 Robert Greene's advice for young people who want to be rich When I was around age 14, I would leave my parents' home on weekends and go to a lonely place with sheets of paper and a pen. I love writing. I just love joining words together. When I was around 18, I started reading books about psychology and communication skills so I became a political leader and a public speaker on campus. At age 21, I went to the business world to build my own company. Now how do all these skills make sense? I'll explain in this video as I share with you what I consider one of the most important advice from Robert Greene. If you're new here, consider subscribing so you won't miss other interesting videos like this. Robert Greene is one of the greatest authors in this century. He has written many wonderful books and gives some really great advice about how you can live a meaningful life. However, one important advice of Robert Greene I think can change your life is, the future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways. To succeed in this century, you must know how to learn many valuable skills and then combine them for a single purpose. After my personal story I told you earlier, I've been writing since I was 14, I learned communication skills so I became a public speaker. Now I had a strong pen and a respectable voice, but what will I teach? If you know how to write or how to speak, what would you write? What would you speak about? I then went to the business world and fought hard to build my own business. I also learned how the internet works so I could promote my works via the worldwide web. Now you can count about 5 different skills. With these 5 valuable skills, I built for myself my dreamed life. Today, I've published about 9 books, 5 of them are great, 4 are not. I get speaking invitations and I make money from my writings every day of my life. Now what's the message here? To really be successful in this era, talent isn't enough. You can only be successful if you learn and combine a few meaningful skills. The Tale of Talent For a long time we've worshipped talents and most things we know about talent are wrong. For example, an average person thinks that talent is something you were born with and that's correct, but we also tend to believe that talent in itself makes some people rich and successful. Now that is wrong. If truly talents make anyone rich then almost everyone will be a millionaire. Stephen King said, talent is cheaper than table salt and you better believe that, talent is everywhere. You cannot become rich because you have talent. You can only become rich by having valuable skills that are well combined. Even talent needs mining. I told you that I love writing and started writing since I was a teenager. What I should also tell you is that many people who read my books report to me that my books are very good. With these, we can safely conclude that I'm a talented writer right? Well maybe. But here's the thing, the 10,000 hours still has to be invested. Over the years I have made it my duty to write all the time. What I have talent for writing would never have made me a good writer if I don't sit down to practice my craft all the time. Take for instance, as at the time of making this video, I write average of 1,000 words every day. It's the determined practice that makes me a better writer. Every talent is like raw gold. It's useless until someone works hard to mine it. Your talent is nothing until thousands of hours is invested into it by daily practice. If you think that Michael Jackson was talented, remember he trained 8 hours every day for many years. If you think Muhammad Ali was talented, remember he rejected beautiful girls so he could spend hundreds of hours to train. Now if you think Steve Jobs was talented, remember he was a studious guy who studied and understood human psychology more than most people and that's why he was able to create and market great products. And not just that, even if you are a talented salesperson, you still have to learn communication skills, leadership skills and maybe some human psychology to really become a great salesperson. So you still need to learn and acquire a few important skills. Think about a building, it's the combination of many materials. Think about your phone or a computer. Think about anything you can touch today. There are combinations of many things. For example, you can't build a house with water alone. You can't build a house with sound alone. You can't build a house with cement, iron or nails alone. We need to combine many things before we can build a house, a car or a phone and so is it that you need a combination of a few skills before you can be rich and successful. So what are the skills you may need to become successful in life? The skills you need depend so much on who you are and what you want to achieve in life. For instance, some skills needed by an engineer may not be needed by a musician and some skills a scientist needs may not be useful for a lawyer. However, there are some skills that are generally useful in life and I think we all need the combination of some of these skills so let me share some of those skills with you. 1. Human Relationship Skills A few weeks ago, I watched a man on a TV show. He's a talented guy but he lacks human relationship skills and that's why he lost the competition he went for. This is oversimplified but it happens to us every day because you meet people every day of your life. If you don't know how to relate with people, you will not go far. I suggest you read a few books about human psychology and relationship. This will help you to understand humans more and to know how to deal with them better. 2. Leadership Skills When we mention leaders, we think of the political, social or religious leaders. Well, that's not the real definition of leadership. Leaders are people who take initiatives. Leaders are people who stand up. Leaders are people who move into a new direction they believe even if no one believes in them. To be successful in life, you have to be a leader. So acquiring leadership skills is very important. Now, how do you acquire leadership skills? Well, you can read a few books but that won't still make you a leader until you start taking responsibility. Leadership is about standing up and if you make it your habit to stand up, others will follow you. 3. Communication Skills You should love knowledge because life changes so fast that if you don't update your knowledge base very fast, you won't be relevant. Bill Gates reads one book per week for a reason and that reason is you must stay in the known to be successful or remain successful in this era. 4. Communication Skills The greatest people in the world are people who know how to get others to do what they want. The Luthers, the Churchills, the Hitlers, the Steve Jobs, the Barrack Obama of this world, all these people have something in common and that is the ability to use words that move people. You must learn how to use words that communicate what you have seen in your own mind and make others to see things the way you see them. You won't be able to move people along your dream line and get them to support you. Writing and Public Speaking Skills Now not everyone of us needs this but most of us do because the pen is the most powerful weapon in the world. The pen moves nations and pushes people to change and anyone who knows how to use the pen should be on his way to success and so is public speaking. These two require that you have a unique message that you are passionate about because if you are not passionate about a subject, you can drive others to see what you see or make sacrifices for your course and if you can't change the picture you are seeing in the mind of others and challenge them to make sacrifices for the course you believe, you cannot be successful. Now think about other important skills you need to learn and combine. Be willing to learn, practice and practice. Life is all about learning and combining a few important skills to achieve one single purpose. Thank you very much for watching our videos. Are you between the ages of 18 and 40? Then we invite you to join our new channel which was specially created to share with you inspiration and life's lessons to succeed in life. We call it Under 40 TV. Kindly look at the description box to join the Under 40 TV. We love you.