6 min readJun 2, 2018

Billionaires and other highly successful people all have specific actions and habits that they do daily in order to reach where they are now.

To help you on your journey, today i will share with you 5 out of 10 skills that are hard to learn, but WILL pay off forever!

SKILL #1 Speaking Up

Buffett’s advice to a class of business students at Columbia University back in 2009:

“Right now, I would pay $100,000 for 10 percent of the future earnings of any of you, so if you’re interested, see me after class.”

After the laughter subsided, he turned serious.

“Now, you can improve your value by 50 percent just by learning communication skills — public speaking. If that’s the case, see me after class and I’ll pay you $150,000.”

What Buffet meant is that honing the art of public speaking is one of the greatest skills to boost your career as a professional regardless of the field.

You might be thinking, “That’s great, but I have a fear of public speaking.” That’s OK. Even Warren Buffet was terrified of that skill.

Get very comfortable with public speaking. Sure, it may take a while, but that is an asset that will last you 50–60 years. It is also a liability if you don’t know or feel uncomfortable doing it as that will also last you 50–60 years.

SKILL #2 Be Honest With Yourself

Mark Cuban once said:

Having the ability to be brutally honest with yourself is the greatest challenge you face when creating a business model.

One of the big things that most startups do is that they lie to themselves, over and over again. Mine’s is Faster. Mine’s Cheaper. Mine’s Better!

The harsh answer is NO.. It’s NOT!

You might think that your competition is looking at you and saying “WoW! this guy just came up through an incubator and he’s doing a million bucks a year. We might as well close up our doors!”. The reality is, if you are not different (while bringing value, check my previous article), they will just copy what you are doing! They definitely have an advantage over you, in that they are most probably established as a business, have better access to talent, market exposure and customer base.

Know what you know. Know what you don’t know. But, you got to know your business better than anybody else.

SKILL #3 Having Confidence

I don’t know if you would agree with me on this, but one of the key factors to legendary success isn’t your natural ability. It’s not whether you have the right product. It’s not whether you are in the right field. It’s not whether you’ve had a blessed background. And it’s definitely not whether you had the right IQ.

It is Confidence.

When you have confidence, or FIRE within you, that interior bravery, you will almost have the power to do whatever it takes to get your brave vision done.

In this world, it’s not about your business strategy or ability, achieving a vision requires bravery, and what is bravery if not Confidence.

Have you ever seen a problem someone is facing as an opportunity? Were you intrigued to create a solution without fearing that problem? Congratulations! You’ve got this skill honed!

If not, don’t worry, because confidence is a practice, it’s a muscle, the more you focus on it and train it, the bigger and firmer it gets. “Mom? where do you keep my dumbbles?”

SKILL #4 Last to Speak

Nelson Mandela is a particularly special person. He is universally regarded as a great leader. When compared to other personalities, we usually have different opinions about them depending on the nation or community we come from, but not Nelson Mandela. Across the world he is regarded as a great leader.

Being the son of a tribal chief, he was asked one day, on how did he learn to be a great leader, and he responded:

I would go with with my father to tribal meetings, and i remember two things when my father meets other elders, One: They would always sit in a circle. Two: my father is always the last to speak.

You probably have been told your whole life to learn to listen. I would say however; You should learn to be the last to speak.

People who think they are good leaders and may actually be decent leaders always fall for this mistake. I have seen it too often. A leader will come in a meeting room and say “Here is the problem. Here is what i think. But i’m interested in your opinion. Lets go around the room!”. It’s too late! Because he just missed out on being a Great Leader.

The practice of holding your breath, observing everyone’s opinion and speaking last does two things:

One- It gives everybody else the feeling that they have been heard. To feel they have contributed.

Two- You get the benefit of hearing what everybody thinks before rendering your own opinion.

The skill is really to keep your opinions to yourself. If you agree with someone do not nod Yes. If you disagree with someone don’t nod No. Simply sit there and watch. The only thing you are allowed to do is asking questions, so that you can understand what they mean and why they had that opinion. You must understand from what angle are they speaking, not just what they are saying.

Practice being the last to speak, that’s what Nelson Mandela did.

SKILL #5 Manage Your Time

We are living in a generation of the dumbing down of ideas. It happens all the time. This is a challenge I myself am facing and witnessing everyday. People became hooked to their entertainment, TV, media, hell even the internet! Most end up with no value at all after daily spending hours on those mediums!

Wonder Why? Because we have traded effectiveness for busyness.

Statistically, our current generation is busier than any other generation in the last 300–400 years.

We are busier than a single armed wallpaper hanger.
Oh don’t worry, You’ll get it a minute later.

We tend to think because we are busy, are being effective. Ask yourself, are you really being effective? or is your life cluttered with stuff that demands you, drains you and stops you from being your best self? Are you substituting busyness and all that chaos going along with it from being effective?

Did you know that 80% of the things we do are busy things that we do in an area that is not effective? The average person spends only 20% doing stuff she/he is really passionate about, gifted at, excited to do and the rest of it is all that dismal dumb stuff that we all have to do in order to survive.

What if we switch that percentage around, what would happen to your life if you give only 20% to the stuff that you have to do, and 80% to the stuff that you were created to do?

You could take my shirt, i could replace that.
You could take my car, my home, my belongings, i could replace those too.

But you cannot take my Time. That my friend; is irreplaceable.

We take all kinds of classes, hear and read many lectures on management, business, finance, strategy even personal fitness. We know how to manage our money, fix a problem at home, take care of our looks, but we seem to forget the most important principal of our lives and that is to value our time. It takes time to be creative, it takes time to be effective, it takes time to be good at anything. No matter what ringtone you set on your mobile, you will eventually hate to hear it, because every time you hear that sound you know it’s somebody else wanting something else from you that is taking you away from what you are gifted and was created to do.

Value your time, Only then can you claim a life of Value!

On that note, i really appreciate you reading so far, Thank you.