Advice to the youth: Go for the hard to learn skills

One challenge the youth face today is that they hardly know how to direct their energy towards areas that would help them build a prosperous life later. Most often, the youth are left in tears when they look back and realise how much time they have wasted over the years learning skills they may not apply. Unfortunately, time is one important non-renewable resource. While you can lose out on oil in Lake Malawi and probably find alternative sources of energy in Lake Chilwa, you will never ever find an alternative to time lost.

I guess a few pieces of advice should be in order for my fellow youth. First, learn the hardest skills. In life, it’s tempting to take easier options. Instead, I urge you to always go for the skills that most people find hard to learn. Such skills, especially if you are passionate about them, will serve you well the rest of your life as you become one of the few to offer the on the market. Related to that, if you have discovered something you enjoy and you are actually good at, do it a lot and add value to it beyond what others in the same field have. Almost always, there’s a way to make money from a highly developed skill. It’s especially nice if there’s an obvious career path from it, but don’t let that limit you. Even better, if you can find a way to turn the thing you do into a side business, you might be setting yourself up for a very successful and sustainable financial path.

Take a leadership position. Join an organisation and make an effort to be involved with it. Eventually, take a leadership position in it. Why? Learning how to manage people and make choices that affect others is another skill that will serve you throughout your life.

Lastly, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If someone is offering you something for free, there’s usually something they are getting out of it in return. A free t-shirt is probably an advertisement. A cheap course may not offer you the up-market skills that can serve you better in a dynamic world. The better you are at spotting why things are being given away for free (or for really cheap), the smarter you will be about buying things and the less you will spend in the process.

So be on the look-out for skills that seem to be in scarcity in the market. A good point to start is ask the universities which courses seem to be shunned most because they are tough. I remember people saying they would rather pursue ACCA and not CIMA in the accounting profession because the latter is tougher. But when you globally look at most people that have risen to become CEOs, it has often been those with CIMA since it offers significant elements of managerial skills. On the other hand those with ACCA have often ended up as financial controllers – because the course offers significant technical skills in accounting.

Look around for the high paying jobs—they often require hard to learn skills but worthwhile when you have them. Let me be quick to add that your passion should come first in deciding a career path not how much it will pay (regardless of whether that passion will require soft or hard to learn skills). But if your passion is across an array of fields, choose the one that will make you be amongst the few skilled—that way you will be relevant in the job market for a long time. Employers will be hunting for you instead of you looking for jobs. So you will kill two birds with one stone: having a career in your area of passion and being able to dictate a high pay.

All the best as you seriously consider this advice. Have a blessed weekend, fellow youths!