 One day, as a student leader in the polytechnic, a friend of mine invited me to speak with his class to convince them for something he wanted to get their corporation on. My friend believed that these people were stubborn but I had a better idea. I thought I was a great speaker and that I could speak to these people, win their hearts and get their loyalty. I was right. I stood at the podium to speak and within a few minutes I got the attention of almost everyone in the class of about 400 people. I got them to like what they didn't want to support and they were open-minded to my suggestion. However, as I speak with the crowd with such oratory prowess they never experienced with my friend, I heard one guy in the crowd shouted, I know this man. He uses black magic. This guy believed that for me to be able to convince his class, I must be using some magic or black powers. In other words, a more enlightened individual would have called it talent. In our society today, a lot of glories are given to talent. If we see any musician who sings great music, we think it's because he or she is talented. If we see any athlete who outsmarts everyone, we think it's talent. If we see a successful entrepreneur, we credit luck or talents to their success. I don't believe in talent. I have a better idea and I'll share that with you in today's video. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you won't miss other interesting videos like this. Skill vs. Talent When you hear the word talent, what comes to your mind? Well, the word talent connotes achievement without much effort. Like, if you see me speaking and you think that I'm a great orator, then you might like this guy in my previous story think that I'm talented. Why there may be some element of truth with your assumption, what you don't know is the fact that I've read books about public speaking to understand how to speak with an audience, convince them and get them to support your cause. What you may not know is that I've spent several hours practicing. What you wouldn't know is that I've listened to and learned from many great speakers in the world. In other words, skills and not talent is the reason why people succeed. Stephen King said and I quote, talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates a talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. In other words, talent is nothing. Almost everyone gets some. So when next you see anyone who performs excellently in their field, don't associate the success with talent. Passion and success Instead of focusing on talent, I believe you should focus on your passion. The reason for that is when people are doing what they are passionate about, they are likely to wake up every day with excitement about what they are doing. When people are passionate about what they are doing, they do not look at the clock. When people are passionate about what they are doing, they read, talk and work harder than everyone without feeling like they are working harder. Because of all of these commitments that come with doing what you love, you will naturally develop superior skills than everyone and that's how you'll become successful than everyone. So what you need to become more successful and rich is to have a passion that helps you to build skills because skills, not talent, make people rich. Why skill is not popular When I was around age 16 or 17 I read a newspaper that wrote the story of Michael Jackson. In this story I read that Michael Jackson practiced 8 hours every day. To me at this time someone like Michael Jackson was simply a talented individual who wakes up in the morning and goes to the stage to perform some easy trick that everyone clapped for. To me, Jackson and the people like him were simply talented. Reading that story changed the way I think about success. For the first time I started to think about the work that's behind most successes. The reason why skill is not famous for being the reason for success is that skill requires a lot of commitment and discipline. You don't necessarily have to work for long hours but you have to wake up every day to do something you may not like to do. You have to develop your skill muscle. You have to say no to a lot of things. You have to discipline yourself more than everyone and that's what most people don't want to do. The skills that make you rich I claim in this video that you don't need to be a talented to be rich and I think I'm saying the right thing. I believe that it is skill and not talent that makes people wealthy and I'll try and share with you some important skills you need to be rich. Focus on other people It happens that to be rich you'll need to understand other human beings and seek ways to help them in some ways. This requires that you don't focus on yourself all the time. You can build the skill by spending one hour every week to think about the problems of other people in your country and ask yourself how can I be of help with any of these. You're doing this until it becomes natural that you have concern for others. Learn like a student Mark Cuban was asked sometimes ago what is the number one reason why businesses fail. His answer was simple because the owner doesn't learn. The formula I developed for getting rich is simple. Know what nobody knows and you'll be able to do what nobody can do and when you do what nobody can do or you create what nobody can create everyone will give you the money to have what you've created or get you to use your big brain to help them. I don't know any successful person who doesn't know what most people don't know. The good news about learning is that it doesn't have anything to do with talent. It's a skill anyone can develop. Live tomorrow In my 20s the most expensive phone I ever used was about $60. The same thing with clothing and anything else. I lived like a broke person even when I was making more money than almost everyone I know. This is because I wanted to build a tomorrow I can be proud of. Today I can buy any phone I want or shoes or live in some of the most expensive islands in my country and this is not a talent. Learning how to live in tomorrow means that you think about tomorrow first before you think of today. This means that you're willing to sacrifice today to have a better tomorrow. Again. You can develop it by trying to keep a part of whatever you earn even if it's 1%. Don't look back. Be persistent. Again, being persistent is not a talent. It's a skill. Some people simply turn back whenever they encounter one or two failures while some have developed skills of not turning back on their goal. All my life I've built a reputation for persistence. I simply believe that if I want to achieve something no amount of failure can stop me. Persistence is a habit and you can develop it. Human relationship and leadership help others find it easy to succeed in life. People who know how to lead achieve more than others and these are all learnable skills. What is the summary of this video? Very simple. You don't need to be talented to become rich. You only need to learn skills that are important to wealth creation. Focus on other people's problems. Be curious and learn. Read what most people don't read and seek the knowledge most people don't care about. Don't be afraid of taking action and don't look back when you fail. Delay gratification so that you can build a great tomorrow. Develop your human relationship skills because without it you can't become successful. Stop focusing on talent. Focus on skills. Develop valuable skills and you'll be rich and successful.