This report was 29 pages and had 33 sources or more than 1 source per page.

Sourcing stuff like this not only helps you prove things to readers which can help trigger emotions. But most importantly it helps give readers trust in you that you know what the hell you’re talking about.

Trust is the most important thing for many people – especially if you want to build a business.

If people don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you. Unless you sell exclusively $1 commodity-type items.

If people trust you, they buy more from you. If you do an excellent job, they tell their friends, and this leads to more clients and getting paid more money. And this leads to more opportunities and people you can help.

To become an excellent value investor, writer, or speaker – which we talk about next – you must also be a good researcher.

Researching is an ultra-powerful skill that you need to learn to make more money and become irreplaceable.

6 Skills You MUST Know or Learn to Make Money And Become Irreplaceable

3. Speaking

 

My mom and wife think I’m nuts for liking to speak in public. They’re terrified of it. And they’re not alone. An estimated 75% of people worldwide are afraid of speaking publicly. [6]

Even though I sourced this, I find that huge of a number hard to believe. But either way, the fear of public speaking is real.

The fear of speaking not only affects people in terms of their mental health in the short term through anxiety. But also, in how much they can make over the long term of their careers as well.

It’s estimated that the fear of public speaking lowers your potential wages by 10%.

That will lower your college graduation rate by 10%.

And that you’ll have a 15% lower chance of getting a promotion to management levels at your job if you fear public speaking. [7]

In other words, the fear of speaking publicly will harm someone’s job prospects and career earnings over their lifetime.

The inverse of these things is also true though.

If you don’t mind or even enjoy public speaking, you gain a huge advantage over others. It gives you an edge over people in your career and improves your earning potential.

This is one of the reasons I seek out speaking opportunities. And why you should learn this skill too.

Like the other skills on this list, it’s an ultra-valuable one that will help you make more money and become irreplaceable.

Only through writing can you reach as large of an audience as fast.

Plus, with the rise of people watching videos online, you can also record these events and use them in your courses, to get clients, etc. online. This will further leverage your speaking events and help you reach and help more people faster.

Which, of course, helps you make more money.

The ability to speak well in front of groups has made people a lot of money. And helped people gain enormous power over the course of history.

I could tell you about famous speakers like Marcus Tullius Cicero, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., how Hitler used the power of speech to rise to power, or any number of other historical examples.

But I want to use a recent one to illustrate the power of speaking in today’s world to you.

Let me introduce you to Joe Rogan.

He’s a comedian, UFC analyst/commentator, and probably the number one podcaster in the world.

On his podcast, he talks with and interviews interesting people from a massive range of specialties around the world.

But, it’s not a normal interview like on a mainstream news TV channel.

This isn’t shocking news or 5-minute sound bites of people screaming at each other.

He has 2 to 3-hour conversations with these people on his podcast. And he asks great questions, they answer, and then they go from there.

It’s fantastic and you learn a ton from his shows. Plus, they’re super entertaining and often funny as well.

He gets paid a lot of money to talk. But, as of September 1^st, 2020, he’s getting paid a lot more.

On May 19^th, 2020 Spotify announced that it bought the distribution rights of its popular podcast for $100 million. ^[8]

This is a modern example of the power of speaking.

I don’t know the numbers on his podcast episodes only, but the YouTube video versions of his podcasts get between 500k and 2.5 million views regularly. The popular ones get up to tens of millions of views. And just on YouTube, his podcast has more than 8 million subscribers. ^[9]

This is the power of public speaking and doing it well.  And he isn’t even on a stage for his podcasts.

Think about any President, leader, business owner, etc. that you admire.

They are likely great speakers. And if they aren’t, they have at least one of the ultra-valuable skills on this list. Outside of sports figures, of course. But that’s a completely different skill set.

Here is an article with a bunch of great stats on the current and future potential growth of podcasting.

Plus, think about something you have in your house right now. An Amazon Alexa or a Google Home.

You can listen to anything you want voice-wise – podcasts, speeches, sporting events, music, etc. – anywhere in your home or on the go on your phone. Mostly for free.

And podcasting is just one example of the future of voice.

Online and live in-person events are still popular – live events will be popular again once the coronavirus pandemic ends.

Politicians still derive much of their power from their convincing speech.

People on TV still gain huge power from how well they speak.

Actors and actresses are paid to speak well.

And on and on.

If you can speak well and entertain or help people, you can make money from this skill.

I think the voice in the next 10 years is going to be massive.

Another quick example is our own podcasts – Value Investing In Your Car and ILoveValueInvesting.

My team and I turn most of the videos I create into podcasts. And if our analytics are correct, we get way more listens to our podcast episodes than we get views of our videos on YouTube.

And it’s not even close.

This is another skill you must know or learn to make money and become irreplaceable.

But what if you don’t know or have this skill already?

That brings us to our next skill you must know or learn.

6 Skills You MUST Know or Learn to Make Money And Become Irreplaceable

4. Learning

I’ve always loved learning. But, when I started value investing, I didn’t learn fast or well. And had no idea there were better ways to learn.

All I knew about learning was memorization and note-taking. That’s what I’d learned all throughout school.

Because of this, when I began learning value investing and finance, I wasted the first 3 or 4 years of time.

Why?

Because I tried to learn too many things at one time and didn’t retain any information.

This meant I had to go back and relearn everything repeatedly during this 3 or 4 year period of “learning.”

Since then, I’ve learned how to learn better and faster.

My top tips for this are simple:

• Learn one thing at a time, until you know it without having to look it up
• Take notes by hand – this helps you retain more info because you slow down when you handwrite stuff.If you don’t know what something means, without looking it up – look it up, if necessary
• I still do this now 13+ years into my investing journey. Especially when I’m teaching students. This helps me give them the correct definition. And reinforces it even more to me
• If you can’t explain something in terms a 6^th grader will understand, you don’t understand it well enough yourself. Meaning relearn it again, or more
• Simplify things as much as you can

As one example of the simplify things line, here’s a real-world investing example.

Here’s the “book” definition of free cash flow from Investopedia.com. ^[10]

Free cash flow (FCF) is the cash flow available for the company to repay creditors or pay dividends and interest to investors. Some investors prefer FCF or FCF per share over earnings or earnings per share as a measure of profitability because it removes non-cash items from the income statement. However, because FCF accounts for investments in property, plant, and equipment, it can be lumpy and uneven over time.

My simplified definition…

Free cash flow is the money/profit left over after paying taxes and using capital to operate and grow the business.

These two definitions mean the same thing – but I’ve stripped out the unimportant noise.

To learn more about Free Cash Flow and why it’s so important go here.

Try to simplify things as much as you can when learning anything.

This helps you retain more information. And it will also help you put things into better context.

Because I’ve learned how to learn better, faster, and more efficiently I can now learn skills fast when I want or need to.

If you learn this skill you can do the same.

But, why is this here? Aren’t we talking about ways for you to make money now?

Yes, we are.

Since learning how to learn well and fast, I’ve been hired specifically by people not because I had the skill they required at the time. But, because they knew I had the ability to learn fast and well and then translate that into actual practice within weeks.

If you can learn fast and well, not only can you learn valuable skills faster – which will help you make more money. But sometimes you get opportunities to learn and make money, just because you can learn well and fast.

This skill will help gain these skills so you can make more money and become irreplaceable.

But you’ll need something else too.

6 Skills You MUST Know or Learn to Make Money And Become Irreplaceable

5. Focus

For many, focusing was already hard enough at work.

Between colleagues talking and working around you. To the proverbial water cooler talks. To the distractions on your work computer or phones. The focus was already difficult while in an office or work setting.

Now with more people working at home than ever before – and this trend likely to continue even after we’re done with the coronavirus pandemic – you must be able to focus.

Focus is the difference between being productive and getting closer to your goals; to wasting your entire day looking at cat videos on YouTube.

How important is this to me? I’ve read several books and articles on just how to focus better.

As someone who’s worked from home for years now, around family members, kids, pets, video games, phones, and the other infinite ways to distract yourself; I wanted to tell you how important it is to learn how to focus well.

In my experience, I struggled most in the past with playing video games. I’ve played them my entire life and still love them. But to reach my goals, I must keep away from them while working.

You have something that either distracts you or that you use to distract yourself and procrastinate too. But you must learn how to tune out distractions.

You need to learn how to get “into the zone,” or into your “flow,” if you want to learn and produce higher levels of work.

One of my top recommendations is a headset. Get a good and comfortable noise-canceling headset if you can afford it. I was skeptical about how well these would work before getting one, but it helps enormously.

My wife got me some for my last birthday and they’re amazing. Especially, if you need to concentrate and you have TVs, kids, phones, and other noisy distractions around while working.

If you can’t afford a noise-canceling headset yet, get a cheap pair from Wal-Mart or Amazon. I used these for years before my wife got me the noise-canceling ones.

They don’t work as well as the noise-canceling ones, but they still cut out a lot of the noise. Especially, if you play music while you work.

And speaking of music, play individual songs or playlists on repeat if you can. This way you can’t distract yourself by constantly changing the song to “something better.”

Oh, and if you can, work in a quiet room away from distractions. Especially, when first working from home. This will help you focus easier.

The lack of focus leading to procrastination is one of the largest things keeping most people away from focus and producing more.

But even though I’ve studied how to focus better and use things like noise-canceling headsets and music to drown out distractions, I’m still guilty of this.

Focusing on important and productive work is hard mentally in even the best circumstances.

Years into this, I’ve improved my ability to focus enormously. But it’s still hard. Especially, on days when you “don’t feel like working.”

And there will be days no matter how much you love what you do and no matter how much you train yourself out of it, where you still don’t feel like working.

Push through this.

You need the ability to focus, whether you’re working from home or at an office.

And you can learn this skill.

Not only did I used to procrastinate a lot – as in hours per day – but it would take me forever to get into the zone, or into my flow while working.

Now, I can turn my focus off and on, as needed almost on command. For usually, short bursts of time, at least. Still working to improve this .

But, even at the high end of things, focusing for long periods of time is hard.

In Cal Newport’s research outlined in his terrific book Deep Work, he estimates the high end is 4 to 6 hours per day of highly focused “deliberate” work per day. ^[11]

Even for people who’ve trained themselves to focus well.

Why?

Because like I said above, focusing is extremely mentally draining and wears you down both physically and mentally.

It’s hard. But you must learn how to do it if you want to reach your goals.

It took me years to figure it out, and I’m still working on this every day. But, the sooner you learn how to focus, the better.

Because you’ll be able to do more important and productive work which leads to you making more money and becoming irreplaceable.

But you still need one more to make sure people can find you and your solutions to their problems.

6 Skills You MUST Know or Learn to Make Money And Become Irreplaceable

6. Marketing

Marketing is newer for me in terms of my specific focus on it. Probably 4 years, instead of the more than a decade for the others above.

But it’s just as important as the others.

If you can’t market your products, services, events, books, courses, etc. – how are people supposed to find and pay for it?

Not just so you make money and continue building more stuff. But more importantly, so you can continue marketing and helping more people with your solutions.

There’s a saying about self-confidence, but it applies to marketing too – “if you don’t believe in yourself why should anybody else?”

And if you don’t market yourself why should anyone else?

How will people find you?

In what way will you help more people?

How will you make money?

For example, If I don’t market my Value Investing Masterclass and other programs to you, that’ll show that I don’t believe in them. Nobody would join it. I wouldn’t be able to help anyone learn with the programs. I wouldn’t be able to afford to build newer programs to help even more people.

And this doesn’t just affect you either.

If I don’t market my books, products, courses, and services, I can’t afford my teammates which means they won’t have jobs.

This means they can’t support their families. And I wouldn’t have helped 2 of my teammates buy homes due to the salaries I pay them.

And if I didn’t have teammates, I would be doing only a fraction of what I’m able to do myself. This means I wouldn’t be helping as many people as I can or want to.

If I wasn’t marketing, getting new clients, and helping, I also couldn’t donate a portion of all sales from our products and services to charities around the world like I do every year around Christmas.

Proper marketing isn’t a selfish thing. It incorporates all the things I mentioned above.

Marketing is an entire cycle that affects you, your business, your products and services, any teammates you have, their families, the people you’re helping, and the entire world.

Plus, if you can market well for yourself you can also make a lot of money marketing for others too.

Russel Brunson who is one of the world’s best marketers calls good marketers rainmakers. Because, if you can market things well, you can make as much money as you want and help as many people as you can.

Marketing is an ultra-valuable skill. If you get good at it, you can always make money.

You may notice throughout this article and specifically in this section that I keep mentioning helping other people.

In any marketing I do – courses, books, masterminds, online and in-person events, writing and consulting for clients, etc. – I want to help as many people as I can.  I want them to benefit more than I do. That’s my mindset going into anything.

But I can’t continue helping people if I don’t make money and bring in new clients via marketing.

One of the biggest ways you can make money outside of writing and speaking is through marketing.

For example, you are in a job and you want a promotion.

Who do you think will win?

A person who is shy and introverted and doesn’t believe in himself?

Or a person who is confident – not cocky or arrogant – that helps people and believes that they can do the best job?

Who do you think will get the job?

This is marketing.

If people don’t know about you and your skills how are they supposed to hire you? How are you supposed to get a promotion?

Dating is also about marketing.

You present yourself in the best way you can on a first date. You get dressed up and go to a nice dinner so you make a good first impression. In the hopes of getting a second date.

This is exactly what marketing is.

Putting your best foot forward, helping people, and getting paid for your work.

You need to learn this skill not only for yourself. But, also so you can help more people and make money and become irreplaceable.

Conclusion

If you learn the 6 skills above well, I guarantee, you’ll have more job opportunities and make more money and become irreplaceable. Today and for the rest of your life.

You also won’t be replaced by robots, AI, or automation anytime soon because these skills require creativity, problem-solving, and thinking.

Things robots, AI, and automation are nowhere close to replacing even after decades of improvements.

People who have these skills will make more money and have more stable jobs and opportunities in the coming years and decades.

If you want to be among these people, you need to learn the 6 skills above starting today.

***

I’ve included an appendix of sources below.

This appendix includes links to books, articles, videos, and even courses I’ve taken over the years to learn and improve the skills I talk about above.

I’m not an affiliate or paid promoter of any kind of these products. They’re just the best ones I’ve learned from over the years. And they’re the resources I recommend to anyone wanting to learn these skills so I wanted you to know about them too.

The resources below are categorized by section – writing, speaking, etc. – and are in no order. All of them are great, so learn from all of them over time if you can. Otherwise, feel free to start at whichever resource catches your eye.

Also, please keep in mind, that many of the resources below can be put into multiple categories as well. So, just because something is in the learning category below, it may also help you learn how to focus.

APPENDIX:

Recommended Writing Resources

• On Writing – A Memoir of The Craft by Stephen King
• Joanna Wiebe Copy Writing Course – these used to be free resources not sure if they still are. Use your researching skills to find out for sure on the site. There are also paid courses here as well
• Digital Marketing Copy Writing Course
• AWAI Copywriting Courses – I don’t remember the exact course I took – it was free through the investment newsletter I worked for at the time. But all these courses should be great
• The Ultimate Sales Letter – Attract New Customers and Boost Your Sales by Dan Kennedy

Recommended Speaking Resources

• Platform Closing – The Underground Playbook to Dominate Every Presentation, Win Over Your Audience, and Have Them Beg You to Take Their Money by Peng Joon
• Speak to Sell
• John Maxwell Speaking Courses – I can’t find the direct links to these. If you are interested in more information email me at jasonrivera@valueinvestingjourney.com. I’m a John Maxwell team member and can connect you with someone to get into the John Maxwell team
• TED Talks – The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking By Chris Anderson

Researching

• Didn’t really learn from any books or resources here. I just learned how to do it and got better at it with practice.

Learning

• Mindset – The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
• The Power of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
• The Brain That Changes Itself – Stories of Personal Triumph from The Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
• The Obstacle Is the Way – The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday
• The Art of Learning – An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin
• So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work Your Love by Cal Newport
• Learn or Die – Using Science to Build A Leading Edge Learning Organization by Edward Hess

Focus

• The One Thing – The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
• Deep Work – Rules for Focused Success in A Distracted World by Cal Newport
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Persistence by Angela Duckworth
• Relentless – From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim Grover
• Willpower – Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister
• Extreme Ownership – How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
• Can’t Hurt Me – Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
• Talent is Overrated – What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin

Marketing

• Mitchell Harpers Conversion Method Course – I can’t find the link to directly buy this anymore so I found another landing page that looks like it takes you to the course
• Billy Gene Is Marketing Clicks to Conversions 2.0
• Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got – 21 Ways You Can Out Think, Outperform, And Out Earn the Competition By Jay Abraham
• The Sticking Point Solution – 9 Ways to Move Your Business from Stagnation to Stunning Growth By Jay Abraham
• 80/20 Sales and Marketing – The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More By Perry Marshall
• Magnetic Marketing – How to Attract A Flood of New Customers That Pay, Stay, and Refer By Dan Kennedy
• Piranha Marketing – The Seven Success Multiplying Factors to Dominate the Market You Enter By Joe Polish and Tim Paulson

P.S. And if you want to learn the skill of value investing that I teach on the Value Investing Journey site you can use the following links to learn more about some of our programs.

• Value Investing For Beginners
• Mindset of A World Class Value Investor
• Value Investing Masterclass
• Value Investing One on One Coaching Program

Sources Below Here:

1. https://www.valueinvestingjourney.com/value-investing-in-your-car-episode-21-if-i-could-only-rely-on-3-investing-metrics-what-would-they-be-part-1/ ↑
2. https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/jobs.htm?suggestCount=0&suggestChosen=false&clickSource=searchBtn&typedKeyword=finance+content+writer&sc.keyword=finance+content+writer&locT=&locId=&jobType= ↑
3. https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/jobs.htm?suggestCount=0&suggestChosen=false&clickSource=searchBtn&typedKeyword=travel+wr&locT=C&locId=1154427&jobType=&context=Jobs&sc.keyword=Travel+Writer&dropdown=0 ↑
4. https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/jobs.htm?suggestCount=0&suggestChosen=false&clickSource=searchBtn&typedKeyword=copy&locT=C&locId=1154427&jobType=&context=Jobs&sc.keyword=Copywriter&dropdown=0 ↑
5. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/oct/01/stephenking.sciencefictionfantasyandhorror ↑
6. https://www.psycom.net/glossophobia-fear-of-public-speaking#:~:text=Glossophobia%2C%20or%20a%20fear%20of,full%2Don%20panic%20and%20fear ↑
7. https://magneticspeaking.com/7-unbelievable-fear-of-public-speaking-statistics/ ↑
8. https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/19/spotify-signs-the-joe-rogan-experience-to-an-exclusive-multi-year-deal/ ↑
9. https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/19/spotify-signs-the-joe-rogan-experience-to-an-exclusive-multi-year-deal/ ↑
10. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/freecashflow.asp#:~:text=Free%20cash%20flow%20(FCF)%20is,items%20from%20the%20income%20statement. ↑
11. https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/cal-newport-on-deep-work-the-key-to-unlocking-your-productivity-potential ↑