I go to various colleges in the San Diego area and give talks on the subject of accelerated learning. When I started doing these talks, at the end of the presentation, I’d ask, “Anyone have any questions?”
ALMOST EVERY TIME students would raise their hands and ask, “Do you have a book or something?”
I honestly hadn’t even considered it before.
However, after several of these presentations I finally went, “Man, maybe I should write a book.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the benefit of having a production and sales team behind me.
Luckily, I’m what you might call a “jack of all trades” or even a “one-man band”
Not only did I write an entire 200 page book in several months, I was able to…
- design the layout of the book
- create the sales copy for the book
- design the book cover, flyers and other promotional material for the book
- self-publish the book
- create the sales and marketing strategies for the book
- and secure workshops/speaking gigs to promote and sell the book
Just admiring my hard work
I’m not mentioning that for bragging rights (or even to sell the book, LOL), I want to quickly illustrate the importance of having a versatile skill set.
Story Time!
One of my friends, let’s call him Jeff, is a musician and was on the verge of releasing his first album. After months of hard work, all the music was completed.
There was only one issue. He didn’t have an album cover or a logo. He wanted the production to look as professional as possible, so he wasn’t willing to release the material without a really nice cover.
I’m a trained illustrator that did freelance graphic design for a number of years. HOWEVER, as a general principle I try not to insert myself into people’s passion projects without their consent. Jeff told me he secured an illustrator/graphic design for his album cover.
One of my first logo designs
I was happy for him. He met up with the artist, who collected information about his vision for the cover and the logo.
The album was sure to drop soon. Or so we thought.
Weeks passed and Jeff still didn’t have his album cover. Being the concern friend, I asked Jeff what was the delay. Jeff couldn’t explain why the artist had seemingly ghosted him. Luckily, Jeff hadn’t paid this guy upfront.
I looked my dude in the eye and said, “Bro, I know you had your heart set on securing this artist for the cover but at this point you’re losing money. You could be promoting the album, doing shows and even working to get booked on a tour right now. But you can’t ‘cause this dude is dragging his feet.”
I told Jeff that in the time he’d been waiting, I could’ve personally done the cover and logo for him. After days of contemplating, Jeff gave up on working with the artist. We knocked out the album cover in ONE SINGLE WEEKEND.
Jeff loved the cover and the logo. I told him, he didn’t have to pay me. I was just happy to see that he could move on to bigger and better things.
MONTHS LATER I GET THE FOLLOWING TEXT FROM JEFF:
“U ain’t gonna believe who just hit me up.”
I immediately knew who it was — THE ARTIST.
The artist had apologized for the delay but assured Jeff that he’d been working on the project. Jeff could’ve told him that he’d already released the album, but his curiosity got the better of him. Jeff let the artist email him the mock-ups (that’s art-lingo for preliminary sketches) and I was immediately texted the photos.
“Look at this trash!” Jeff texted.
I inspected the work.
Admittedly, it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t horrible, but it definitely didn’t justify THREE WHOLE MONTHS of waiting.
I texted back a meme of the “Michael Jordan Crying Face”. (LOL)
Don’t mind me. Just being a millennial.
“Chris, if I had paid for this crap, I’d have been UPSET,” Jeff exclaimed.
Moral of the Story:
Having a large, varying skill-set matters!
Jeff’s ability to move forward with his own dream was completely contingent on another person. This person didn’t care nearly as much about his passion, time or money as much as he did. Had I not stepped in when I did, Jeff would’ve waited months, only to receive half-ass work, for all of his frustration.
I’m not against collaboration. I’m only highlighting the reality that times have changed.
If you wanted to accomplish anything major in life, there were gate-keepers that determined your access to the things you needed.
These days you have access to resources only people with huge budgets and deep social networks had.
For instance:
- I have a fax number without a fax machine.
- I have a business phone line without an additional phone.
- I have a free conference line number.
- I have a completely free website to host all my content and sell my products.
- And I sell and ship physical books with NO INVENTORY. I just give people a link to a website that prints and ships the book on demand.
All of these things I was able to acquire because I’ve mastered the art of researching things on Google.
A skill that took me less than a day to develop.
Because of that one single skill, I no longer need to wait on anyone to move forward with helping me accomplish my dreams.
Instead I have and UNPRECEDENTED AMOUNT OF ACCESS TO RESOURCES on my own.
With every project I pursue, I know that it will get done in a timely matter, by someone that gives a sh*t about the project. As an added bonus, I’m not gonna be charged and arm and leg for the work.
That’s the beauty of mastery and resourcefulness.
I need you to understand that we are living in a golden era, where you are more capable of manifesting your dreams than ever before. Provided you’re a quick learner with a versatile skill-set.
Some of you reading this might be thinking, “Being a jack of all trades is nice but who has the time to learn all those extra skills?”
You do. That’s who.
Remember the first sentence of this post?
“I go to various colleges in the San Diego area and give talks on the subject of accelerated learning.”
I’ve literally spent decades building skills in a variety of areas. With each new skill I obtained I learned more shortcuts for learning them.
This ultimately led to the development of my own accelerated learning protocol: Ellis Life Mastery Method.
I’ve been able to use this method to teach people how to be excellent at tasks that normally take to learn well — in days.
Sometimes in mere hours.
I can say with 100% certainty that you have the time to learn ALL OF THE SKILLS you need to bring your dreams into reality.
And now’s the perfect time to do so, because the gate-keepers to success are disappearing.
You don’t have to be like the Jeffs of the world, waiting for an ally to get you to the next level.
The only thing that stopping you from the life you want, the career you want, the relationships you want is you not building the skills you need.
So what are you waiting for? Check out our service offerings at Ellis Life Mastery here.
Or you can also book a 30-minute discovery call with me. I’d love to chat with you, determine your aspirations and offer recommendations on how we can assist.
BOOK YOUR SESSIONS TODAY
Don’t be a stranger and we’ll talk to you soon,
~ Your Friendly Neighborhood Life Coach.