You have to be able to sell your skills in order to be useful to the world. Now, there are two ways you can do this, outbound, by putting yourself out there and going to people who you think may be interested, or inbound, by being interesting and having people go out of their way to come to you.

The first way is the easy way. It’s the way we’re taught to do things. It’s why we go to places like university to become more qualified than the next guy.

The second way is the hard way. These days having an audience is more valuable than money. To get that audience takes a lot of hard work because you have to earn trust. You also have to learn how to communicate to be able to earn that trust in the first place. Plus it takes initiative to do this. That’s probably the hardest part. And it’s probably why it’s the most rewarding too.

If this online work environment is to continue, it’s going to be increasingly hard for those who rely on offline means of communication. Those with the ability to communicate and reach people online will be much better prepared. Which is one major reason why I recommend you set up your own website, if you haven’t already that is.