How to Turn Useless Skills into a Meaningful Craft

I remember asking myself, “Why can’t I understand anything I try to learn?”, “Why do I feel like I don’t learn anything at all?” “Why the information I learn feels useless and non-applicable to real life?” 

I also remember the first time I said “Woah! Everything I’ve learned was never meaningless. The information I learned, the skills I acquired have been harmonically structuralized and made me exactly who I am today – a broke content writer.”

Wanna be like me? Donate me every dollar you have on Patreon so I can keep writing. Nah, just kidding. 

Maybe. 

How to turn information into knowledge

If you’ve seen the movie called “Limitless”, you may remember a moment where Bradley Cooper says that all of the unfinished books, papers, notes, and pieces of conversations started to make sense when he took that brain activity boosting pill. 

In fact, you can achieve the same effect in real life without any pills. See, the information itself is useless. 

What really matters is finding the relations between different pieces of information and establishing the right connections that you can use at a very specific moment. 

For example, you want to get a job as a content writer with the X salary. How do you negotiate that X? 

You can do that by finding several leverages which you can mention and focus on when it comes to determining your salary. 

The key points to figure out would be:

• Knowing how long the content writer position was open 
• How long the content on the website hasn’t been updated 
• What was the company’s experience with the previous content writer 
• What results they were trying to achieve and what they are still trying to achieve

If you know that information beforehand – you’ll be the king. However, you can just figure it out during the interview, get the position, and negotiate the desired salary level. 

No information is useless

You have to learn to appreciate all sorts of information because you never know how you can use it.

Let’s say your friend told you that he shits twice a day at the same time. Useless, huh? 

But if your friend worked at a prison, and a prisoner would hear that information, he would use it to escape. 

Anything around you conveys information, be it in the form of behavioral patterns, emotions, conversations, etc. 

If you’ve ever played TES: Skyrim, you’ve definitely encountered some characters that were discussing rumors. Have you noticed how the conversation that you’ve heard would start a quest? 

Same applies to real life. It doesn’t necessarily mean that any gossip or talk should start a lifelong journey for you, but you can always elicit useful information out of everything and train your situational awareness as well as the attention to details. 

How to turn useless skills into a craft

You may have worked at some jobs that you think you can make no further use of. For example, you may have assembled furniture, worked in the construction industry, fast food, etc. 

You may think that you’ve only learned to make little money, obey orders, hate the system, work overtime, etc. But that’s not true. 

In fact, you’ve learned a lot more than that. You have to look deeper. 

I love the fast food example because it’s the easiest to explain, but this time, let’s talk about the construction industry. 

Recommended articles on the topic: 

“5 Personal Development Tips to Follow in 2019” and “Feeling Lost and Uncertain About My Future: What Should I Do”

So, what do you think you’ve learned from working in the construction industry? Nah, not that it’s hard work with a high injury rate. 

What skills have you elicited? 

Let me guess (I’ve never worked in the construction industry). I think the set of skills you’ve acquired looks something like that:

• The technical expertise of construction elements (materials, terms, etc.)
• Planning 
• Teamwork and team-building skills
• Communication skills 
• Understanding of strict procedures and rules 
• Focus and patience when working on dangerous objects

Moreover, you’ve probably learned a lot about the business problems which you can later make use of: 

• Working conditions (injuries rates, safety measurements, inventory, etc.)
• Time management and deadlines from the perspective of a client you’re building for and your manager 
• The location you’re building on and the importance of having comprehensive documentation to make sure the construction can be completed and maintained
• Staff turnaround, staff qualifications and expertise, etc. 

I think you get the idea. Even if you work somewhere for like 2-8 weeks, you’ll get just enough information about how that thing works if you pay enough attention and talk to people. 

How do you use that information? If you know how something works at the very core of it, you can easily apply for higher level positions including management. Now, you can easily talk to any manager keeping in mind the business problems and using not only your super awesome communication skills but also the in-depth technical expertise. 

This is how you turn any “useless” information or skill into a practical tool which you can use to your advantage. 

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