Your SKILL will pay your BILL

This was written by a friend and it realy inspired me so, I decided to post it here to be an inspiration to many. Enjoy!


YOUR SKILL WILL PAY YOUR BILL
By: Uche Ohagwam

“To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves.”

---Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832)
German poet, novelist and dramatist.

The concept of skill plays an important role in personal and national growth and development. Experience has shown that it is the man of skill, not the muscular man that will always and eventually win the competition and fulfill the task life bring before us. It is the man of skill that can successfully beat deadlines. Many entrepreneurs kill their business concerns as quickly as they started, while a few others wont go too far because they allow sentiments and other anti-business factors to override their senses, choices, indeed, their recruitment process. No doubt, it is far better to acquire skill, recruit skill than to kill the dream, vision or interest.
Skill, by definition is the learned capacity to carry out an assignment for excellent results, often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Skill is put forward as, ‘an ability to do something well, especially because you have learned and practiced it.’ Put differently, skill is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. It is business tactics that guarantee efficiency and positive excellence. A simple classification of skill gives us:
• General and
• Specific skills
Taking the work place for example, in the work environment, some general skills would include time management, teamwork and leadership, self motivation and others, whereas specific skills would be useful only for a certain job. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used.
People need a broad range of skills in order to contribute to a modern economy and take their place in this technologically-driven society of ours. Studies and activities within and not too far from our immediate environment have continued to emphasize and lay bare the fact that through technology, the workplace, the school, the church and the society at large is changing; thus, the skills that employees must have and acquire, to meet changing times and needs have become inevitable. There is nothing you can ever get done well without knowing how to do it. More so, the quality of your skill will determine the quality of your output, your worth and your growth in whichever environment you find yourself. The truth is, every man’s skill, if rightly used is capable of paying his bill.
Unfortunately, some folks around us are ignorant of the power of skill, and this is a major undoing of our time. The Nigerian society and more specifically, people from oil-bearing communities do not believe in skill acquisition but in “money accumulation.” Regrettably, even the few who have indicated some form of interest in skills acquisition are still not fully convinced on why they should be submissive to a non-indigene, who has the skill and is willing to pass it on to them via training. Hence, they end up with half-baked or zero training. Even among some of our religious friends, there is an erroneous conception that fasting, prayers and other religious activities are equal to skill, indeed, could substitute for it. But no sooner had they become addicted to these, than they will realize that these activities, though strong and effective, are poor substitute for skill.
Skill is not a gift, so you can neither pray it nor covet it; it is not tricks, which is the “strength” of today’s traders; it is not natural resources, which we as indigenes can lay claim to. It is ideas and specific knowledge that are consciously acquired through training for results. Deutshe Bank has this interesting slogan which holds that, “ideas are wealth, and the rest is money.” So, if this be true, then, skills, ideas, knowledge will continue to be fundamental for our country, if we mean to actualize the vision 20:2020. We must shun tricks and discontinue with all these “mouthing” and lazy outlook on life. As an individual, you must expunge tricks from your business dealings. As a student, if all you are using at present is tricks, then, be sure that you will have the paper, but you won’t have much relevance in this knowledge-driven society. So, if skill is this vital, then how can I acquire it?


HOW TO ACQUIRE SKILL
By Training: There is a saying that the more you know, the more you are known. So, stops living your life to chance, because you will soon be so frustrated to realize that you don’t have chance after all. You can imagine how plainly foolish and time-wasting it is to embark on any business journey without the least and basic information. It doesn’t matter what you know, there is much more that you don’t know than you all you have ever known. I fully agree with Mark Twain that, “There is nothing training cannot do. Nothing is above its reach. It can turn bad morals to good; it can destroy bad principles and recreate good ones; it can lift men to ‘angelship.’” In life, whenever you’re being trained, you’re expected to learn and if you learn well, you will not only sell yourself at a very high price, but you will also employ yourself and by extension, pay your bills. You Will Make It!