Where the f*ck do I start?
"I love reading your stuff but you're interests and skill-set is so broad it's difficult to know, for someone like me who's coming into this stuff from a completely different background, where to start. What skills to focus on acquiring first etc.,?"
below is a list of my technical skills acquisition, ordered chronologically. next is a scoring of these skills to help separate signal from noise. note that the years indiciate when i began* learning that skill, not necessarily when i became competent.
- 2001 - violin, music theory
- 2003 - guitar
- 2005 - typing on a keyboarfd
- 2006 - live performance / public speaking
- 2010 - door to door sales
- 2011 - basic accounting (running penny margins at MylarDesigns.com)
- 2012 - writing (began ryanckulp.com blog)
- 2013 - dating (in long term relationships before this, was now in NYC and in shape)
- 2014 - freelancing / pitching (after quitting my first full time job)
- 2015 - programming (quit my job, moved to Thailand)
- 2016 - product management (acquired NotifyApp.io, spent every revenue dollar hiring developers)
- 2017 - personal branding (speaking at more conferences, podcast interviews, forming "original" ideas)
- 2019 - teaching (launched multiple, successful online courses)
- 2020 - Korean language
- 2021 - product manufacturing and ecommerce (launched Yangmal Game)
- 2022 - farming / ranching (moved to Kulp Estates)
if i could only choose 3 focus areas:
when you make something useful, you get paid. when you make something interesting, you get asked to talk about it. when you have a unique experience, you'll feel compelled to write about it.
what humans do not need: public speaking, performance, personal branding, really anything that smells of "status."
in summary: add value, get paid, avoid the "Austin" thing, and live life.