25 Skills That Matter More Than Your Degree YouTube

Many people go and get a college degree for the hopes of increasing their opportunities at securing better positions or having growth opportunities. But at some point in your career growth, when you desire to make more impact, skills will matter more than your degree. In this video, I'm going to share with you three different types of skills that matter more than your degree. And under each of these three skill types, there are three subset of skills. So let's dive into that right now. The first type of skill is called intrapersonal skills. Intra means inside of you. So intrapersonal skills are the skills that are required for you to become the person to be able to do the things that are needed so that you can have the growth that you want to see in your career. Now, under intrapersonal skills, there's three types of intrapersonal skills. The first intrapersonal skill is self-knowledge. Sun Tzu in the Art of War said that if you know yourself and you know your enemy, you do not need to fear the results of a thousand battles. So what does this mean? The first thing to know is to know yourself, know thyself. Now, why is that important? Sometimes when we go through our career path, one of the most important things is to be able to make decisions. But sometimes we make decisions and the decisions don't always work out. And sometimes we're not sure what decisions to make, but everything in your career path is a sum of all your decisions. And it's also the sum of all the thoughts that you think and the sum of all the beliefs that you've been believing. So having self-knowledge means that you know yourself. In other words, why do you do the things that you do? Why do you make those types of decisions and not other types of decisions? Why is your capability here and not there? What are the beliefs and philosophies you have that may be self-sabotaging, that may be holding you back from being able to do more and be more? So knowledge of self is really important because only when you know yourself, can others know you, right? We all have an innate desire. Every individual has an innate desire to be seen, to be heard, to be understood. And if you desire that in the workplace, in order for other people to understand you, you first must need to understand yourself. And it might seem so odd because you've been with yourself for decades. It might seem like, well, I know myself, but here's the thing. Since birth, every individual has been programmed by external authorities you have been projected upon. You're starting with your parents at a very young age, telling you what's right, what's wrong, what you should and should not do, what you should and should not aim for, how you should and should not believe. Ever since birth, we were programmed by our parents, by our preachers, by our teachers, by the political systems, by the educational system and by government systems, and also by celebrities and media. We've been programmed subconsciously and this happens without our knowledge. So as a result of that, we have these knee jerk reflexes and these are our responses to other people's conversations, our responses to events we observe around us. And so often our responses are automatic and they are subconscious. They are default. And so when you know yourself, it's first of all uncovering what these default responses are and to be able to know, who do I need to be next? Who do I need to be inside of me so that I can produce the outcomes I want to have? So this is the first most important intrapersonal skill. It's self-knowledge. The second intrapersonal skill is self-influence. So you go from self-knowledge to self-influence. What does it mean for self-influence? Here's the thing, correct me if I'm wrong, I believe that you're here because you want to be influential. You want to be influential in your organization, in your teams, in your industry. But in order for you to be influential, you need to first be able to influence yourself. It's not possible to influence others unless you are first able to influence yourself. So what does that look like? Being able to influence yourself means sometimes being able to get yourself to consistently and persistently do some things that maybe aren't very inspiring to you, that maybe you weren't initially motivated by, or that seemed very difficult or that seemed very risky. How do you influence yourself to take that first step? How do you influence yourself to continue to make the decision that you would not otherwise want to make or desire to make or feel comfortable making? So that's the first layer of self-influence. And then subsequent layers of self-influence means to be able to continue along the path of developing yourself for your purpose. And when you develop yourself for your purpose and in your purpose, there will be some things that are required of you that are difficult and uncomfortable, but we need to keep choosing them. So how do you influence yourself to continue on that path and in that path, especially when the path gets difficult? So this is self-influence. First, you must be able to influence yourself, then you can influence others. The third intrapersonal skill is self-mastery. You go from self-knowledge, self-influence, so self-mastery. And yes, one builds upon the other. So then what's the difference between self-influence and self-mastery? I told you earlier what self-influence was. Self-mastery means that now I'm able to master myself. So let me give you my definition of mastery. Mastery is the ability to execute effortlessly without the use of conscious resources. So it means that you're able to execute effortlessly, execute the things that are required of you effortlessly without conscious effort. So conscious effort is required in the beginning, when you haven't mastered it. Well, think about it on your journey, when things get difficult, when things get uncomfortable, doesn't it require a lot of conscious effort to calm your emotions, to calm your anxiety, to not let those thoughts ruminate? Doesn't it require a lot of effort? So self-mastery means that you've mastered yourself, you've mastered your emotions, you've mastered your thought patterns, you've mastered your beliefs, you've mastered your philosophy in such a way that it now no longer requires that amount of energy and effort, but it just becomes a breeze. In fact, it just becomes who you are. It is now your identity. This is the key outcome to self-mastery and self-mastery is a journey, but you've got to know what are the steps in that journey towards self-mastery. So those are the three most important intrapersonal skills that are more important than your degree. So now let's move on to the second type of skills. The second type of skills that are more important than your degree are interpersonal skills. So remember the first category was intrapersonal within you, and now it's interpersonal. Inter means between, so between you and another person, between people. Now there are three skills under interpersonal skills and all three skills pertain to communication. Why? Because when you are between yourself and another person, the only vehicle to be able to express yourself and to be able to express your visions and to be able to request for support is in communications. Language is what connects. Language is what creates outcomes, right? You think about it. Language can create either positive or negative outcomes and it's all through language. In fact, communication is the highest level of value in the marketplace. That's why those who communicate well are those who are more visible. Those who talk well and can connect well and create trust through communication are the ones that are seen as more valuable in the marketplace. In fact, they have higher levels of compensation and that is why communication, all three skills under interpersonal skills fall under communication. So let's talk about the first type of communication skills that are interpersonal skills and this is communicating with clarity and conviction. This is the first type of skill. How can you communicate in a way that people understand what you mean and why you mean what you mean? That's clarity. And clarity is really important because nothing becomes dynamic until it first becomes clear. And let me guess, I'm guessing that you're here because you desire to make more impact, to be more influential. So that is a dynamic outcome. Having influence and having impact is a very dynamic outcome, but nothing becomes dynamic until it first becomes clear. So clarity is not clear to you. Clarity means clear to them. It's their opinion that matters. Have you been clear? Have they misunderstood? Have there been any room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding? That is on the onus of the communicator to be able to communicate clearly. So communicating with clarity and conviction. Conviction is the second piece. Conviction means you may not agree with what I'm saying. You may not like what I'm saying. You may not have said the same thing yourself, but you will never disagree that I genuinely believe in what I say. You will never disagree with that. So this is conviction. And in order for you to be convicted, it requires, right back to the beginning, it requires the intrapersonal skills of self-knowledge, self-influence and self-mastery. We need to have that conviction through those intrapersonal skills. So being able to communicate with clarity and conviction is the first most important interpersonal skill. The second interpersonal skill is communicating with branding and marketing. Now this might seem a shock to you because you might be thinking, well, I'm not trying to sell anything and I'm not an expert in marketing. I'm not talking about that. I know my audience. You desire to be influential. You desire to be impactful. In order for you to build the trust, they need to know who you are and they need to be able to trust in you. So you are a brand. What's your brand? What do you stand for? What are you convicted for? What's your purpose? What do you believe? Why do you believe what you believe? Right. Your brand, let me offer you a definition. Your brand is the story that someone thinks about when they hear your name. So what's the story that comes to mind? What do they tell themselves when you're not there about you? That is your brand. Your brand is not always what you say it is, but it is definitely going to say it is definitely what other people are going to say it is. And here's the thing about brands. You've already been building your brand. You already have one. Did you build it accidentally or did you build it purposefully? And when you communicate with branding, it means that there's congruency inside and out. There is consistency and therefore predictability and that builds trust. They know who you are and they can rely on that. You ever met someone where they shake, whenever you shake their hand and they go, don't worry, I got you, that you really trust in that. Well, it's because they've built a very strong brand. What's your brand? So being able to communicate with branding. And the second part is being able to communicate with marketing. So what does it mean by marketing? And when I talk about marketing, I'm not talking about advertising. I'm not talking about hopeless and repetitive self-promotion. I'm not talking about being braggadocious, not at all. Marketing is simply the art and the science of causing your audience to desire more and more of what you have to offer. That's the essence of marketing is both an art and a science. The art piece of marketing is knowing how to connect with another person, how to be able to help them to see the value of what you're communicating. And so therefore it increases their desire of more of what you have to offer. And desire, notice desire is emotional. So the art piece is the emotional side of things to being able to help them to resonate with you, to emotionally connect with you and to emotionally connect with the feeling behind your message. That's the art piece. The science piece of marketing comes with understanding the science of human behavior, the science of human perspective, the science of all of that individuals and the science of that. So this is art and science. So when you communicate with branding and marketing, it helps you to be more effective at creating the outcome you desire through connecting with people and being able to deliver messages that sell. Now you might be thinking, well, I'm not in sales. I'm not in marketing. You don't have to be. If you desire to have more influence and you desire to have more impact, you're going to selling something. So the sooner you realize that, the sooner you're able to create messages that move people into action that are persuasive, which leads me to the third interpersonal skill. And that is communicating with sales and persuasion. It segues from one to the other. Sales is important. Why? Because in order for you to be able to move your agenda forward, to be able to get your idea to come to fruition, to be able to help other people to see things from your perspective, you're selling something. You could be selling your skills. You could be selling an idea. You can be selling an offer. You could be selling a perspective, a different perspective, or you could be selling an opportunity. You see that you want others to get on board with. So you're selling all the time and the sooner you realize it, the sooner that you can wake up into these skills. So sales, let me offer you a definition of sales. Now sales is uncovering the value of what you are communicating effectively and you're uncovering the value so well that your audience who's listening to you, they are willing to be able to exchange the value they have for the value that you have just uncovered. Now, this extends beyond getting buy-in. Yeah, when you get buy-in in the boardroom and in front of your senior stakeholders, you want them to give you the value that they have. It could be a budget. They give you the budget or it could be their stamp of approval. That's the value they have that you desire, but there's got to be a value exchange. So sales is being able to uncover the value you're about to bring to them so well that they effectively and they're willingly able, they're going to exchange the value you have for the value you've just revealed. So this is communicating with sales and the next thing is communicating with persuasion. Persuasion is not the same thing as trying to convince somebody. I hear this all the time. Executives who come into my coaching program, they tell me, I need to be more convincing. How do I start? How do I convince my bosses? How do I convince my higher ups? And the first thing I tell them is don't try to convince them. Have you ever noticed that people hate to be convinced? And that's the reason why sales has such a bad name is because a lot of sales, a lot of people, when they're trying to get buy-in, they're trying to convince. And whenever you try to convince somebody, the shields go up, they lean away, they move away, they turn away. It feels yucky because people hate to be convinced. When you're trying to convince somebody, what that means is that you're trying to get them to do something for your reasons. And energetically, you might be saying all the right things, but you can't lie with your energy. So then that's convincing. Persuasion is not the same thing. Persuasion is when you're able to effectively help the other person to make a certain decision that they're already trying to make, but you're helping them to come to the conclusion for their reasons. They come to their own conclusions and the conclusion that they come up with on their own pace is the same conclusion that you desire them to come up with. So that is effective persuasion. Sales and persuasion work together synergistically. So this is a really important interpersonal skill to develop. The third one, which is communicating with sales and persuasion. The third type of skills, remember we went from intrapersonal to interpersonal. The third type of skills that's more important than your degree are intellectual skills. The root word of intellectual is intellect. Now a lot of people misunderstand intellect and they think it means you got to be smart. Intellect is more than that. It's beyond that. So when it comes to intellectual skills, there's three types of intellectual skills. The first type of intellectual skill is epistemological acumen. Now I know that I threw a big word at you, so let me break this down. Epistemological, the root word is episteme. And episteme has to do with knowledge. When you practice episteme, what you're actually doing is you're studying how you obtained the knowledge that you did, precisely how you obtained the knowledge that you did. So having an acumen around that means that you understand your own knowledge at a very deep level. This is key at a very deep level. Most people, when they go to college, the aim of college is to graduate and hopefully to graduate with honors. Let's be real about that. That's the whole aim of college education or the education system. The problem with that is when you graduate, it seems like it feels like a really big accomplishment. But essentially what you've done when you graduated with the degree is that you've learned about something. I graduated from neuroscience. I have a master's and a PhD in neuroscience. And when I finished my PhD in neuroscience, I realized I took all those graduate level courses. And I realized when I got my first job after my PhD that I don't really know what I know. I know about the brain and I know about the brain and health, about the brain and disease. And I've done that well to be able to pass my test, to be able to defend my dissertation. But then when I got into the real world and got my first job, my first job was to lead a nationwide research project to help brain injured patients. So there I was associating and I was leading other professionals. I was leading neuroscientists. I was leading neurologists. I was leading other experts in healthcare ethics. And I had a deer in headlights moment when I realized I don't really understand what I know. Now this might seem shocking, but you're going to notice that there's a difference between learning about something and having a depth of wisdom in your knowledge. And when you have a depth of wisdom in your knowledge, you're able to take what you know and apply it across domains and apply it across disciplines. Because I'm sure you have enough experience to realize that the academic world, when you were in the education system is very different from the business world when you're working in a company and you're leading teams or maybe leading departments and directing whole objectives. It's a completely different world and it requires a different level of understanding. So this is epistemological acumen is how well you've assimilated your knowledge into an understanding and how quickly and efficiently you're developing that understanding into wisdom. So that's the first skill and there's a whole process around that. I teach this process in my mentorship program. So if you're serious about developing epistemological knowledge and acumen and you're serious about developing the interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, then we can explore whether or not it's the right fit to work together. There's a link somewhere below this video. Click that link and explore that. If it's the right fit, I look forward to supporting you in your journey. Now let's talk about the second intellectual skill that's more important than your degree. The second intellectual skill are business acumen skills. Now this one's important because you work in a company, you work for a company and a company is a business and a company is a business because the whole entity of the business exists to make a profit and hopefully to make a profit sustainably into the future. So this is really important that you understand the business that you're in and you might think, well, what if I want to go to a different company? What if I want to work in different companies? Do I have to understand each company individually? The short answer is yes. And the longer answer is every business has business principles to succeed. Do you understand that? Do you have the acumen around that? So this is really important and I'm not encouraging you to go get an MBA by the way, because learning business acumen has nothing to do with getting an MBA and learning a theory around business and theory around marketing and those business functions. There's nothing to do about that. Having business acumen is understanding the principles that create business success and understanding the most important functions of a business and how the principles behind those functions help the business to become sustainably successful. So this is a skill set you develop over time. And it's an important skill set to develop over time because if you desire to become more strategic in your leadership, it really requires that you understand how to create strategy for the business and how to create real objectives for the business and move the whole business towards those objectives. So number one, you've got to be able to speak the language of business, but also to have real understanding on how to grow a business and how to scale a business, but also when to grow a business and when to scale a business because those are not the same thing. So in a nutshell, this is business acumen, which is the second most important intellectual skill. Now the third most important intellectual skill is financial acumen. So you went from epistemological acumen to business acumen and now we are in financial acumen. Why is this important? Because as you go up in the business, in your company, you start from individual contributor and then you go into, let's say, management. You manage, sometimes you manage people, you manage projects, you manage processes, and then eventually you want to take on higher level positions. The higher up you go, the more important it is to develop financial acumen because your higher ups need individuals in those leadership positions who are fiscally responsible. Fiscal responsibility has a lot to do with understanding the finances of the company. How well do you understand finances so that when you make a decision for the team, for the department, for the company, that it is a financially sound decision and you are fiscally responsible. So that's why financial acumen is important. And now when it comes to developing financial acumen, it is first of all, undoing and unlearning all of the things you might have picked up in your life around wealth, money, and finances. So many times I work with executives who were newly minted in their senior director role or their VP role. So often I come across and I work with executives like that. And oftentimes when they're making decisions around budget, around business strategy, around guiding them, pivoting the whole department, what they're up against is their own internal programmings around wealth, around budgeting, around money, around finances. And if you don't unlearn those things and you don't pivot into something that is going to serve you and serve the company, it's really going to hold you back from making the decisions that are important for the company. So that's the first part of financial acumen. And then it's developing the understanding, the depth of understanding of fiscal responsibility. So those are the three most important skill sets in terms of growth in your career and personal growth as well. They are intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, and intellectual skills. Now I'm just giving you an overview about this in today's lesson. In today's video, I don't have time, of course, to get deep into business acumen and financial acumen, but if you're serious about developing these things for yourself and having a strong foundation of where do I start and where do I go next, then I invite you to work with me. Click the link somewhere below this video and find out more about what I do, the offerings that I have and the services that I have to offer as well. And I trust that you are intelligent enough to make the best decisions that are in your best interest. So I hope this serves you for now. Subscribe. Remember to subscribe to my channel so that you can have more videos like this and much more, and I will see you next time.