpose of all the self-help, personal development, spiritual and financial books.

But fiction?

Not always.

Most people resort to fiction to escape their reality even if it’s only for an hour or lately, hours of binge-worthy series.

I’ve watched the dumbest movies yet I laughed throughout them and certainly felt good afterwards.

I’ve read books with no literal sense that are well-structured fantasies and unbelievable horror stories that did no good but trigger my emotions.

While I may have not found all the lessons that the writer wanted to portray, I did get something out of those books and movies.

Lately, when I grab a book or movie, I ensure that I’m guaranteed to learn something from that content.

Otherwise it’s a waste of my time.

Yep! Growing up does that to a person.

You go all sentimental and stuff…

Unlike to when we were all young, wild and free.

We didn’t care much about what we spent time on.

But priorities change with time — sorry to be a spoil sport; reminding you that we’re living on borrowed time.

I make the best of my time by feeding on content that is impactful to me at the particular point in time or with lessons that I can practice now and in future.

While most lessons are basically on the nonfiction genres, smart writers have always been able to leverage on this.

They skilfully incorporate the factual lesson that their books focus on with great fictional aspect so that the content remains entertaining, inspirational and educational.

I grew up consuming fiction mainly for entertainment; to pass time and travel mentally to places and events I had no physical access to.

See, where I grew up there was no electricity (even at the time of writing this — though it’s been grey years since I’ve left my ancestral land — I’m told that there are only a few households that have installed solar energy) and hence no television or any form of visual content that I could have resorted to.

Even network reception — although a new improvement to my home village — was not accessible to all parts of the village.

It’s no wonder I played walkie-talkie with a cassette tape and a box of matches and called it a phone, way before I could afford to buy a real Motorola C205.

Yes, you can say it.

I admit it too… I’ve lived like a scorpion! Hehe!

Almost everything I now know and love, got introduced to me by means of books which I started reading as much as possible from a tender age of three.

While it was a form of entertainment for me, I realized only later when I started mingling with children from resourceful homes and schools that although I was behind with which sitcom or telenovela was making hits, I was not particularly clueless.

The first time I saw a physical library — which eventually became my second home — was when I left primary and went to St. Mary’s High School in 2003.

I still remember how I gasp-opened my mouth and widened my eyes at this magical encounter with the home of books — scratch that, an entire world of books.

When I told my friends and family at the time, they struggled to picture the library based on how much I exaggerated of its hugeness, its spotlessness and its quietness — spookiness rather.

I laugh out loudly and internally smile when I share this to my friends, family, associates and especially the kids that I mentor now of late.

I want them to acknowledge how blessed they are to go to schools with state-of-the-art facilities and the advantage of technological advancement.

I had no such luxury!

And I don’t regret it a bit, for what it taught me and for who it groomed me to be.

I owe my eloquence and intellect to books and movies (bioscope) that I got introduced to from a developmental age.

I recently shared on my 31st birthday that I got introduced to Oprah Winfrey (who has been my role model since primary school) via PACE magazine that I can’t even remember where my mom sourced it from as there were no large outlets that stocked such magazines in our area.

I could go on and on about the things books taught me; different languages, cultures, food, spirituality, money, love and sex among other things.

I would read about people being allergic to seafood and wondered what it tasted like as the only seafood I knew came in a can.

One of my English teachers told my classmates and I in 2007 a sad story about an English paper extracted from the movie Titanic a year after it premiered and how disastrous the majority of students in Lesotho performed on the subject that year — almost a century after the actual tragic incident took place.

How would poor kids know about shipwrecks, life-jackets and icebergs when the closest they had been to open waters was at tributaries leading to one long and wide Senqu River that flows through the entire country?

It was way before the famous Katse, Mohale, ‘Muela and Polihali dams where the youth of today have access to various water sports and all sorts of fresh fish cuisines.

I remember how the late Ntate Kwame made us write the same paper as part of our revision. He was amazed later on as he asked me how come I did so well, considering my rural background and I told him I knew and loved the movie Titanic.

I’d read a number of articles on the renowned tragic disaster and a handful of fiction books with rich men who owned yachts and read of adventurous cruises and space tours .

OKAY… enough of the sob stories!

I promised to share a high income skill I learned from a fictional character and I intend to fulfill that promise with a few paragraphs.

There are a number of lessons I took from books and movies, most of which I have put to practice including learning and trading Forex which I learned from the book and movie I Don’t Know How She Does It written by Allison Pearson.

While Forex trading is a high income skill, owing to its high risk, that is not the skill I intend to share here.

The skill that I learned from a book titled What Did I Miss? by Lebo A. Mokhele is the one that I want to share.

The book is yet to be published and the skill is not new.

Copywriting is the high income skill I learned from a book character.

There are many books and movies probably where characters have anything to do with copywriting but this one is different.

This is the book that while I got the idea, and started writing it, I fell in love with the power that Mamosa (book character) had. And for the first time, I wanted that piece of life that my book character had.

I mean the power and the prowess she possesses just continues to leave me envious.

It took guts that only a copywriter possesses for Mamosa to help the CEO of a mobile technologies company to make serious alterations on his website, add redesigned content that did not only drive major traffic, but converted leads into sales.

On top of it all, the client begged her to take his money — triple the first offer!

While I have unconsciously practiced copywriting as a freelancer, I only thought of intensively studying it to research Mamosa’s background.

I took the whole research thing to another level when I literally paid for copywriting courses and studied the skill thoroughly, reading and watching the world’s best copywriters such as Gary Halbert, Dan Lok and many others.

This skill is easy to learn, by anyone willing.

It’s a practical skill that I believe majority of Medium writers possess and continue to hone it with each article they write.

Copywriting should not be confused with copyrighting.

The latter is patenting one’s art, inventions or ideas while copywriting is the creation of advertorial content with the intention to close a sale.

Most people also assume that they must be talented writers to be copywriters but that is not true.

Most copywriters are poor writers but great salespersons.

Rich Dad says: Bestselling, not best writing.

This skill is easy to model and you’ll be surprised how in demand are Copywriters even to this day.

Copy is one of the most crucial pieces that can transform a poor performing business into a multimillionaire entity.

A simple tweak in a product name, brand awareness, irresistible offer and a persuasive call to action can generate leads and convert sales with one copy.

Like I said, there are many skills and lessons that you can learn from books, read and watch movies with intention of grasping more information.

Don’t just be an end user consumer.

Learn something that you can use.

From He is Royal, also by Lebo A. Mokhele, a reader said that they learned that gold hedges against inflation and started buying the precious metal to secure his fiat and leave a legacy.

A friend of mine is a soccer fanatic and I happened to ask him what lessons he can teach me from the likes of Christiano Ronaldo, and he told me Ronaldo’s dribbling tactics and I started yawning.

I have no intention to dribble, but I told my friend that as much as I don’t watch soccer like him, I’ve learned that after every missed goal and lost match, Ronaldo uses that setback to practice more and hone his craft.

He turns that negative energy into a motivation to come back stronger and more powerful than the opponent.

That’s a learnable skill.

You don’t have to be a footballer to use that lesson.

And what about you? What is the great lesson you have learned from a book or a movie?

I’d love to hear it, so please leave it in a comment section below.