Dear reader,
Towards the beginning of this week, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Guru Who Says He Can Get Your 11-Year-Old Into Harvard.”
I was skeptical at first, assuming it must be some scammy method, but it is real and has been bringing remarkable results for parents (and for its investors from Wall Street).
The person behind this, the guru, is Jamie Beaton.
His message to the kids who came to him distilled:
Optimize childhood by starting to build skills and interests years before high school. Strategically choose areas where you can excel—if you aren’t going to be a top performer in an activity, drop it and move to something else. And find ways to be unique, whether through entrepreneurship, scholarship, or well-placed PR.
The core of Beaton’s advice is to start something early and excel at one thing.
But why am I telling you this? How is this relevant to us adults?
Multiple times, I have wondered why it is that some people are paid exponentially more than others at the same institution. For example, the lead cook in a restaurant is paid exponentially more than the server at the same restaurant.
Yes, it is because the lead cook position is above the server position in the organizational structure. But why is that?
It all boils down to how easy/hard it is to replace a person.
The amount of money you will make is directly proportional to how difficult it is to replace you.
It’s easy to replace a server because it doesn’t require a lot of skills, and the supply of people is ample. However, the supply of people with the skillset of a lead cook (someone who knows almost everything about making and serving good food) is limited. It requires a lot of skills to become a lead cook.
The point I’m making is that you should work on upgrading your skillset. That will allow you to make more money.
You might rush to say, “Money is not everything.”
While that may be true, there is one thing I want to bring to your attention:
The more money you can make per hour, the more time you will have to do the things you want to do.
A server at a restaurant in Manhattan might have to work 40 hours a week to earn $40k a year, while the lead cook can make $100k a year. That also means that if the lead cook wanted to, s/he could spend only one or two days per week working to live a similar life.
Working less per week would give the lead cook time to do what he enjoys. This could be reading, traveling, spending time with loved ones, learning a new language, or just staying at home, relaxing, watching Netflix, and sleeping.
Or you could live a luxurious life by making a lot of money with your skills. You’d have options.
Being more skilled will allow you to do things you couldn’t have done otherwise.
Remember that the time will pass anyway, regardless of whether you use it to up-skill yourself or not.
I hope this gives you something interesting to think about this weekend. And maybe take some action too.
I’ll see you next week.
Warmly,
Suraj
