Be Useful

I had a tweet a few weeks ago that said something like:

If I was in highschool, I’d learn a skill that’s useful to rich people (social media marketing, sales, connections, event planning etc), then go work at a golf course, tennis club, hotel valet etc.

Get good enough at the skill where you’d be confident asking rich people if they want you help, then keep a few business cards on you.

You basically guarantee success, as you’re skyrocketing your likelihood of right place, right time.

This is the single most important piece of advice I ever give to anyone. Ever.

By focusing solely on this one thing, it will naturally get rid of most of the problems you have in your life.

Most people are not useful at something. Their salary is dependent on them doing automation tasks. Proverbially filing documents into cabinets. If they got sick, their job would be replaced EOD.

This is not a bad thing, or their fault.

Most people go to school, get a job. You go to school to get a certification that allows you to work the job you plan on working.

It does not teach you how to be useful. In basically every single 4 year program, there isn’t a single class that focuses on HOW to be GOOD at the thing you want to do. It’s just teaching you the industry speak, the “ways of doing things.”

Learning how to do something, and learning how to be good at it, are two very different things.

Everyone you know who is successful is useful at something. If they’re very successful, they’re probably useful at something for rich people.

A small claims lawyer is useful to everyday people. An enterprise IP lawyer is useful to F500 companies. Same “thing,” just different levels of usefulness.

…

Writing this I’m realizing a lot of the things I talk about could sound condescending. I apologize. That’s not my intention.

Things are simple. Hard, yes, but simple. The world complicates things. Again, you go to school to learn “how” to do something, when you could just learn the thing yourself, focus on what is ACTUALLY useful, and shortcut it by 1/8th.

Say you’re a website designer.

You could go to school for 4 years to learn “how” to be a website designer…

Or you could go work in a company for 6 months, and ask everyone what they would find useful. What problems do companies actually have that you could solve? Where is the actual value of being a website designer?

Is it revamping internal sites that nobody looks at? Or is it designing value props that they present to potential investors when raising new money?

Same skill, different levels of usefulness.

Let’s take business out of it. Let’s say you move to a new city and want to make friends. What’s the best way to do this?

Well, what do all the most popular people you meet in new cities have in common?

They’re useful.

They know the bouncers at the best bars, they can get you into events, and they’ve got “a guy” for everything. They can host a kickass event, they can facilitate conversation at a dinner.

They’re useful. You want to have their name in your contacts. “Oh yeah, I know ___” carries clout in itself.

What if you want a mentor?

You’re going to offer to work for free? They’re rich. They’d rather pay someone $5k to not have to think about it again, knowing it’ll be done right, than babysit you doing it for free.

But if you’re USEFUL, if you possess a skill, have a network, that could be USEFUL to them…

This may seem transactional. “I wish they just liked me for who I am!”

That’s what your core friend group is for. Most people don’t have more than 3-5 core friends.

Getting back on track:

What are you useful at?

What could you offer me, right now, that would convince me to cancel the calls I have for the rest of the day and talk to you?

If you didn’t immediately think of an answer, then let this be a moment of clarity.

Be useful at something that people would exchange time or money for. That’s it. No school needed. No “paying your dues” at some BS job.

This is how the world works. Welcome to capitalism.

The game has rules. You can study them and use them to your advantage.

The tax code was literally written to benefit people who hold assets. The stock market is designed to make people who hold stocks (hedge funds) richer.

You can play the game, or you can buy a van and travel Thailand.

But if you want to play the game, win the game, beat the game - you need to play by the rules.

And Rule #1:

Be useful.

– RL