8 Skills High Earners Have That Most People Ignore

The way you are sitting in your chair right now might be costing you thousands of dollars over your career. And it sounds ridiculous until you realize the way that high earners think about money is also how they think about their posture and the way that they speak. Because after over 20 years of helping people with their money, I've identified 8 specific skills that separate high earners from everyone else. And these do not show up on a spreadsheet. The last skill, by the way, is worth 7 figures, but 55% of Americans never even try it. So let's get into it, starting with how you speak at work is costing you money and promotions. Maybe you have ideas at work, but when you talk, people start tuning out and you notice that they're not looking at you anymore. You can't figure out why. I'll tell you why. You're rambling. If you cannot speak effectively, people stop listening. They don't care if you are rambling. I remember when I was a teenager, I had a sales job. I was on a client call. There were 2 people from my company and the prospect, and he asked how would we help them do something, and I told them this really nice-sounding thing for 2 minutes. And at the end, he goes, "Well, you just said a lot of words, but what did you actually say?" It was like a dagger in my heart because I realized I had just talked for 2 minutes, but it would have been better if I had simply been more succinct for 15 seconds. People who lack communication skills often speak too quickly, or they use tons of filler words that actually camouflage the thing they are trying to say. And the people who never speak up at all, they get ignored. This might feel unfair, but this is life, and you better accept it if you want to excel. People decide how competent you are based on how you deliver your idea before they ever judge the idea itself. So here's what I suggest you do to improve your speaking this afternoon. Record yourself talking for just 60 seconds. Here's a question you can answer. What are you working on right now? What do you do for fun? Watch it back. When you watch yourself talk, you're going to want to die. And I love that. Your feeling of wanting to die fills me with joy because I know you're about to get better. Notice when you ramble. Notice when you use filler words like, um, notice what you do when you lose your way. Each moment you identify is an area that you can practice simply stopping, gathering your thoughts, and finishing your point. And the next skill on this list is something you would also never connect to your income. Skill number 2, your fitness. You tell yourself you'll get in shape when you have more time. But the longer you wait, the harder it is. And that's why it's so tragic when I meet people who have accumulated a lot of money, but their health is not their first priority, second, not even 10th priority. I used to tell myself the same thing too. For years, I was the skinny Indian guy, and deep down, I genuinely believed I could not change. I thought it was my genetics that kept me from building muscle. I just didn't think it was possible. If you told me that building more muscle would contribute to my career or to building wealth, I would have laughed in your face. I made a big change. I bet a friend that I could gain weight. I finally had to learn how to do it. I fast forward, moved to New York, hired a personal trainer, learned how nutrition worked, and for the first time in my life, I actually started putting on muscle. What was critical about this was not the muscle. It was in taking a story that I'd been telling myself and realizing It's just a story. That's not actually true. It's just something I've been telling myself. Then I started to look around. What other stories might not be true? When you become someone who shows up, who follows a system, and who makes consistent progress in their physical life, that shift transfers over to lots of other areas, including money. If you can afford it, hire a trainer even once or twice, learn how it works. But I find that people who are successful hire trainers ongoing. If you can't, that's okay. Pick a proven program online. There's lots of them for free and follow it exactly. Commit to the 12 weeks before you judge whether it is working or not. One of the most impactful uses of money that I have ever made in my entire life was the $30 I spent on a food scale. When I found out how much a normal serving size is and how much I was eating, It blew my mind. I genuinely was shocked. If you can, I would encourage you to really lean into this fitness part and realize you might be able to change the story you have been telling yourself. Fitness changed how I saw myself forever. And the next skill can change your entire life in a single afternoon. But before we get to that, I want to give you one of the biggest wins for your money. Reassurance. If something happened to you tomorrow, would your partner, would your kids be okay financially? They need to know where the accounts are, what to do next, how to cover the bills. Are you sure you have everything you need in place? If not, that's where today's sponsor, Fabric by Gerber Life, can help. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. It's made for busy parents like you, all online, on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. And the best part? Fabric has flexible, high-quality policies that fit your family, like $1 million in coverage for less than $1 a day. Even if you have life insurance through your employer, it may not offer enough protection for your family, and it can disappear the moment you leave your job. But Fabric follows you wherever you go. There's no risk. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can cancel at any time. So if you've got kids, especially if you're young and healthy, locking in low rates now can be one of the smartest moves you make for your future. Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/RamitSethi and use my link so they know I sent you. Meetfabric.com/RamitSethi. Skill number 3, your paycheck system. It's interesting how addicted we are to checking this little financial app on our phone, even though it does nothing for us. One study showed that even among households earning between $100K and $150K a year, 1 in 3 still worry about paying their bills. I've spoken to people making $400,000 a year who still feel the exact same way. To get to the highest income levels, successful people have a system in place so their money is handled without ever having to open up a banking app. Your paycheck comes in, the system splits it automatically. Investments, savings, bills, all handled automatically. The only money you really have to see is what's left, and that is yours to spend guilt-free. High earners are not spending time tracking the price of asparagus. They're also not relying on memory. Oh, this account has to get paid on the 14th of the month, but only in this case and not if the moon is blue. No, they set up the system and the money handles itself. The crux of this system is something called a conscious spending plan, and you can see that in my previous video linked in the description below. Now, here's another one you're probably ignoring. Skill number 4: focusing on your physical appearance. I'm actually glad that I'm a guy talking about this because not many men talk about this topic. We often are raised to believe that spending too much time on our physical appearance is frivolous. And I just need to focus on the work. This is kind of the invisible belief of Silicon Valley, which is that if you wear even a button-down shirt to work, what's wrong with you? You actually must be stupid because real engineers only wear a t-shirt. I have found this to be very untrue, and not simply because I appear on TV and in the media, but because the idea of thinking about my appearance and how I present to the rest of the world was totally different than focusing on a spreadsheet or focusing on writing an email. It fundamentally focuses on how you present yourself. And you know the coolest thing of all? You can actually change your appearance in so many ways. Your physical appearance is the way you carry yourself. It's what you're wearing. It gives clues to people about the kind of person you are. And although we hate to acknowledge these snap judgments, They are real. We are all human beings and we make snap judgments. Importantly, those snap judgments then affect how people perceive everything you say afterwards. When I was preparing for my Netflix show, my wife Cassandra and I spent a lot of time planning the outfits. It was important because when people think about a money person, they think about some older financial advisor in an ill-fitting suit that's gonna sit down and tell them all the things they can't do with their money. And I was determined to show them that is not how I see money. Money can be youthful. Money can be fun. Money can be comfortable. So when I tell them, "Hey, what do you love to spend money on?" And I go, "I love to spend money too. I love sweaters, and I'm unapologetic about it." That creates an image. Remember that how you show up is a core part of how you communicate. It's not vain. It's not superficial. It's actually just going beyond what might be comfortable for you. When it comes to physical appearance, biggest levers: finding clothes that properly fit you. Most of us don't even know what that is because we were not taught. Find some of the accounts or hire a personal stylist or even go into a Nordstrom and talk to their personal shoppers for free. You have lots of options. It will dramatically change the perception that you are communicating every time you walk outside. Skill number 5: Fixing your posture. I actually hired a posture coach because I found this to be so important. Posture is one of the most visible signals of authority and confidence, and you will know it. If you've ever seen someone who looks incredible with their posture, you will be like, "What? Wow, what do they have?" And it takes a second for you to register that their posture is incredible. Often, when I see somebody like this, they were a dancer. Now, you see this when you're collapsing in meeting. Look at this. Hey everybody, I'm living a rich life. So fucking cool. I love it. Oh, so cool. It's hard for anyone to take you seriously. It's hard for you to take yourself seriously. I didn't think about this really. Posture was the last thing on my mind until one day I saw a photo of myself from the side. And let's just say I did not enjoy that experience. I was horrified. And from that day on, I decided that I'm going to treat posture as a trainable skill. Just like my money, just like my style. Couple suggestions I want to make for you. Number one, you can improve your work setup. You know your chair is messed up. You know the desk height probably could use a little adjustment. Get a footrest. My feet right now are on a footrest so that my great posture is not something I have to try to do. It becomes a little bit more automatic. Next, you can build more body awareness. I find that a lot of us who were not taught to be in touch with our bodies— this is quite revolutionary. Paying attention to how I hold myself, and even seeing photos, asking my wife once in a while, "Hey, can you take a photo of me just standing here over the next 5 minutes without me knowing?" And I look at it, I go, "Oh God, I gotta really work on that." It's an improvable skill that amplifies everything else you're doing, your speaking, your style, your presence. Now, we've covered how high earners can present themselves differently to get ahead, but the skills coming up are different, not just what they do or wear, but how they think differently. I wish I had learned some of these earlier because it would've transformed my finances, my money life completely. The next is skill number 6, asking amazing questions. My friend runs a company that helps young kids in college start a social media career. We went to her launch party. So my wife and I are like having a snack and just like looking around, "Oh, this is so cool." And this young person comes up to us, goes, "So what's your hot take?" I go, "Wow, that is a great question." So now I'm like, my hot take really forced me to think. Then another group comes up to us. These are all college kids in a business organization. They go, "Based on what you know now, looking back on your career when you first started, what would you have done differently to accelerate your career?" I said, "Wow, these are some of the best questions I've ever gotten asked." If you ask amazing questions,, you might just get amazing answers. If you ask generic, vague questions, you're going to get horrible answers. Sometimes people DM me and they ask me, "What should I do to start investing?" I don't know. Read my book. I've written about it in detail. Look online. There's a gajillion YouTube videos. Asking that vague question does not make people want to answer you because it shows that you've not done some some of the basic work of foundational research. I also think if you ask the right questions, it can unleash this thing you may have never considered. For example, instead of asking, "How do I get a new job?" you might ask, "How do I build the skills that will make it easy for me to get a higher paying job?" You might ask, "How do I surround myself with people who are going to encourage me instead of trying to drag me down?" Or you might ask this question: How do I construct a life that allows me to be with my kids all day, at least 3 days a week? So asking the right questions will never show up on a spreadsheet, but it is an incredibly important skill. Now, let me ask you an important question. What invisible beliefs do you have about money? For example, do you believe I can never be rich? I can never get ahead. Money comes, money goes. What are some of those things that you believe? Because as we've talked about in this video, you can improve your posture, you can change your style, you can ask great questions. But if you still believe that you do not deserve to have a lot of money, then none of the rest of this matters. The world's highest earners believe that they deserve to have that money. I did since I was a college kid, having conversations about our career our earnings with some of my friends, and I said, I will earn over $100,000 in a month. It's just a matter of time. And they were like, what the fuck? Who talks like that? And I did. And it is important to know that you can have the confidence to believe you deserve to earn more, but knowing it and doing it, those are two different things. And that is exactly why I created money coaching. In my money coaching program, I'm going to help you build your entire money system. Your savings, your investment, your bills, and your guilt-free spending. All of that automated and running within 48 hours. High earners are decisive. They do not wait until someday. In the program, you're also going to get live calls with me to answer specific questions, plus a community of thousands of people that are on their path to a rich life. You do not have to do this alone, and you don't have to spend another year overthinking it. Scan the QR code right here or click the link below and join us inside Money Coaching today. Now back to one skill that takes a long time to learn and it is worth it. Skill number 7: Setting ruthless priorities. I find that a lot of people are obsessed with inbox zero and going through this elaborate ritual every single day of their morning routine. In my experience, the highest earners are much more easygoing about this stuff. They're not spending tons of time optimizing for something like inbox zero because inbox zero is not the point. We are here to live a rich life, not to have inbox zero. High earners often do less. They give up on having a perfect system and they do something totally differently. Listen closely. They pick the right one thing to prioritize, and they prioritize ruthlessly. Let's do it right now. It's Monday morning. I want you to start with one question. What is the one thing that I could finish this week that would actually move my career or my income or my family forward? That one thing is the thing that's going at the top of my list, and I'm gonna plan the hours in my calendar, and everything else is gonna fall around it. Everything else might just not get done, but this thing is going to be the thing I focus on. So if somebody comes at me with a quick call or something is not even working as I'm recording one of these videos, I just go, "OK, it's not going to happen." Because it's not my problem. It's their problem. Because remember, when I prioritize things, I am not taking on everyone's problems for myself. I am focused on the thing that I set Monday morning. And now there is a skill I haven't shared yet, one that actually generated a huge amount of money. But before I get to that, I noticed about half of you watching right now are not subscribed to this channel. So hit that subscribe button, turn on notifications. I want to continue sharing specific ways that you can build wealth and live a rich life. That way you're going to hear as soon as new videos come out. Hit subscribe. Skill number 8: Always negotiate. People do not voluntarily pay you more. They will pay you what you ask for and what the market allows. But it's interesting that 55% of Americans never initiate a salary negotiation. Too afraid. "Oh, that's so awkward. So awkward." I hate the word awkward. You think I care if things are awkward? That's good. Important things are often awkward, and avoiding a few minutes of discomfort can cost you way more than you realize. I'll give you an example. Let's say you currently make $80,000. You negotiate, let's say, a $25,000 raise. Now, your total salary is $105,000. With a 3% cost of living increase every year after that for 30 years, you've earned a total of $4.99 million. Now, without that raise, you've earned $3.8 million. Do you see? That's $1.18 million more from one conversation. Even a $5,000 raise negotiated just once is still a difference of nearly $238,000. $1,000 over the course of a 30-year career. If you want to make more money, you have to focus on increasing your income. And the only person who can change your income is you. No one else is going to walk over with a wheelbarrow full of thousands of dollars and hand it to you. You have to build the skills and more importantly, believe that you can earn more money. If you are instead doing what a lot of people do, clipping coupons, canceling subscriptions, agonizing over whether you can afford cheesecake, you are squeezing pennies out of a salary, whereas you could be focusing on actually earning more. My suggestion to you: spend next weekend researching the actual market rate for your current role and your experience, industry, and location. When I've done this exercise with my audience, 40% of people discover they are underpaid by $10,000 to $15,000. And this is the groundwork that you can use to start building your case. Remember, you do not walk into your boss's office and say, "Hey, can I have a raise, cuz?" No, you want to spend months preparing. You set up the conversation, you create a record of real wins— that's specific results with numbers— you create a plan that your boss and you agreed to ahead of time, and that plan is detailed. It reflects specific ROI milestones, and you are doing check-ins. You shift the conversation from "I want more money" to "Here's how I will become a top performer at the company." And if I become a top performer, they are compensated accordingly. Of course, timing matters. There are certain times when it is better to negotiate when you have more negotiating power, and there are other times where companies have more negotiating power. You've gotta know that and incorporate that as well. But as an example, one of my students used this exact technique to secure an $80,000 raise. Another used it to land an 18% salary increase. And a new role with a $40,000 pay bump. Learning to negotiate uncaps your career and your wealth potential. Now, once you are ready to dive in and learn exactly how to have that conversation, check out this video next.