- HIGH END TIMES
- Posts
- Feeling stuck? This could help.
“Holy sh*t,” I thought to myself…
I was about to fall short on rent for the month and needed to make some money quickly.
I had been producing music and DJing for over 10 years by this point.
How was this still a problem?
I wasn’t a big spender and lived pretty frugally.
It was at that painful moment that I realized how my DJ and beat-making abilities had little value outside of music circles.
That hurt. A lot.
I'd spent years glued to my samplers, synths, and computers, cooking up tunes and weird sounds.
Why wasn’t I balling yet?
Because I went all in on my passion, but it wasn't exactly what the market was willing to shell out big bucks for.
In other words, I focused on a few core skills but severely lacked others.
As it turns out, the skills I was missing were the ones that brought in the cash.
Go figure.
Don’t get me wrong I was able to support myself through music.
But let's be real—it was barely enough to cover the basics.
It would take me another 2-3 years before I was making multiple times what I used to as a DJ and music producer.
How?
Through skill stacking.
Today, I’ll touch on:
What is skill-stacking?
Which skills are worth the time investment?
Where to learn them?
Let’s get it!
What is skill-stacking?
Skill-stacking is the act of intentionally acquiring profitable skills.
That’s it.
You focus on getting good at a few core complementary skills that you know the “market” is willing to pay for.
You are not shooting in the dark here. This is important!
You don’t expect the plumber to come over and fix your toilet for free, right?
He has a set of very specific skills that everyone has agreed are worth paying for.
Sure, you can negotiate the price, but your going to be forking over money one way or another.
We want this but with more brainpower and less physical work.
You also want to make sure these are evergreen skills.
Skills that will always be in high demand.
Which skills are worth your time?
There are a lot of sub-skills under these main ones but these are the most important:
Sales
Design
Coding
Marketing
Storytelling
Negotiation
Copywriting
Management
Public speaking
Where to learn them?
In 2024, this is the easiest part!
My main 3 ways I learn any new skill are:
Books
Youtube
Courses & Seminars
YouTube is free, although I pay monthly to be ad-free (it’s amazing).
Books and courses cost money but they are very much worth the investment.
Not every book or course is top-notch, but the great ones will make up for the rest.
Remember, you are learning evergreen skills here…
The more you keep learning and stacking, the more valuable you become over time.
It’ll start to show in your personal confidence and ability to spot trends and opportunities.
You literally start to see a different world because you have knowledge you didn’t have before.
This is powerful stuff.
Life-changing even.
So to wrap up:
Every time I feel a bit stuck or uninspired, I evaluate my skill stack.
Where am I lacking? What’s my bottleneck? What’s my weak spot?
What skill do I need to work on or learn in order to keep progressing?
Which problems would I like to solve?
I ALWAYS find something.
Then I get to work!
I hope this framework helps.
Let me know if you have any questions! I respond to everyone.
Brenmar