6 Skills That Made Me Millions
The Amplified Impact Podcast
January 23th, 2023
Are you ready to take your performance to the next level and achieve success?
In this episode of Amplified Impact, Anthony shares his own personal experience of hitting rock bottom and how this helped him realize the necessity and importance of developing new skills.
He shares the six skills that he believes helped him become a millionaire. He further breaks them down into two categories: core millionaire skills and money-making millionaire skills.
He goes into detail and explains how mastering these skills can help you develop your most valuable asset, increase your influence, and understand the rules of the money game.
Don’t miss out on this valuable information that can help you reach your full potential.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“The first step to becoming a top peak performer or improving in life is to understand your four spheres of influence: mindset, health, wealth, and skills. To make the most progress with the least effort, one must acquire useful skills, especially those that can help win the money game. ” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] And welcome back to the pod guys, it’s great to have you here. I appreciate you taking a little bit of time out of your day to join me. As always. It’s really, really rad. Truly. So, today we’re going to talk about, what I think is one of the most important aspects of becoming a top peak performer or just like improving at this thing called life.
Anthony: So if you remember, if you’ve heard any of my story, you’ll know that like when I was in that rock bottom place a decade ago, living in the back of that van, $80,000. I, I, I went to the drawing board and I was like, okay, what do I need to work on? Like, what do I need to figure out to get out of my own way and like make the most progress in the least amount of time with the least amount of effort?
Anthony: Because at my core I’m pretty lazy. And what I came to were my four spheres of influence, which are mindset, health, wealth. In the last skills, skills, what I realized at that point in my life is that I had really bad unuseful skills. I was a good rock climber. that was about. So if you want to [00:01:00] get paid more, you’re paid in proportion to the difficulty of the problems that you solved, that it’s coming from Mr.
Anthony: Elon Musk himself. And so I, I wasn’t capable of solving very big problems at that point in my life. And so I needed to figure out, okay, what are the skills I need to acquire in order to get to the place that I wanted to be? Which at that point, for me, it was winning the money game. I wanted to win the money game.
Anthony: Cause I knew that money doesn’t solve all your problems, but it solves all your money problems. And I had a whole lot of money problems at that point. And so I was like, I can win this. It’s a game. There’s rules, there’s strategies. I just got to master those, implement them, and I will win. The first part of that then is like, what are your skills that are going to allow you to get to that place where you’re winning the money game?
Anthony: And the problem, I think, at that point for me was that there’s a lot of information out there. There was a lot of people telling you like, oh, you should do this and this and this, and like, if you want to be a millionaire, do that, and that and that, and you need these skills. And so like, there’s a lot of noise, not a lot of like quality, input of, in terms of [00:02:00] like, okay, what do you actually need to do?
Anthony: And so I wanted to share it with you guys. The six skills that have made me millions personally, and we’re not going to go too deep into them, but just know that I did do a deeper dive, video on this topic, on YouTube. Go to my channel Anthony Vicino and check it out called These Six Skills, made Me Millions, or something like that.
Anthony: Now, the way to think about your skills is, is first to break them. Into two components. One that we’re going to talk about here. I’m going to share with you three core millionaire skills, and then I’m going to share with you three moneymaking millionaire skills. Those core skills are the skills I, I believe that all millionaires if you want to be successful and, and I’m using Millionaire as a, Just a buzzword here to stand in for success or peak performer or whatever, like whatever you’re trying to accomplish.
Anthony: Like these are the core skills that are going to serve you re regardless. And then we’re going to get into the money making skills, which are more specifically like if you want to make [00:03:00] money, these are the three skills that I think like have the biggest bang for their buck and are the most universal across all industries, all job types, whatever you want.
Anthony: Now the benefits of like this model that we’re going to break down is that you’re going to learn how to master your most valuable asset. We’re going to develop the highest ROI skill in the world. We’re going to overcome low motivation, we’re going to increase our influence. We’re going to learn the rules of the money game, and we’re going to unleash the power of what I consider to be the, the most influential thing in the entire world.
Anthony: So, That’s what we’re going to cover. All right, so number one is let’s talk about the concept of a skill stack. This is a concept that was first introduced to me a number of years ago by, the author of Dilbert, Scott Adams. And his, his way of looking at this is that you’re, you’re. Likelihood of becoming the top, like the best, or even in the top 10% at any one skill is minuscule, right?
Anthony: Like, if you think about the seven and a half billion people on the planet, there are a lot of people who [00:04:00] are really, really, really good at very particular things. So if you want to be the best artist in the world, good luck. If you want to be the best photographer in the world, good luck. However, one thing to really take to heart here is that you don’t have to be great to succeed at anything.
Anthony: You need to be good enough. And if you can be good enough at the right collection of skills and stack them, then you can ultimately become great at that unique conglomeration of skills. And so the way to think about this is like if we can take six, five to six, like complimentary skills that are unique and valuable, and then switch them together.
Anthony: Then you, at that unique intersection of being in the top 10, 15% of each one of those skills would ultimately put you not even the top 10, 15%. I’m sorry, you could be like at the top 30% of those skills. And then ultimately, by the time you get down to, you know, the unique, combination of all the skills you’d be, you like number in the top 10% easily.
Anthony: So, like a way to look at this [00:05:00] is, Like if you’re an engineer and you could, you could put together, a skill stack that involved, you know, engineering, but then, you know, public speaking plus the ability to distill complicated ideas and make them simple. Plus the ability to, digitally market, right?
Anthony: Like you put those things together and now suddenly you could start a YouTube. All around engineering for, you know, young college grads or for the layperson like they can implement into their life. And you can become like the unique expert in that, that domain. And so that’s number one is we want to think about how we stack our skills and as we’re stacking our skills, like you’re, you’re looking for things that are complimentary but also unique.
Anthony: what I’m going to lay out here though are foundational skills that you can start to layer on. So like decor skills, you need these three for sure. And then the money making skills. These are just three options that I’m going to throw out that you can start to mix together with whatever you’re uniquely suited for.
Anthony: and then from there you can, you [00:06:00] can create your skills, your skill stack. So let’s figure out number one are three core millionaire skills. Let me just take a drink of water. All right. Number one, ask yourself this question. What is your most valuable asset? And this is a, like, this is a totally loaded question because like most people, 90% of them are going to say time.
Anthony: Time is your most valuable asset, and that’s okay because like 90% of people are wrong. Time is not your most valuable asset. And you might already know this, like the fact that you’re listening to this podcast, I talk about this a lot. Time, is not your most valuable asset because it’s not something that you actually own or control.
Anthony: And even more fundamental than that, it’s not something that you can just give away, right? Like if somebody comes and asks you for a minute of your time, they’re not literally asking you just to pull out a minute out of your pocket and hand it to them, right? Like, that’s not what, that’s not what they’re asking.
Anthony: What they really want is a minute of your a. , and that’s what you control. That’s what you have the ability to give people. And so that is your most valuable [00:07:00] asset, your focused attention. So with that in mind, if focus is our most valuable asset, then developing the skill of focus is going to pay the largest dividends across.
Anthony: Time and space now. I think focus is one of those things that most of us struggle with. You guys know my, my journey with ADHD in particular, but it is not unique to me in that like distractions and sabotage, like self-sabotage and procrastination, these are like common amongst all of us. It because there’s literally a war of attention going on, and it’s you versus thousands of brilliant psychologists and engineers.
Anthony: People who are trying to make, ever more interesting and, addictive like social media and, and so the generally, like when you are distracted, somebody else is making money. When you’re focused, you are making money. And so this is the number one moneymaking skill that you really need to figure out is.[00:08:00]
Anthony: As you guys know, we have the Hyperfocus Masterclass, which is something I highly recommend if you’re, if you’re in a place where you struggle to get out of your way and actually get shit done to be productive, not just busy, but effective, go check out, Hyperfocus Masterclass, which you can, you can sign up for by going to beyond the apex.com/hyperfocus.
Anthony: All right. Our second core skill that you have to develop is that of. Learning is, I think, the highest ROI skill that anybody can develop because if you have the ability to learn something, like if you, well, if you have the ability to learn, if you know how to learn, you can acquire any skill. It’s the skill that allows you to acquire any skill and it’s magical and that, but the problem is the school systems like that we grew up with did a very, very poor job of teaching us how to learn because the type of learning, the type of education that they instilled in us was convergent, think.
Anthony: Which is memorization or recitation, or if you [00:09:00] follow this formula, you will converge on a singular right answer. But the problem is life is not like that. Life is divergent and what we get paid for, the problems that we get solved the most to solve. Are the result of divergent thinking, which is that there’s no right or wrong that there’s a whole field of gray that’s a spectrum of right, of better and worse answers.
Anthony: And so how you come to those answers, how you get there, that’s, that’s what really matters at the end of the day, not the ability just to memorize and recite. And so one is most people do not know how to learn because our system did not teach us that, and everybody learns differently. And so you got to figure it out for yourself.
Anthony: But if. If you can figure this out, then you will. You’ll tap into something pretty remarkable. And as Jim Roone says, A formal education will make you a living, A self-education will make you a fortune. So if you can figure out how you learn, and then like the sky is the limit, because you’re going to be able to acquire any multitude of skills from that point.
Anthony: The third core millionaire skill or third core. [00:10:00] Is that of discipline. And discipline is important because it’s the ability to move your mind and your body with unwavering intent towards a goal, despite obstacles, despite things getting in your way, despite you losing the motivation. And that’s a problem for most people.
Anthony: And this problem that I really had when I was younger is that, and I still do truthfully, is. It’s very easy to get motivated to get rah rah about like, I’m going to do this thing. I’m going to write that book, I’m going to build this business, I’m going to do this thing. but motivation is, is finite. It doesn’t last very long.
Anthony: And once it’s gone, if you do not have the discipline to, you know, Fill in the gap behind the, the, the gap that the motivation leaves behind, then you’re just going to fall off and you’re going to stop doing the thing. So more important than being motivated to lose weight or motivated to build the business or motivated to make money, it’s to have the discipline to go to the gym.
Anthony: It’s having the discipline to build the business. It’s the discipline to do the money making activities every single day. And so discipline is a skill [00:11:00] to be. All right. Now, those are our core skills. Those the things that I think every millionaire needs to have or just successful person needs to have.
Anthony: They need to have focus. The ability to learn and and discipline. You got those three things. Now you’re set. From here, we’re going to layer on our actual money-making millionaire skills. And there’s honestly, there’s countless. There’s so many. We’re not going to be able to talk about ’em all here, so I’m just going to break down.
Anthony: that I think are the most universal, that pay the biggest bang for the buck, that have the most leverage crossed all industries. Number one is the ability to communicate. See, regardless of what you’re doing in life, it’s go, like, if you want to be successful, it’s probably going to involve other people at some point in a business or in making money that’s going to involve vendors.
Anthony: It’s going to involve, customers, employees, partners, whatever. So to succeed, you need to be able to communicate effectively with the world about your vision, about your message, about what you want to do, how you want to do it, and why people should do it with you. Right? And there’s so many different ways that humans.[00:12:00]
Anthony: so that I, I, I couldn’t even like begin to just un unwind it all right here. But four that I think in particular is super important, is learning how to write, learning tonality and, and body language. And then learning how to speak in public, like how to deliver a compelling message and what’s going to actually help you become a more effective communicator is the, the ability to tell a good.
Anthony: And do so persuasively. So those are like two sub-skills that I would stack underneath of communication is learn how to tell a damn good story and then learn how to be more influential, more persuasive for that one. Like there’s a really good book. I just reread it. I love it. It’s so good. Is Robert c Dini’s Influence.
Anthony: And then also he had a book called Pre-Suasion. Check those both out if you want to get better at that particular skill. The second the money. Second money making. In this one, it took me a long time to even think about. In my, in the course of my life, when I was all through [00:13:00] my twenties, I wasn’t thinking a lot about money.
Anthony: I wasn’t thinking about the money game, the rules, the strategies, or any of that stuff. And I didn’t really think, I didn’t realize that money was a game a and if I had thought, if I had realized that sooner, then I might’ve started playing the game sooner. I just took it for granted that money was something that existed that it either had or you didn’t, and that that was.
Anthony: And as a result, I just didn’t have it. Like it never happened. And so I didn’t think any deeper about it. As it turns out, money is a game. There are rules, there are strategies that are going to set you up for, success or failure. And understanding those rules is key to becoming a millionaire or just success.
Anthony: Successful. So two, two aspects of, this particular skill I want to talk about is finance and investing. Okay? That’s our second money making skills like mastering finance and investing. Finance being like, how does money actually. And you start with personal finance, I think there’s a couple books like The Richest Man in Babylon, or I Will Teach You Be I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi.
Anthony: I think those are great starting points for just understanding the basic [00:14:00] rules of the game. But then as you start going up through the ladder, you start to transition from just basic finance and to investing. And that’s an, that’s a huge important leap that you got to make. if you want to, I think generate.
Anthony: Actual meaningful wealth and from investing. I think there’s so many good resources out there too, that I would recommend is learning about the stock market and learning about real estate. I think those are the two that are going to pay the biggest bang for your buck. So start there. Focus there. on the real estate side, you know that we have the Multi-Family Investing Made Simple podcast.
Anthony: So go check that out. You ha I have got a book, passive Investing Made Simple, so go check that out. We got tons of free resources at www.invictusmultifamily.com, so if you want to learn about real estate I gotcha. Now, if you want to learn about stocks, I can’t help you there because I don’t really play in that, that market.
Anthony: I’m not an expert and I’m not going to talk about it. But the, the person that I’ve learned the most from is Howard Marks from Oak Tree Capital. He’s put out. I would, I think monthly or quarterly investor updates every year for the [00:15:00] last 30 years. So this guy’s brilliant free resource. You just go to oak tree capital.com.
Anthony: You can download his memos or just go pick up his book. The most important thing, I think that’s a really good place to start if you’re just trying to understand investing, generally speaking. All right. Now, the third and final, money making skill I’m going to share with you guys here is, I think po potentially the most important.
Anthony: We’ve done deep dives on it in previous episodes of this podcast, and we’re going to keep going deeper and deeper into it because, It’s fundamental if you want to build a successful business and generate large sums of money, which if you’re here like that might be part of your goal. So it’s the idea of mastering the skill of leverage and leverage can manifest itself in a whole lot of different ways.
Anthony: But I just want to start by like, explaining. I, I think Alex Perozzi says it best when he says it leverages the discrepancy between what you put in and what you get out. And so in generating wealth and building a business, you can only do so much. [00:16:00] And the, and the reason most people fail to make meaningful money or to build a successful business, cause they try to do it all themselves through grunt hard work and, and, and just investing their time, their personal time and energy into it, which is a very low form of lever.
Anthony: And you can only move so much. It’s just you out there, you know, digging a hole with your hands. And so as we can start to layer in the different types of leverage, we can do more. We can build more while doing less. And so the four. Aspects of leverage that I think are the most valuable when it comes to building businesses and investing in real estate or just making money is one labor leverage, which is you get other people to do the job f for you.
Anthony: and when I started out, I had a window washing company. We hired 15 people that were out there washing windows while we handled a little scheduling and the quoting and pricing and all that stuff. And so they washed 15 times more windows than I ever could on my own. So that’s labor le leverage Two is capital lever.
Anthony: Which is what we do now with Invictus Capital, where we raised, say, 25 million from I passive investors. And we use [00:17:00] that money to go buy real estate and then that money is making our investors’ money for them. Right? So capital it’s, it’s investing in putting the money to work. Three is media. Leverage, which is, if you’re watching this right now, I am currently pulling on a very massive lever, which is media like.
Anthony: You’re listening to this podcast where I spend 15 minutes recording it and now it can be listened to by a million people. I can repurpose this and put it on all the different platforms. That’s a ton of leverage. And finally, is technology leverage or coding like code is probably the most powerful of all the levers, it’s the one that I know the least about.
Anthony: So it’s one that I can’t really play in the waters of, but I can play capital, I can play leverage, and I can play the media game. And so those are the three levers I pull the most frequently. But if you want to be successful and build wealth, Really understand these forms of lever, leverage and then how you can implement and pull them in your own life.
Anthony: And, and you’re going to, you’re, you’re going to, you’re going to be far more [00:18:00] successful than the people who do not understand the principle. So that is it. Those are six. Skills that helped me make millions. We had our three core skills of focus, learning, discipline, and we have our three money making skills of communication, finance, and investing.
Anthony: And then finally, leverage if you guys have questions. Because this is, there’s a lot here. I encourage you to reach out. I love to hear from you guys ass always like, it’s, it’s really cool, that you guys are here and I love the feedback that you share. Like when you guys, take these, take these podcasts and share them on social media, like it’s really rad.
Anthony: It’s cool to see that you guys are digging it. So keep tagging me in that stuff. I love it. as always, I appreciate the hell out of you guys for being here and giving me a little bit of your time. I know you only got so much to give. So the fact that you shared it with me, it means a lot. So thank you, and as always, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
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