How to know what your skills are
I personally didn’t graduate college. I went for 2 years and realized that it wasn’t for me. When I left college, I felt great about not having to go to classes and stuff for a while. But eventually those good feelings were replaced with the stresses of bills and student loans. After some time, I realized that even though I didn’t have a degree, I still needed to make the income of someone with a degree. But how do you even do that?
One day I was at a book store and came across a great book called “Linchpin” by Seth Godin. There was a section of it that mentioned the idea of focusing on your skills and demonstrating those skills rather than just getting a degree.
That was the best solution I had heard to my problem of not knowing how to make money without finishing college. So I ran with it and came up with a simple method to determine what my skills are.
The rest of this article will explain that method. By the end, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what your skills are too!
Step 1 - Make a list of all your skills. Make a list of everything you feel that you’re skilled at, good at, or have a lot of knowledge in. When you do this, don’t limit yourself to writing things that sound cool or serious. If you’re good at something that’s goofy or that seems kinda useless, still write it down. That said, a rule is that anything you write down should have an “-ing” somewhere in the word or description.
Some examples include cooking, talking to people, selling things, taking good pictures, making drinks, moonwalking, whistling, telling stories, playing an instrument, etc.
Step 2 - Rank the skills you wrote down. Once you have your list of skills written down, you’ll need to rank them on a scale of ⭐ to ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to know what you’re best at and which one you should pursue making money with.
To do this, look at the definitions below for each ⭐ ranking:
- ⭐ — I understand the skill well or have knowledge on it, but haven’t successfully demonstrated it yet(prospect — think Jimmy Butler in 2012)
- ⭐⭐ — I’ve demonstrated the skill well enough that people and/or companies are willing to pay me for the results I can bring(role player — think PJ Tucker)
- ⭐⭐⭐ — I’ve managed a team based around the skill that has brought results to more people than I could by myself(starter — think Chris Paul on OKC and after)
- ⭐⭐⭐⭐ — I can teach the skill to other people(in written, video or audio form) in a way that they understand and that has been proven to get them results(all star — think Paul George)
- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — I’ve created a product or service that makes successfully doing the skill easier, more convenient, or less painful… and it pays me(superstar — Lebron James)
Now, go back to the list of skills you wrote down. Next to each one, write what ⭐ level best matches where you currently rank. Here’s an example of what this looks like for me…
- dressing nice — ⭐
- telling corny jokes— Too many stars to add here. I’m too good ;)
Here’s the video that helped me come up with the rankings above. You don’t really have to watch it. Just adding it because it helped me a lot.
Step 3 - Pick what skill you'll focus on. At this point, you should have a good idea of what your skills are. But you still have to figure out which one you’re gonna focus on growing to the highest ⭐ level possible and making money with.
To do this, use the list of questions below. I mostly got them from the book “The Big Leap” by Gay Hendicks. The skill that appears the most in your answers is probably the skill you should focus on. Even if you’re great at multiple things, people need to know you for something. For example, Prince(the singer) might’ve been the Lebron James of baking cakes behind the scenes, but when we think of him we primarily think of Prince as the legendary music artist. What do people know you for? What’s “your thing”? These questions helped me a lot to figure out what that is for me:
- What are my top 3 highest ranked skills? -
- Of my highest ranked skills, which two could I most easily get a person or company to pay me for doing right now? -
- Of my highest ranked skills, which can I do for long stretches of time without getting tired or bored? -
- Of my highest ranked skills, which can I do for long stretches of time and it doesn’t feel like work? -
- Of my highest ranked skills, which one gives me the biggest boost of energy when I do it? -
- Of the questions I’ve answered so far, what skill appeared the most in my answers? This is the skill I should focus on -
Step 4: Find a way to monetize your skill. That’s it. This should give you a pretty good idea of what your skills are.
If your goal is to start a business using your skill, read this article on How to make your own sales funnel. It’s quick to read and it’ll get you started.
If your goal is to get a job using your skill, the next step is to build a resume showing how you’ve used it in your work experience over time.
I would also suggest reading at least 3 books around the topic of your skill and writing book summaries on them. These summaries are good to post on Linkedin or Medium and add to a resume. You can also send them to family and friends who need help around something you wrote.
Lastly, it helps to find people who will let you practice your skill for them or their company. For example, if your thing is baking cakes, I would try to find at least 5 people or companies to let me bake a cake for them in exchange for a review on Linkedin.
To get the review, add whatever your skill is to your Linkedin profile. Here’s a tutorial on how to do that — (click here)
Then, have the people you helped give you an endorsement and review under the skill. Here’s a video explaining how this works — (click here).
These are the things that have helped me the most in finding great work without a degree. I hope it’s helpful to you as well!
Thanks for reading! If you found the info here useful and would like more, but in a customized way to help you reach your next business or personal goal, sign up for a free game plan at my site, goaldoctors.com. We’ll be happy to help! — from Nick
