Sometimes we need to go back to basics and take another look at our flawed assumptions that we actually know what the hell we’re doing.

The basics: What are the core tools you have in life?

The answer is your skills and abilities and knowledge.

In Ryan Deiss’s Traffic and Conversion Summit 3, the last session of the seminar was titled “How to bake a cake” and it blew my mind right open.

Brain Boom

The actual content of the session was about buying and selling businesses, but that’s not what made my brain go KAPOW!! -- No, it was the way they explained it.

They said “Hey, now you’ve got all these marketing skills. How can we make use of them in a way so we make as much impact as possible?”

In other words... you have these skills (ingredients) - but what you do with them is up to you. Hence: How to bake a cake.

In that scenario, the answer was in buying and selling businesses.

My realization was that this is true in everything. For instance, take Critical Factor 3: Storytelling. It’s a core skill.

And you can do whatever the hell you want with it.

Execution

• Be the go-to campfire storyteller with friends and family
• Connect with other people
• Find love
• Become a world class public speaker
• Teach about writing stories in schools
• Create killer marketing campaigns
• Build your personal brand
• Tell better stories to make more money in your own business
• Help other businesses with their storytelling and brand as a consultant
• Get a job inside another company as the go-to marketing storyteller
• Write fiction and self publish novels on kindle
• Write fiction and get a major publisher
• Become a ghostwriter
• Become a hollywood screenwriter
• Write screenplays and direct and produce your own movies
• Become a playwright and write and star in your own stage performance (Bo Eason did this, and is currently crushing it on Broadway)
• Plus probably about a billion other things I didn’t think of

Those are all things you could do based on ONE single core skillset: storytelling.

You could create lists just like that for every single skill you have.

And you can learn new skills whenever you want. In fact, you can become world-class in about 6 months to a year at almost anything.

Everyone has a unique blend of skills and knowledge. Everyone has their own unique blend of talents and strengths. These are the core ingredients you will use to crush it in life, business, and everywhere.

Chocolatey

You can bake your own cake, and make it as big or small, chocolatey or peach-raspberry-flavored, plain or decorated or as much or as little of whatever the hell else you want on it.

Hugh MacLeod is a good example. He has a unique skillset: making cartoons. And he combines it with everything else he knows and he’s built a really cool brand and business for himself.

Me? I have tons of knowledge in places most people don’t, like social dynamics and personal magnetism. And I apply it to everything else. I’ve spent years writing copy. I can combine my skills in both those areas and create something really cool.

And no one can compete with that. No one can be better than you at being you. So in the game of personal brands and micro-biz, you’re going to win.

From there it’s simple: Whoever executes better wins.