Why You Should Cultivate High Value Skills In The Modern Creator Economy

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙫𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙚𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚.

There's been a big problem brewing, decades in the making.

This photo is of me 28 years ago when I was a manager at the Salt Lake Country club.

I chose not to go to college because I hated school and couldn't imagine working to pay off loans to do something I hated.

I got my education (partially) from the many wealthy & innovative entrepreneurs that were members here.

I noticed something strange though: many of the bartenders and servers that I managed were college grads that were struggling to find a job in the field they had chosen and bartending or serving to pay off their loans.

Some of them were about to go to college and it felt like they were randomly picking a degree to go into.

I believe at one time it made sense to be intentional about what you want to do and go to college to get a degree in that field, then spend your life in that career.

Part of the problem is that at a young age, its so hard to tell WHAT you want to do for the rest of your life.

And in the 28 years since this photo was taken, a lot has changed with information and technology and the pace it moves at.

Industries now can pop up and disappear within the time span of someone's time in college.

My dentist told me the other day that it now costs $500k to go to dental school and by the time you come out, you have to be an employee because you have so much debt that you can't get approved for a loan to start a practice.

Big corporations are having a hard time adapting to the new rules of the Creator Economy where influencers & thought leaders wield the power of digital marketing.

Education that once required big and costly campuses can now be done online, anywhere in the world, by people who don't have degrees but are experts in 'High Value Skills' that are not taught in school.

And now we have Artificial Intelligence that is getting exponentially better and will replace the jobs of many who spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on college.

I can go to Chat GPT and ask it to write code for me or have it map out a step by step instructions on how to Trademark my podcast instead of finding a programmer or a lawyer. 

Think about how Tesla completely disrupted Ford and GM. The market capitalization of Tesla is around $800 billion, while Chevy and Ford combined are around $100 billion. In other words Tesla is worth more than 8 times the combined value of Americas two biggest car manufacturers, because they were ripe for disruption. 

Think about how we consume media today, it's all 'on demand'. Instead of having 3 choices and waiting for a specific time to watch a show in the old days, then have to watch commercials, now we can pay a small fee to watch anytime, anywhere, commercial free.

College is far too costly and time consuming to exist the way it does now and we've got to get away from assuming this is what people need to do after they graduate high school. It most certainly does not guarantee success. 

Where there are problems, there is plenty of opportunity for the modern educator who learns how to be a digital entrepreneur.

This includes highly specialized coaches, teachers, course creators, thought leaders and knowledge brokers that can share knowledge online, from anywhere in the world.

High Value Skills include (but are not limited to): 

• Sales
• Digital Marketing & course creation
• Content creation
• Relationships and networking
• Focus and high productivity
• Money mindset & financial literacy
• Growth Mindset
• Understanding and utilizing Artificial Intelligence

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