Want to make more money? Get paid more at your job? And achieve financial freedom? I frequently get asked this question when I share financial tips on Instagram, so here’s the unfiltered truth.
To make more money, you’re going to have to do one think: Skill Up.
Among the highest earners that I know, they are learning machines. So what is “skilling up” and how can you take on this behavior? Let’s dig into that now.
Practical Strategies to Make More Money
Because our economy is based on supply and demand, the skills you learned in school alongside everyone else means the supply for your skill set is going to be too high.
Thus, the question then becomes, is there an extreme market demand for your skill-set? If not, then I’m sorry to say that you’re just not going to command a lot of money in the marketplace. Furthermore, market needs will always evolve faster than academic institutions can response.
For example, with COVID-19 sending everyone to work from home, there is suddenly enormous market demand for people who can help with:
- Setting up home streaming studios
- Setting up home audio studios
- Performing video and audio post-production edits
- Content syndication – that is, distributing a single piece of content across numerous distribution channels
- Launching podcasts, including help with hosting, branding, and distribution
- Running paid media, including running a company’s display ads and social media ads
- Delivering remote education services
- Conducting high ticket phone sales – for example, many cars, electronics, and luxuries that require price quotes and customization are now being sold via the phone instead of in person
However, the traditional school systems won’t be able to adjust to these changing market demands for years―if ever.
For this reason, the people who are prepared to self educate themselves through buying courses, watching YouTube videos, attending conferences and finding mentors are going to be the people who thrive financially.
As mentioned above, the highest earning people I know invest heavily in skill acquisition. And remember, an investment can be made in either time or money. It must involve one of these two things or its not a real investment.
How to Get Wealthy
If your goal is to become wealthy, then increasing your earned (active) income so you have more money to invest is a critical first step. If you don’t know where to start, skill-stacking is one of the fastest and easiest ways to command more money in the marketplace.
Skill stacking is the art of combining several “normal” skills to create a unique combination of abilities that are extraordinarily valuable.
Much like a piece of real estate that gets more valuable with each floor that you add, skills are identical. Your earning potential will increase each time you stack a new skill-set on top of your existing capabilities.
Income vs. Wealth
Having emphasized the importance of skilling up to earn more money, it is critical to clarify that jobs are valuable only because they create income. They don’t create wealth. Period.
Wealth comes from stacking multiple flows of income, which is why the average millionaire has 7 (or more) flows of income. Put simply, earned income from skilling up is the driver that will push you into passive income investments.
To earn more money in today’s economy, you don’t need to go back to school. You do need to be willing to learn new skills for which there is high demand to instantly become more valuable.
Easy ways to do that are:
- Learn new skills for under $50 on Udemy
- Learn new skills on Saylor Academy, where you can take cutting edge college courses for free
- Learn new skills on YouTube
- Learn new skills from a mentor (usually requires an investment of time but not money)