Let me be 100% straight with you. You are not poor. You’re just unskilled. And I know that might sound harsh and I know maybe that might even sound judgmental, but it was just something I was thinking about on my drive back. I just finished up tennis here on this beautiful Saturday. And I was just reflecting over my journey and reflecting on when I had the biggest quantum leaps.
And it was always as I developed new skills. And I know as you read this post, you have big goals and you have big dreams and you have big aspirations. And I guess I just wanted to make this article off the cuff to remind you that you can have whatever you want as long as you acquire the skills necessary to be the person that can create those sort of opportunities and capitalize on the opportunities when they present themselves.
You’ve Been Playing Chess Without Knowing How the Pieces Move
You see, you’ve been playing chess without knowing how the pieces move. You’ve been in this online business world and you wonder why you’re always losing. But it’s not about working harder. It’s about knowing what is it that the top 1% of people do. What are the secret skills that they have to quietly dominate?
Because when you have certain skills, you have competitive advantages. And competitive advantages is how you win this game of life. And quite frankly, no one is coming to save you. I’m not here to save you. I want to make that very, very clear. I am not your savior. I am not your guru.
All I can do is keep putting one foot forward in front of the other. And that’s what I’ve been doing here for 10 years. I’ve been sharing 10 years of my life, showing every step of the journey and relaying that back to you.
So, this is what this post is. It is a playbook. And if you decide to take advantage and capitalize on this playbook, all credit to you.
The 7 Skills That Give You Unfair Competitive Advantages
So, I’m just going to go ahead and fire off seven skills. Okay, so these were the ones that were playing in my mind. And when I parked up, I made a list. I quickly pulled out my notes app and and made a list of the ones that I think are the most important and the ones that if you possess these give you every competitive advantage you need to crush it.
Skill #1: Offer Creation
Now, the first one is offer creation. Making a deal so good that they simply can’t refuse. You see, if your offer sucks, no ads or funnels are going to save it. And I’ve said this many times. In fact, there’s content of me closing agency clients.
And I have a lot of, you know, all those sales experts, sales specialists. And what these sales specialists and experts don’t understand is like I’m doing B2B sales. I’ve always said I’m really bad at sales. If I think about all of these skills I’m going to mention in this blog, I’d say sales is actually the worst of them.
Now, I’m very good when it comes to B2B because of this, because of offer creation. I’m very good at making offers that make sense and that are enticing, intriguing, pull people in. And I would say your offer is far far more important than your sales because you could have the worst offer ever. It doesn’t matter how good you are at sales.
And you have to remember your offer isn’t only what you sell. It’s how you present what you sell, how you package it up, how you put a little bow tie on it, and how you put it in front of people.
The Marketplace Is a Coliseum
You see, the marketplace is a coliseum. And people scroll like Caesar. A thumbs up or a thumbs down in a split second. The 1% don’t show up average. They show up with no-brainer literally shut up right now and just take my money kind of offers.
And it’s not about lowering your price. It’s about raising your value until the price feels like a steal. And I guess maybe this is also very top of mind for me right now cuz I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with a guy. This guy has the record for the biggest launch ever, $57 million from a launch. And he’s basically like the godfather of offers. He’s been in this game for decades. And we’ve been talking a lot about this stuff recently.
Think of it like this. You are not selling a knife. You are selling the ability to cut through frustration, wasted time, and uncertainty. Most people try to sell the knife. They think, “Oh, I’m in the business of selling knives.” No, you’re in the business of avoiding wasted time, frustration, and uncertainty whether you’re going to even be able to cut this thing.
And it’s funny, a lot of people don’t actually know the business they’re in. They think they’re in the business of their mechanism when in fact, they’re in the business of their outcome. Your customers and your clients are buying the outcome. They’re not buying the mechanism to get that outcome.
So, a pretty good litmus test is simply ask yourself, would you buy what you’re selling or would you simply keep scrolling, too?
Skill #2: Artificial Intelligence
The second skill is AI. What you need to understand is that it’s not AI versus humans. It’s AI plus humans versus everyone else.
You remember how Iron Man wasn’t the strongest Avenger. I mean, at all. He was just a man. But with the suit, he was lethal. And that’s kind of how I see AI right now.
Most people treat it like a gimmick. Whereas the smart ones, they treat it like their own little team of interns that never sleep, never ask for a raise, never ask for time off. They have bots sending emails, building funnels, writing scripts, running ads. It’s basically like they have their own set of employees.
All of that while you’re still formatting spreadsheets manually like it’s 2013. The reality check is there is a 19-year-old with no degree, no connections, just AI selling digital products who is printing money while you are still overthinking your LinkedIn bio.
AI Is Your Productivity Multiplier
So, I’ll be honest. For the first year or 18 months of, you know, AI rolling out and and all this stuff, I was almost like the biggest AI hater, but it is so powerful, you simply just cannot avoid it.
You need to understand that AI is not going to eradicate jobs. It’s kind of like pre-internet. You have a certain productivity capacity of a person. Now, once they start to learn how to use the internet, the productivity capacity of that person goes up by many multiples if they know how to use the internet correctly.
It’s the same thing with AI. It’s not a battle between you and AI. It’s you plus AI versus the people who are too stubborn and too unwilling to actually learn how to use it to their advantage.
Skill #3: Skill Stacking
Now, the third one is actually skill stacking. And I hear this all the time. People say, “Oh, you don’t want to be a generalist.” I don’t know about that actually. You see, I don’t think I’m the best at anything in the world. I just think I’m very good at a lot of things.
And the way I see it, you don’t need to be the best. You just need to be dangerous in three things. But when you put it together, those three things compound.
Now listen, I want to make something very clear. If you’re a professional race car driver, a professional athlete, whatever it is, right? Different story. I’m talking here simply in the game of entrepreneurship and making money.
In our world, our sport of entrepreneurship, the top 1% don’t chase mastery in just one fixated lane. No, they stack. It’s like having multiple layers of armor or like gears in a machine.
The Power of Multiplication
So, for example, copywriting plus AI plus sales makes you lethal. Media plus brand and a strong offer means that you’re going to be dominant. You don’t need to be the best copywriter or the best closer. But if you’re good enough at at least three skills and you multiply them all together, you become unstoppable.
So just understand that in this game of entrepreneurship, the people at the top, they don’t actually specialize. Usually they leave that for the people who work for them or that they hire as contractors. They have them as the hardcore specialist. They are usually good at many things but when you put those things together that is really where the magic happens.
Skill #4: Copywriting
Now the next one is copywriting. This is really the invisible salesman because if you can sell with words you will never go hungry again.
Words are weapons. Used right they will bend minds. Used wrong it’s just it’s static. It’s noise. So copywriting really to me is just the silent art of persuasion. It is the ability to make someone feel, want, and act without ever hopping on a sales call, being in a one-on-one environment with them. Really, without you even opening your mouth.
And you have to remember when it comes to copywriting, it’s not about sounding clever. It’s about deeply understanding human desire better than the person you are writing to.
You’re Writing Permission Slips
You’re not writing paragraphs, you’re writing permission slips. And that permission slip is for someone to believe, to buy, to move, to take action.
And this is one of the most powerful skills I learned early on when I learned copywriting. And I want to make something very clear, going back to skill stacking thing, I’m not the best copywriter in the world. Far from it. But once I learned that skill, I knew I would never go hungry the rest of my life.
And by the way, if you gave me the ability for one-on-one sales or marketing, I will take marketing and the ability to do copywriting, you know, selling basically one to many. I think everyone knows I much prefer marketing over sales because for me, marketing is power. You know, bringing people to you, whereas sales is force. It’s grit. It’s determination.
Now, listen, there’s always an environment for sales and sales is a necessary part of life. But I love the ability to craft copy that brings people to me.
Skill #5: Persuasion and Frame Control
And this brings us on to the fifth dirty dark secret of the top 1%. And that is persuasion and frame control.
Now what I mean by this, it’s not really just about selling products. Okay? It’s about selling people on you, your vision, and your value. So the top 1%, they don’t just sell. They shape perception.
Now this can take many different forms. Whether that is a client, an investor, an employee or just your audience, these people, they know how to present ideas in a way that make people stop and go, “Yeah, you know what? I want a part of that. I want in.”
Power vs Force
And that is really how you attract opportunities without begging. As I said, I love this concept of power versus force. I like power. You know, I like to attract rather than chase.
And when you know how to do this right, you’re going to know how to make people believe in your movement, not just your offer. And maybe some of this might sound very dark to you, but you have to remember that you’re doing this no matter what.
Every day you are already selling people on your ideas, your goals, your identity. The question is, are people buying?
And I’m going to try to get to the last two because I turned off the AC and it is hot in this car. So guys, I’m in the sauna for you. Now I can turn on the AC, but 765 LTS are they’re loud. The entire car starts shaking and it’s it’s not a pretty sound.
Skill #6: Media and Personal Brand
Now, moving on to sixth one. It’s media and personal brand because this is really like building your digital doppel I can never say that word correct. Doppelganger. That’s it. Digital doppelganger. That’s what I was trying to say.
But anyways, listen guys, everyone knows attention is today’s oil. Now the question is, are you the one buying or are you the one drilling for it? The one producing it?
You can be the best in the world at what you do, but if no one knows you exist, you’re broke. You know, we can sit here and we can complain and we can say this isn’t right or this isn’t how it should be. But at the end of the day, it’s not always the people that are the best at what they do that make the most money. It’s the ones who are the best known.
Now, in an ideal world, you’re the best at what you do and you’re the best known. Okay? So, we should all strive and we should all aim for that. But we have to just look at the world for what it is.
Your Digital Twin Working 24/7
So, what is the new game? It is to build a digital twin of yourself that works for you 24/7. Whether that’s your YouTube, your LinkedIn, your Twitter, every post is a soldier. Every video is a salesperson working for you 24/7.
We all understand that passive income is the holy grail. Well, for me, if we know that attention is income, passive attention is just as good as passive income. And when you build your personal brand, even if you have a small niche personal brand, you have passive attention.
You have people finding out about who you are, how you help, what you sell 24/7 while you are sleeping.
Skill #7: Network Building
And the last one is network building. And the reason I saved this for last is because a lot of people usually put this first. Unless you’ve developed all those other skills, networking won’t do anything for you. But if you’ve developed those other skills, one right person can change everything.
It’s funny, we’re taught to chase credentials. But the top 1% chase connections. They understand the simple truth. Social capital is more powerful than startup capital.
Social capital means you can build rooms. You can open doors. You need to understand that access is often more valuable than skill. Your next client, your next investor, your next mentor isn’t on LinkedIn. They are one introduction away.
Become a Person of Value First
So start showing up. So once you’ve gone through the other list of six skills, then don’t be afraid to present yourself to the world. Don’t be afraid to meet people. Don’t be afraid if a person you know knows someone that you want an introduction to, ask them for it.
Because one thing I can tell you right now as a person who probably makes one to two introductions a day, a lot of times without even asking, is people who are influential, and by that I mean these could be people that are even private, have private Instagrams, aren’t celebrities or influencers or whatever.
When I say influential, I mean influential in their domain, in their area of expertise. They love introducing each other. I make so many introductions. But it’s because the people who I introduce are people of value.
So become a person of value. That’s what I really did from 2014, 2015 all the way up until 2023. Even when I was a multi-millionaire for many, many years, I still put zero attention to networking because I wanted to build myself up first. And I knew that I wanted to get to a point where networking was easy and it was effortless.
And in order to do that, you need to fulfill these other six skills before you can get to the seventh.
