The most valuable job skills aren’t skills, they’re characteristics.

This list is about becoming the type of person who attracts career luck.

(I’m ignoring domain expertise and tool proficiency, because you can learn those on YouTube.)


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TASTE
It’s cultivated over time. It affects creative decisions and hiring decisions alike.
It’s the reason that iconic photo of Sade is so iconic.
It’s the flavor that’s sprinkled on top of substance to create a complete person.
It’s hard to teach.

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JUDGEMENT
Judgement is the very human ability to make decisions sometimes irrationally but usually correctly.
It’s instinct and wisdom on top of data and criteria.
Most people don’t have great judgement, leaving the door to abundant riches wide open for those who do.

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RESOURCEFULNESS
90% of a job interview is just the interviewer trying to assess, in a very roundabout way, how resourceful you are.
Their only real question is “if I hire this person, can they really do all the things I need them to?”
There are two kinds of people: those who give their bosses lists of everything they got done, and those who give their bosses lists of reasons why they couldn’t.

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KINDNESS
Treating people with excessive kindness makes them feel good, it makes you feel good, and it makes all eyewitnesses feel good.
It’s also the key factor in being likable, and being likable is a far more elegant productivity hack than the alternative.

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COMMUNICATION
Keep it short, say a lot, make it compelling.
Add humor, be persuasive, repeat it often.
Communicating is difficult. That’s why people who are good at it get paid lots of money.

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ACTION BIAS
A leader is someone who makes decisions. Making decisions is an action.
Most people delay decisions, and actions, due to fear of making / taking the wrong one, which is why they never become leaders.
Action cures anxiety. Default to action.

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LEARNING
The desire to learn continuously, regardless of age or seniority, is the driver of the above 6.
It's the ability to improve your score on all of them.
It's what makes life more and more exciting every day, vs. the idea of "peaking" and heading into decline.
It's the difference between having 10 years of experience, and having one year of experience that's been repeated 10 times.

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