How to maximize your impact and income by stacking your most valuable skills

People often confuse their resume, qualifications, credentials and experience with their value in the workplace. While these things contribute to their value, what they represent are their marketable skills, and not always the most valuable ones. For this article I’ll refer to these as resume-skills. The problem is, many of the extremely talented people I work with often overlook their most valuable skills and talents when applying for a new job, promotion or launching a new business. They look only at their resume, experience and qualifications which severely limit their options. But, when a person does a little mining and self inquiry they find they have so much more to offer than just their resume-skills. These are the deep interests, hobbies, and aptitudes they often cultivate outside of their jobs. For example, many people are amazing parents, but doubt their ability to be a leader, or someone is a talented gardener but discounts their ability to manage complex and long-term projects that require a high degree of patience a planning. One of my favorite real-life examples is Lenny Rachitsky, a former product manager for Airbnb who started a successful paid newsletter and suite of online courses. His experience managing teams to build and launch new products was valuable to his employer, but when he stacked his product management experience on top of his passions for teaching and writing, he launched his career into the stratosphere! He now works for himself, lives a beautiful life, and makes close to a million dollars a year helping other product managers to be awesome at their jobs!

This is how the skillstack works.

1) Start with the things you’re most interested in and passionate about both in and out of your work. Personal interest is the number one driver of success in any endeavor. 2) Layer in the things that people most value you for; the things that people in and out of work seek your advice for or ask you to solve. This is your social value which is the second most important driver for success. 3) Lastly, include skills, talents and aptitudes that you use when doing your best work. These are the things you are most often hired for. This is your social proof. When you stack your social proof upon the foundation of your social value and personal interests, you now have a powerful combination of integrated skills that will provide the most value to your work, your workplace, and your team. People are often afraid to bring the full power of their unique talents to the forefront because they many not seem “appropriate,” or are too far outside the company culture. Your unique skillstack is what gives you and your organization the real diversity, flexibility and adaptability that’s required to stay successful and relevant in a competitive market. What is your unique skillstack? I hope this article has provided some valuable insight for you in building up your personal resilience. Here are a few more ways I can help you:

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