Fill Your Five Buckets In The Right Order

Zyaanpatel

4 min readDec 2, 2023

These 5 buckets define your human potential and how successful you can be.

1- What you know (knowledge)

2- What you can do (skills)

3- Who you know (network)

4- What you have (resources)

5- What they think of you (reputation)

The buckets have to be filled from right to left in order to find true success. This is because when you gain knowledge (from school, universities, courses etc) ad then apply that knowledge you acquire skills. When you have skills you become valuable to other people, so you grow a network. A network allows you to have access to so many more resources. When you have knowledge, valuable skills, a vast network and resources you then have a reputation.

All successful people have virtually all of these buckets nearly filled (there cannot be a person who has all buckets totally filled because knowledge is unlimited). Filling your buckets establishes learning objectives for your life. These buckets also demonstrate why some people thrive in life while others fail.

The reason why persons who are exposed to fame at a young age frequently fail. They lack the information and abilities required for success in life; they are unable to cope with the pressures placed on them by others since their buckets have not been filled in the proper sequence. In this situation, these individuals are likely to have filled their last three buckets before their first two.

This just signifies the importance of the first two buckets — your knowledge and skills.

This is because life can take away your network, your resources and your reputation but life can never remove your knowledge and unlearn your skills.

The first two buckets are your foundation and the platform on which you base your life; they are what either make or ruin you. This is why it is critical to understand that investing in the first two buckets will offer the greatest returns.

It is also why a job that pays more but lacks learning new knowledge and skills is actually a lesser-paying job if your goal is to increase your potential.

In all of your life’s critical decisions, you must consider how full your buckets are and how your actions will affect them. Things like work chances, educational options, career options, and so forth.

By looking at how full your buckets are, you can understand where you stand and where you need to improve to come closer to your goals. You can make better decisions in the future if you spend 5 minutes reflecting over your buckets.

“Those who hoar gold have riches for a moment.
Those who hoard knowledge and skills have riches for a lifetime.
True prosperity is what you know and what you can do.”
Steven Bartlett

This article is part of my 33 Days 33 Articles challenge:

33 Days 33 Articles

In order to grasp these ideas, I will (attempt to) create a daily article outlining each of the 33 laws in this book.

This is to ensure that I remember this important information and that I apply it to my day-to-day activities.

I would also strongly advise you to take up this challenge with me since this book is incredible and has a lot of important information and lessons that may change your life. I still recommend reading this book even if you decide not to take up my challenge because of how great it is.