Topics:

1. Every time you take this approach and have a new skill that you learned or take the time to learn a new skill, you feel more and more confident that you won’t fail when you try to learn something else that’s new.
2. Have faith in yourself that even if you screw it up the first time, you will figure it out, find the solution, fix it, and move on.
3. Building this foundation of skills will really take you to that next level; that you have that power and that control to get something done right now.

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Build a Badass Business: Episode #34: 3 Reasons to learn new skills



Coming to you from the city by the bay, this is Build a Badass Business with Diane Sanfilippo. Diane is a New York Times bestselling author and serial entrepreneur. She’s here to teach you how to grow and develop a successful business you love, and how to create raving fans along the way. Here she is, your host: Diane Sanfilippo.

Diane Sanfilippo: Alright guys. Welcome back to the show. It is the day after my wedding, and I was sitting on the couch, and I turned to my husband, and I said; tomorrow is Monday. We need to have a podcast ready. So here I am, and I did a little reflecting on the weekend and the week past, and I wanted to talk to you guys today about learning new skills and having skills and why skills equal freedom.

So the topic for today is to learn new skills, and this is something that I feel is just super important and super valuable; not only in your career but in your everyday life. I think along the way; I actually think this is something that, if you have children, it’s a very important lesson and a very important sort of value to instill in them, that learning new skills, all different kinds of skills, and allowing them to feel like they can do things and they can try things and they can figure things out, and they can maybe not do them perfectly or they can get better at them over time; I think that’s a great lesson to learn. In my reflection on perhaps where that came from for me; which I think it’s important to look back and see; how did we grow and develop? Where are we doing pretty well with ourselves, and where do we have some room to grow and develop?

I was super into crafts; arts and crafts as a little kid. I don’t think my mom; it was always my mom who would always do these crafts with me, who would entertain my crazy ideas. I don’t think she ever said, no we can’t do that one. Maybe I wanted to buy every color glitter, and she said; pick two, or something to that effect. But any kind of project I wanted to do. This doesn’t mean I finished every project, granted. But those goofy art projects that we hang on the wall when we’re younger, I think it’s meaningful. Because we’re learning how to do new things all the time, just creating new art projects.

I’m sure not every child feels the same way about it, but I would imagine that creativity is within everyone, and it just may manifest in different ways. Perhaps it’s music; perhaps it’s playing in different ways. But I do think that every human does want to create things, and I think that we just need to find the way to create that’s good for us.

So with that, I want to talk about learning new skills, and three reasons why I think learning new skills is a critical element, not only to your business, but to being a healthy, happy, fulfilled human being.

Number one is empowerment. When you learn new skills; when you feel capable of doing something; when you feel like you could try something and maybe get it or not. And as I said just a moment again, learn it better along the way. Maybe you are, as I was, frosting cupcakes at your wedding {laughs}. I have never frosted cupcakes from a piping bag before, but I figured, hey, I’ve seen it done many times on television. I figured, what’s the worst that happens? I scrape it off and try it again. And I had 120 cupcakes to frost, and the first 12 were not as good as the last 12. But there’s an element of pride and joy and fulfillment that I get from doing these things and it’s not just because I want to say, hey, I did that! It’s because I feel like I learned something along the way and I got to be engaged with the process. I think in this era of social media and so much production of content that’s almost intangible; right? You write a blog post, it’s not something that gets printed. You create a graphic; it doesn’t hang on your wall or go into a book. It’s just kind of out there on the internet, and in order for us to feel like we’ve done something for the day, we need to have that fulfillment of checking something off or feeling like we created something in the day that is to show for the time that we spent.

So along the way of what you’re creating, if you’re creating for social media or you’re creating something for an online business and there isn’t a physical product, this is one of those things where a skill set that you have, you could say; wow, today I was focusing on figuring out MailChimp all day, and that was not the most fun, but you came out of it knowing how to use it. So that’s something you created within yourself. You created this knowledge base and this skill set, and now you’re empowered to move forward. You know; and every time you take this approach and have a new skill that you learned or take the time to learn a new skill, you feel more and more confident that you won’t fail when you try to learn something else that’s new.

I think this is a really important element; as an entrepreneur, we need to have a feeling that we’re not worried that we’re going to fail. That when we have this idea that we’re going to press forward with it, and you know, you figure things out along the way, right? I’m sure a lot of you have heard Marie Forleo say, everything is figureoutable. And I do think that there’s a huge amount that we need to try and figure out ourselves, and then when we truly, truly hit that wall of; ok, this is beyond my skill set.

There will be web development that we all hit a wall, if we aren’t web developers, that we absolutely cannot figure out. There will be an element of, you know, whether it’s technology or art or financial elements that you need to talk to an accountant about, there will always be some area where it’s totally fine, acceptable, reasonable to say; you know what? There’s a reason why people go to school for this, and there’s a reason why there’s a separate degree or learning track or something. And I think it’s important and valid to have respect for that, as well, and the reason why we do pay for these other services is it does take a lot of schooling and education to learn those skills.

But; there are so many skills as an entrepreneur, and just as a person in general, that we don’t need to be in school for 4 years to figure out. And I want everyone listening to this show to take this note as a push to empower yourself to take the time to learn new skills, and figure things out, and have faith in yourself that even if you screw it up the first time, you will figure it out, find the solution, fix it, and move on.

The next reason why I think learning new skills is so critic cal is that time is of the essence for all of us. We want things done now. Sometimes we want them done yesterday, or tomorrow, or this week. Again, when you’re talking about smaller tasks or things within your business or even your life that may not require these extensive degrees, and you’re just feeling like; I don’t know how to do that. I’m not sure. When you want something done quickly, especially within your business, and you don’t have time to wait, or something is broken and it needs to be fixed. Or you need to put up some kind of graphic or you need to put up a blog post, and make an announcement, or change your website because some things come up, and it’s critical that you change it quickly. You never know when this stuff is going to happen.

In order to not only feel the empowerment, but to feel like you have the control over your time, and you’re not always waiting on someone else, it’s extremely critical that you make that space to learn those skills. Because when you want something done, now, you’re not willing to wait a week, two weeks, a month for these perhaps small tasks that, instead of feeling that you’re not empowered; instead of feeling like you just can’t handle it, or you’re not sure, that’s why building this foundation of skills will really take you to that next level. That you have that power and that control to get something done right now.

Lastly, learning new skills is so important and so critical because it allows you to teach. You may not want to enter into starting your business thinking; oh, one day I’ll teach someone how to use MailChimp. I’m just using this as an example because I know a lot of you are creating emailing lists and MailChimp is a great way to start out. I still use MailChimp today, though I don’t know if I’ll use it for forever. But this doesn’t mean that you will be teaching business and marketing, and you’ll teach this specific track. But what if you have a friend and they need some help, and they are trying to figure it out on their own?

Learning skills allows you to become a resource so that you can teach other people so that you can perhaps teach someone in your company. Maybe you find someone you can hire who is amazing, they just don’t happen to have this one skill. Instead of forcing them to figure it out totally on their own, you can at least give them that little boost and say, here are some things that I’ve learned. You can give them a little bit of training, let them learn more. You can let them learn a little, and then step in when they hit a wall and you’ve already figured that thing out because you have that skill set.

And this also gives you a foundation to teach others in the future. You have no idea what you’re going to be doing in 5 years; in 10 years, and so on. If I look back at my education and experience, and I look at what I’ve done as a designer, as a small business marketing expert; as a nutritionist, there are so many skills along the way that I’m so excited to teach other people, or just, again, give a small foundation of hey, here’s a direction I think is good to go because when I tried this other thing, it didn’t really work so well. I tried this email service, or I tried this graphics maker as an app, and I didn’t like it, I hit the following walls.

So that’s information that can create within you this element of you being a resource for other people, and you just become a more valuable person overall to others. Whether that’s as a company or just as a person. And don’t we all want to feel like we have something to offer to our fellow human beings, just as a resource and an area of light to them when they’re struggling with their business.

What I’m doing now; obviously I’ve learned how to podcast over the last 4 years, I have a health podcast, the Balanced Bites podcast, and what I’ve learned by doing that for so long in how to create the podcast, how to keep it going, etc.; now, not only can I teach you guys, I’m sure I’ll do an episode about podcasting, but I can also teach you all of this other content because I have that skill set. And I had no idea how to start a podcast when I did it. I asked one friend a couple of questions, and he gave me some answers, and I moved on my way. Thank you very much Sean Croxton. He was the one that I asked about podcasting. And that’s really it. I think that’s critical.

So the three reasons why I think learning new skills is so important and so valuable is number one empowerment; allow you to feel capable, not only today, but as you move forward. You know that when you find something new that you might need to learn or figure out, that you know you can do it, and it may just be a matter of time.

Number two; time. You want something done now; it’s so valuable to have those skills so that you can handle as much as possible, if you need to, on your own. And number three, to be able to teach other people and be a resource to them.

Thank you so much for listening today. We are tired and weary from a long week of running errands and getting everything ready for our wedding. But I hope to be back with you again on Wednesday this week, so that we can talk about some more insights. Thank you so much for listening.

Hey guys, I’m so glad you’re loving the show. Let me ask you to do me a favor; come follow me on Periscope. You can find me; I believe you can search Diane Sanfilippo, or you can search @BalancedBites, which is my Twitter handle, which is the account name over on Periscope. I am going to start doing live sessions, really quick thoughts for the day. I’m not sure if it I will be every day, but it will be pretty often, and some Q&A on business topics and motivation, inspiration, etc. So make sure you’re following me over on Periscope. Download the app in the app store, and I will see you there.

That’s all I’ve got for you guys today. Don’t forget to subscribe in iTunes so you don’t miss an episode. And drop me a review to let me know what’s speaking to you from the show. If you want to get in on the conversation and you haven’t yet joined the group already on Facebook, head on over there and join the Build a Badass Business group. I share insights and tips regularly, as well as answer your questions right there on the page. Do work that you love, and hustle to make your business grow like your life depends on it, because it does. Thanks for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

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