If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like.
But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:
The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.
The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.
Get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.
Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix...
It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.
5 skills:
First, communication.
Back to Scott Adams:
I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill...
At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal.
The great thing about communication is that most people are terrible at it, because they never take it seriously as a skill to develop.
This is particularly true of engineers and technical people, who often quaintly believe that the world works logically and that people will automatically recognize the quality of things.
Third, sales.
Learn how to sell.
I don’t mean, learn how to sell someone a set of steak knives they don’t need—although I hear that can be quite an education by itself.