The skills that pay off forever are the ones that work in every part of life: learning how to learn, adapting, clear thinking, communication, selling, discipline and energy management. These skills have the largest impact on your personal and professional life. They stay with you for good and keep raising the quality of your existence. Most are hard to master, but the script says the rewards are endless.
Here are the 15 skills, plus a bonus one for peeking into the future.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 15 skills at a glance
- Learning how to learn
- The ability to adapt, improvise and overcome obstacles
- Clearing your mind
- Putting what you think and feel into words
- The ability to sell and negotiate
- Knowing how to shut up, listen and learn
- The ability to self-motivate
- Building and maintaining discipline
- Energy management
- The ability to read and understand
- Breaking a process into smaller steps
- Self-analysis
- Emotional intelligence and empathy
- Self-respect and having a backbone
- The ability to generate ideas that have value
1. Learning how to learn
This is the holy grail of skills. Once you realize any skill can be learned, the world looks a lot like a video game. The script quotes Steve Jobs: everything around you was made by other humans who are not smarter than you.
Self-taught learners know how straightforward it is to learn something from scratch. Most people panic when life makes learning a necessity. We survived and thrived because we learned new things and learned to do them better, so it should be a fundamental skill for everyone.
2. The ability to adapt, improvise and overcome obstacles
This is more than a Bear Grylls catchphrase. It is what keeps you moving through hard times. Only the ignorant believe they have life figured out and expect straight roads from here. The narrator quotes Mike Tyson: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
Hard times are ahead. People will betray your trust and things will not work in your favor. Change your attitude, look for other routes and get creative. If things are getting harder, you are leveling up.
3. Clearing your mind
You are not your body, your possessions or what people think of you. You are your mind, and every action, idea, desire and weakness begins there.
The video sees two kinds of people. Some live entirely in their heads, build a bubble, become biased and take everything personally. Others avoid talking to themselves and disconnect from what is happening inside. Too much reaction or none at all. Mind clarity lets you see how things are and what they could become.
4. Putting what you think and feel into words
Few people can say what they believe, feel or think about an issue. It is one of the biggest causes of relationship breakdowns: one partner cannot say what is wrong and buries the feeling until it ends things.
This reaches friendships, coworkers and family. People fear speaking up, and a mediocre life follows, shaped by unsatisfying compromises instead of what is sustainable. Without full honesty and involvement, it is easy to let go and hope something better comes along, and nobody wins.
5. The ability to sell and negotiate
Everything you do is a sale or a negotiation. Wanting a partner means selling them on you as the right person. Wanting a job means selling your skills over other candidates. Even getting better requires selling yourself on the idea.
Selling is not lying. It is a rational process of showing how your solution adds value, and of inviting others to join you in a better outcome for both. Life is a constant negotiation with others, with yourself and with time, between effort and satisfaction.
6. Knowing how to shut up, listen and learn
If you are doing the talking, you are not growing, because you are only putting out what you already know. Improving takes active listening, which differs from hearing. It means paying attention and building a mental blueprint of what you are told.
Assume the person in front of you knows something you do not. Do not get blindsided by arrogance. Growing matters more than looking like you know everything, and that is what separates the real from the pretenders.
7. The ability to self-motivate
The first step is always the hardest because you are doing something you have never done. That means new environments, being vulnerable on purpose, and risking failure.
At its core, self-motivation is finding a good reason to start. It depends on mind clarity and provides the spark that builds momentum. People who can do it stay a step ahead of everyone else.
8. Building and maintaining discipline
People skip the first step for lack of motivation. Of those who take it, many quit later for lack of discipline. After the start it is smooth sailing until the first hurdle. Some days you are tired, the thing got boring, and you decide you do not want it after all.
Discipline is a deal with yourself that something must be done consistently because you care about the outcome, made expecting things to get hard. You do not need discipline to eat ice cream daily, since it is fun. Achieving something important is not, or everyone would be successful and happy.
9. Energy management
You start the day at full energy, given decent sleep, and it falls until you are exhausted. There are several kinds. Physical energy is how your body feels. Mental energy is spent on focus and creativity. Emotional energy drains when you deal with people.
People fill days with tasks that burn every type at once: early rising, productive work, meetings, dinner with friends, then a workout. Then they complain that modern life is chaotic. Efficient people batch by energy type, such as Monday for meetings, midweek for heavy creative work when they are unavailable, and the end of the week for admin. Mixing it up is when everything crumbles.
10. The ability to read and understand
Few people grasp the power of books. You can learn from someone’s whole life experience in a couple of days, which the script calls the biggest knowledge advantage around. A single book, even a single page, can spark an idea that transforms your life.
Read to understand and to store what you learn, and then use it. Read for self-development, not entertainment, and pick books that carry someone’s struggles and the solutions they used.
11. Breaking a process into smaller steps
Alux credits this skill for building a successful company. Most people look at the end result, such as wanting $1 million, without breaking it down. How many sales does it take? What has to happen each month, week and day?
Successful people do the maths and break goals into milestones. Without that, you are dreaming. The script says this is why people in STEM fields outperform: they are taught to deconstruct a problem and solve it step by step.
12. Self-analysis
You can only improve what you measure. Almost every successful person tracks progress, whatever the field. To lose weight, log your food and weigh yourself daily, and soon you see how eating and activity move the number.
Once you see what works, you do more of it. Yet most people track nothing. Analysis gives a clear picture of what you are dealing with, from actions to feelings.
13. Emotional intelligence and empathy
You will have to deal with people, and everyone is part of a giant social mechanism that depends on cooperation. Emotional intelligence smooths the ride. People who lack it tend to think everyone hates them and that others are promoted unfairly.
It is the ability to interact with people, understand them, talk to them and motivate them. We have good and bad days, different values and different triggers. The narrator says people with high EQ outperform those with high IQ, because others want them to succeed.
14. Self-respect and having a backbone
Do you know what you stand for? Once you know who you are, you can act accordingly, stand your ground and refuse to let others walk over you. People treat you the way you treat yourself, not the way you treat them.
Those with high self-respect are also the ones society respects most. People who speak out when things go wrong and call out injustice are the ones who influence the world and change it for the better.
15. The ability to generate ideas that have value
Your mind is the most powerful weapon you have. Think of it as fertile land: it grows whatever you plant. Some people plant useful trees while others fill it with weeds.
Look after it and it produces quality ideas that bring joy, success and fulfillment, though not overnight. Ideas are free, and one can make you rich, successful and happy. A string of good ones moves you in the right direction. The goal is to focus on ideas that have value.
Bonus 16: the ability to simulate outcomes.
The bonus skill: simulating outcomes
The video calls this as close to cheating at life as it gets, a superpower for looking ahead and choosing which future to live. Every day you sit at a crossroads, and you can change course. Say you are torn between becoming a doctor and an engineer: simulate your life on each path, then pick the outcome you would rather live.
The more detail you simulate, the better your prediction. Use it on whether to keep dating someone, on near and long-term circumstances, and on arguments before you start them. Too many people jump into a fight without analysis and then replay it for years. None of these skills is easy, but once mastered you reap the benefits for life.
FAQ
What is the most valuable skill to learn?
Alux calls learning how to learn the holy grail of skills. Once you see that any skill can be learned, everything else becomes approachable.
What is the difference between motivation and discipline?
Motivation gets you to take the first step by giving you a good reason to start. Discipline keeps you going when it gets hard, as a deal with yourself to act consistently on what you care about.
How do you manage your energy during the day?
Separate physical, mental and emotional energy and batch tasks by type. For example, meetings on one day, heavy creative work on others, and admin at the end of the week.
Why does emotional intelligence matter?
It helps you understand and motivate people. The script says people with high EQ outperform those with high IQ because others want them to succeed.
What does it mean to simulate outcomes?
It means picturing in detail what your life would be like under each option and choosing the outcome you would rather live. More detail gives better predictions.
How do you reach a big goal like $1 million?
Break it into sales, monthly, weekly and daily targets. The narrator says a goal not broken into milestones is just wishful thinking.
Keep reading
- 15 Skills That Will Pay Off Forever
- 15 Steps to Master Self-Discipline
- 15 Life and Business Lesson to Learn From Chess
