The standard advice is to save hard and trust the markets to compound you to security. Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg argue the markets aren't that safe, and the highest, most reliable return you can earn is from investing in yourself, your skills, relationships, and health.
The Super Skills
The practical core is a set of high-leverage capabilities they call Super Skills, the ones that pay off across almost any career and compound over a lifetime.
They fall into four groups:
- Interpersonal: leadership and influence, public speaking, visioning, teaching, selling, networking and building a tribe, and holding paradox.
- Creative: contextual importing, improvisation ("yes, and"), writing and copywriting, reading, storytelling, and design.
- Physical: longevity, mental focus, a clean and healthy appearance, an organized environment, and a healthy relationship with alcohol and drugs.
- Technical: mental models, financial models, systems thinking, and building a repeatable "marketing crank."
A Few Resources to Build Them
Storytelling: Marshall Ganz's Public Narrative (Story of Self, Us, Now). campaigntips.wordpress.com.
Design: "50 Things You [Probably] Forgot to Design."
Mental models: Farnam Street's guide (113 mental models explained). fs.blog.
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Get the book: The Last Safe Investment by Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg on Amazon.
It's the same thesis behind our view on career capital (see Becoming So Good They Can't Ignore You): the most durable advantage you can build is in yourself.
The Super Skills list is a useful menu for deciding where to invest next. Becoming So Good They Cant Ignore You.
Related Malloy resources