5 Skills to Learn That Will Change Your Life

There seems to be an epidemic of guys that don’t know what they’re doing and where they want to go in life, they just seem to be going through the motions. If any of the following describe you, you have come to the right place to turn your life around.

• Currently in college but don’t know why
• In a dead-end major that you know won’t get you a good job
• Working a job you hate, barely scraping by, and buried in student loan debt
• You feel like you’re stuck on a treadmill, working hard never getting closer to your real goals

Any one of the skills in this article can make a drastic impact on your life, combine them all if you want to be an Uberman. None of these cost any money to learn, only time and effort.

Technology and the internet in particular are the greatest equalizer in human history, if you aren’t where you want to be in life it’s by your own choice.

5. Meditation- Let your mind shape your life

Benefits of meditation include

• Reduced stress
• Reduced aging
• Lower daily sleep requirements
• Improved brain function
• Laser sharp focus
• Increased attention span
• and many more

Full list of meditation benefits here

My personal experience with meditation is a noticeable increase in productivity and focus. Those distracting thoughts that float into your head while studying or working will start to disappear within a few meditation sessions. There is no excuse not to spend 10-15 minutes a day meditating. After the foundation has been laid you will no longer require daily meditation, you will be able to simply focus your mind when you become aware of any turbulence in your mind.

Resources

1. www.how-to-meditate.org– A free resource with a variety of meditation techniques and postures
2. Free Guided Meditations– A number of free guided meditations from UCLA. Meditating in silence can be difficult at first so a guided meditation is definitely helpful to start out.
3. How to Meditate: A Practical Guide– A book by a Tibetan nun with down to earth approaches to meditation
4. The Untethered Soul– A #1 bestseller covering a number of subjects related to meditation

4. Financial Literacy

Did you know that starting at the age of 18 saving just 20$ a week and investing it at a 10% interest rate would give you over half a million dollars by the time you retired? There’s nothing sexy about living below your means, but it’s something you’re going to have to learn to do if you don’t want to be working as a greeter at Walmart when you’re 70 years old. The number one thing to do is make compound interest work for you, not against you. That means paying off those student loans as soon as possible and putting money into an investment account.

Resources

1. www.investopedia.com– A great website with information on everything from investing to personal finance
2. Compound Interest Calculator– A fun little tool to see how much money you can make at varying interest rates and initial invetments
3. Financial Literacy Resource Roundup– A bunch of resources all in one place
4. The Millionaire Next Door– A cliche, but provides a good look into the habits of some of the most successful people around. Appearances can be deceiving.

3. Learn a Coding Language

Computers aren’t going anywhere and tech companies everywhere are desperate for programmers. The best news about this industry is that many are moving beyond the old beliefs that a college degree is always necessary. Google for example has found that there is no correlation between a college degree and future success as an employee at Google, so they hire entirely on skill, experience, and personality. The result is that 14% of their programmers have NO college experience, with another large chunk being college drop outs.

If you are willing to put in the work the lack of a relevant degree or even having no college degree won’t hurt you in the tech field. If you have the skills somebody will be more than willing to give you a chance. Most of these programming languages can be learned to a moderate level within a couple of months, if you are stuck in a dead end job you have no excuse not to dedicate a couple hours a day for the chance to have a great career and great income.

Some average salaries for some potential jobs that can be learned from home

Web Developer- 63,160$

Java Programmer- 82,253$

Python Programmer- 78,709$

Resources

1. Stanford Computer Science 101– A free self-paced intro to computer science course courtesy of the premier CS college in the United States
2. Codecademy– Codecademy provides FREE courses in multiple different programming languages including HTML, CSS, Javascript, and Ruby on Rails.
3. Teamtreehouse.com– Similar to Codecademy, they offer a free trial and are affordable at only 25$ a month. I would recommend signing up after doing the free courses at Codecademy. Team Treehouse provides more focus with course for web design, web development, app development, and more.
4. HTML and CSS– Generally the recommended first languages to start off with, HTML and CSS will allow you to create websites
5. Javascript and Jquery– Javascript is considered by many to be the best language to learn going forward due to it’s flexibility and ability to be used for full stack development

2. Become as Stoic as a Roman Emperor

If you find yourself overly concerned over what people think about you, distracted by errant thoughts, turbulent emotions, and are just generally unhappy, Stoic philosophy may be the answer to your problems. Stoicism involves a number of techniques and strategies to attain inner happiness, one of them being meditation. The most famous Stoic was Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome who was known as the last Good Emperor. Historians have called his period of reign as one of the happiest and most prosperous in human history.

Another famous Stoic was Diogenes, who after being asked by Alexander the Great if there was anything that he desired said “Yes, move out of my sun”. Alexander was so impressed that afterwords he is quoted as saying “But truly, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes”.

Alexander and Diogenes

The main principal of stoic philosophy is to control what is in your power, and to work on accepting what isn’t and not let it effect you accordingly. Another principal is fight human nature in the form of hedonistic adaptation, the constant need for more in our lives. The classic example would be the rich and famous who are miserable despite their success. The stoics would do an exercise known as Negative Visualization to learn to want the things they already had. An example would be imagining your life if you were blind in exact detail, how it would change everything in you morning routine, how you would get to work, etc. You will see that while it would be a major change you could still be happy if you were blind. When you come out of your meditation on these thoughts you will not only be accepting of the possibility of becoming blind, but also very happy that you still have your eyesight.

The final Stoic strategy is undergoing voluntary discomfort  to increase mental toughness and self-control. Examples include fasting, walking without shoes, not wearing a winter coat, and sleeping on hard ground. The result is a much stronger and more appreciative person.

Maybe if the political leaders of today practiced Stoic Philosophy our world wouldn’t be in the state it’s in at the moment.

Resources

1. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius– A translation of Marcus Aurelius’ personal journal and a #1 bestseller, this is considered the textbook for Stoic Philosophy
2. Howtobeastoic.com– A blog dedicated to Stoic philosophy education
3. A guide to the good life: The ancient art of stoic joy– A book that shows how to adapt and use stoic philosophy in the modern world.

1. Learn How to Market Yourself and Your Business

Easily the most important skill you can learn and one that very few people have. If you can successfully market, you will never have to worry about jobs or money again. I can personally say that you can show me any business in any industry and I can help that business get more customers, more sales, and more money. If you can show with hard proof that you can do that too you have it made. Think of learning how to market like learning concepts and formulas in math class. If you know the formula you can take any numbers and figure out the answer. The same goes for marketing skills. The concepts stay the same regardless of what business you are working for.

A lot of doors will open to you if you can know you can find clients. The result is that business owners come to YOU for your expertise because while they have skills in their specific field, they don’t have a clue about how to get people to want their service or product.

Some salaries for marketing jobs you can learn from home

PPC account manager- 67,000$

Social Media Manager- 44,295$

Copy Writer- 57,269$

Resources

1. warriorforum.com– A huge forum dedicated to both online and offline marketing strategies
2. Digitalpoint.com– Another large forum related to marketing
3. Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords: How to access one billion people in 10 minutes– Learn how to take advantage of Google’s advertising platform to reach potential customers with precision.
4. Everybody Writes– Copy writing is a valuable skill and will always be in demand

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far you’re on the right path, you’re dedicated enough to change that you actually made it to the end of this article. My goal for this article was to help people see that there really are a lot of opportunities out there. You just have to take some initiative and work hard to develop skills that will let allow you to create value for your employer or your clients if you want to start your own business. Always remember, nobody else is responsible for where you are in life but you.