Make sure that you spend time on things that give you a lot of return don’t spend time on things that give you little return picking up a new skill can change your life totally if you just try and improve your life by % every day, the effect over many years is extreme, is massive every day, try and just learn something new that you’re not too young, you’re not too old, to do something.

Before we even get started
I wanna emphasize that you need to believe in yourself you need to believe that you can change your life in you need to believe that you have the ability and the capability to do this you need to ignore the haters you need to ignore the people that have told you, at school or at other times in your life, that you can’t do it you need to get your mind in the right place and believe in yourself and I’m telling you, you can if I can do it, you can do it I can’t tell you the number of people that have told me during my life, or over the years of my life that, “David you’re an idiot.
- “David, you can’t do it
- “David, I’m putting you into this box.
- “This is the kinda person that you are.
- “You can’t be this person.
- “You can’t be a YouTuber because you’re too old.
- “You can’t be an instructor
- “because you’re not intelligent enough.
- “You don’t speak with the right accent,
- “you don’t have the right education,”
- et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Ignore those haters. Ignore those people go out there and make the most of your life what are you gonna do in to change your life In this blog, I wanna talk about the five top skillsthat you need to get in if you haven’t already it’s really important that you ride the waves I’ve said this many, many times and I’ve done this many, many times in my life look at what the hot trends are, jump on those waves, and ride them so I wanna talk about sort of five areas that I really think you should look at if you haven’t already in and then look at the skills that you need to get to ride those waves you can’t change the past, but you can change your future and for me that’s what I love about technology or tech in general you don’t need a fancy degree you don’t need fancy contacts you don’t need to be part of a old boys club, as an example, to get somewhere in technology if you put in the effort, in a few years you can change your life because technology is changing all the time look at me I got my CCIE maybe years ago what was really, really important years ag or years ago or five years ago, isn’t really important necessarily in the hot technologies of those days are perhaps gone things are constantly evolving, constantly changing, which can make it harder, if you’ve been in tech for a long time, to keep up but the great news for someone like you who’s perhaps starting out is that if you start today, in two years time you could be an expert in a specific sphere or niche if you like.
Think about the blockchain. Didn’t exist a few years ago think about machine learning, AI that is changing the world in the last few years, that wasn’t really important compared to how important it is in the next few years jump on the waves, ride those waves, and change your life now, I’m gonna continue talking about mindset a little bit and giving you some advice from my experience but if you don’t wanna hear that, that’s fine use the timestamps below to jump ahead in the video it’s important to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day when you’re starting out, it can be overwhelming because there’s so much information, so much to learn, but I’m telling you now you don’t have to try and learn everything like that firstly, that’s impossible and secondly, there’s just too much to learn very, very quickly.
The more you learn, the more you’ll find it’s easier to learn additional skills or pick up additional skills, learn new technologies, because a lot of it’s interrelated as an example, I have a strong foundation in networking for me to move into another area isn’t that difficult because I’ve got a strong foundation in networking, programming, et cetera it’s much easier to pick up new technologies but I want you to remember that life is a journey and your path may change over time you may be doing this today but then tomorrow you do something totally different, and there’s nothing stopping you reinventing yourself you could be the expert in this area and then tomorrow or in a few years time, you’re the expert in another area because technologies change and you have to change with the technologies if people tell you, “You must stay where you’re at,” they’ve either not been in tech long enough or they’ve stagnated because stagnation is a terrible thing you’ve gotta keep on reinventing yourself you gotta keep on learning and changing what you’re doing if you told me five years ago that I’d have a million subscribers on YouTube.
I probably wouldn’t have believed you’ve gotta keep on improving what you’re doing and keep on learning so to help you with that, I wanna talk about some principles first thing I really believe in is circle of control you may not be able to control what governments are doing or what certain people in the world are doing i don’t watch a lot of news because it can be really depressing you can’t change what people on the other side of the world are doing as an example, I live in the UK. I can’t change what the US President is doing, so I don’t focus on that I focus on the stuff that I can control I can control my time if you’ve got a job and you have to work a certain number of hours, your boss could control that but you may have some flexibility there to decide what you do with your time and after work, what are you doing with your time? what are you doing with your time on weekends.
There is no magic pill it drives me crazy to go to the gym you read one hour a day I went and worked out five hours a day and I was working on construction with hours a day organize your day work hard as an example for me, and I’m not telling you that this is what you have to do, I don’t watch television because it can be a huge time sink, as in take a huge amount of time I’d rather use my time for other things you need to decide what’s important for you and prioritize what’s important for you but the point is, is you can control your time you can decide where you spend your time so don’t spend time on things that give you no return rather spend time on thing that will give you a long return as an example I learnt about networking many, many years ago and that’s helped me over years as an example the stuff that I learned years ago are still helping me today because it’s a foundation that I build upon rather spend your time learning something that can help you for the future another important principle is the – rule, also known as the Pareto principle, % of consequences come from % of causes as an example, in business, % of your customers give you % of your revenue if you make sure that you focus your time on the %, you’re gonna have a far greater return than focusing your time on things less important.
As an example, if you watch a television program, just some kind of entertainment, that could give you relaxation now but what’s the return on that? What’s the long-term return on that versus, for instance, reading a book that changes your mindset or watching a video that teaches you something that could give you a return over your whole lifetime? You could learn something about investing you could learn something about technology and that could give you return after return after return after return throughout your entire life make sure that you spend time on things that give you a lot of return don’t spend time on things that give you little return picking up a new skill can change your life totally as an example, learning a programming language like Python can be used for years and years and years and years once you learn how to code, you might use Python for a while or for many years, or you may move onto another programming language, but you’ve got over that hurdle of learning a programming language.
The return on that investment can be massive. Learning Linux, as an example can give you a massive return over your lifetime spend time on things that give you a big return don’t spend time on things that give you little return a book that I often recommend is “Atomic Habits James Clear in the book talks about the % principle, if you like, or % rule, that if you just try and improve your life by % every day, the effect over many years is extreme, is massive. Every day, spend a bit of time learning try and learn something new every day and it’s amazing how that exponentially grows your knowledge and opens up opportunities for you I’ve picked up many skills over the years some of them would be technical skills like networking, programming some of them would be business skills or just other kinds of skills like how to use YouTube so I have YouTube skills, I have social media skills I keep on learning, keep on trying to develop myself in multiple areas and that knowledge becomes exponential and can really change things.
Another good book is “Deep Work.” Very difficult for some people, but often you need to put away distractions get rid of your phone, turn off your notifications, stuff like that put it away and make sure that you spend time every day doing deep work in other words, hard study a term that could be used for me is a creator I’m a content creator content doesn’t get created by me checking emails or by looking at the notifications on my phone I often turn off all notifications, block myself out from the rest of the world, and try and spend time creating content where I’m not distracted I need to turn off notifications because can you imagine me trying to create a YouTube video like this and then getting constant messages? I need to turn off the notifications and the messages so that I can create content now, you may not be a content creator, but how do you think you’re going to study something difficult if you don’t turn off the notifications and spend time learning? You’ve got to do some deep work some books that I’d recommend that you look at is, “The -Hour Work Week.” Some people don’t like the title but there are a lot of good principles in that book think about principles like the – principle, circle of control think about “%,” “Deep Work,” great books to look at that can really change things in your life you need to make the effort, however, in to do things differently to what you did in the past as that saying goes, “It’s insanity to do the same thing over and over “and expect a different result.” Make sure that you do something different today, tomorrow, this year if you’re not getting the results that you want now, this year, I’m doing it slightly differently to previous years I wanna talk about five core skills that you need to learn in , if you don’t have these skills already and as always, please put in the comments below if you disagree with what I’m saying.
Now, before I talk about the top five skills, I wanna talk about five paths there’s a lot of overlap with the skills that you would require for these different paths the first path, which I think is really hot at the moment and something that I would probably start looking at if I was just starting my journey today, is data science, machine learning, or AI just recently ChatGPT has really blown up, lot of interest in this AI if you really wanna ride the next wave, if you want to change your life, I would seriously look at data science, machine learning, AI it doesn’t matter which other sphere you’re interested in perhaps you’re interested in cybersecurity that’s been a very hot niche in the last few years aI can put you in a different league to others if you understand machine learning, if you understand data science, it can change your whole life would strongly suggest that you concentrate on that in and what I’m planning to do this year is create a lot of videos around this topic this will change many, many industries it really has and it’s gonna continue to do that more and more and more.
Learn ChatGPT
The ChatGPT software is just one example of what’s possible it’s amazing what that AI can do in my previous video, I put it to the test in cybersecurity, in programming, in networking and it was amazing what it can do have a look at that video below if you’re interested but AI is gonna change things now, if that’s not of interest to you, have a look at dev or programming there is always gonna be a demand for developers in the world now, think about the devices that most people have with them could be an iPhone, could be an Android phone these devices run on software people don’t use their phones necessarily to make phone calls, they use them for the apps so if you’re interested in getting into programming, I would strongly look at app development, specifically on iOS, specifically on Android fantastic place to make a good career for yourself but perhaps you wanna write applications for Windows or Mac or other platforms, but look at development. I’ve interviewed Dr. Chuck multiple times have a look at the videos below he gives you a free path to becoming a developer.
He’ll teach you Python, he’ll teach you C, he’ll teach you SQL he teaches you a whole bunch of skills that you would need if you wanna become a developer perhaps you can’t pay for an expensive school, you don’t wanna go and do a computer science degree, have a look at his free videos which help you become a developer again, very, very hot in recent times is cybersecurity there’s a big need for security professionals many, many more jobs on the blue team side rather than the red team side companies need to be secure there’s always gonna be a need for people interested in cybersecurity, so that’s a great place to look cloud is huge Amazon, we’ve got Google, we’ve got Microsoft I would specifically look at Amazon if you’re not sure which of the three to look at but cloud is big, only getting bigger more and more companies are moving their servers from on-premise to the cloud, so have a look at the cloud another hot one to look at is blockchain and I’m not talking about Bitcoin, I’m not talking about cryptocurrencies have a look at blockchain for smart contracts now, you don’t have to focus on just one of these you could, for instance, be interested in cybersecurity so perhaps looking at hacking the blockchain or helping companies secure the blockchain very good areas, but I wanted to give you some bonus areas.
Have a look at APIs they’ve become very hot in recent times some people will say, “Well, APIs are part of programming, “so if you’re a programmer, you have to learn about APIs but I wanted to put this as a bonus because APIs are also really important with regards to cybersecurity if you wanna become an ethical hacker, hacking APIs is a great place to start APIs are used a lot in networking as well these days, so APIs are really important and let me talk about networking it’s very sad for me to say this but I don’t think networking is a high growth industry for the coming years it’s become very mature it’s a great stable place to get a job but it’s not high growth so if you wanna ride the next wave or the future, get into the hot stuff, then networking is foundational it’s really important, used by many of these other trends, but it isn’t the hottest place to get a job if you wanna go for a hot trend, have a look at data science or machine learning or AI have a look at some of the other sort of spheres networking, I would say is a stable industry but not high growth another bonus is IoT, Internet of things I mean, are you gonna become a developer that writes code for IoT perhaps you’re gonna get into cybersecurits and hack IoT devices.
These devices are just proliferating everywhere we have smart homes the lights that I’m using here are so-called smart lights smart devices are taking over the world more and more devices, washing machines, toasters, et cetera, et cetera, are becoming smart if you’re into hacking, again, fantastic area to look at, or perhaps coding so there are five paths that I would suggest you look at now, let’s talk about the five core skills that you need to get let’s say you’re interested in machine learning or you’re interested in cybersecurity, any of these spheres, one of the foundational skills that you need is Linux now, I’ve been saying this for years.
Learn Linux
And I’ll still say it in learn Linux if you haven’t learned it already the world runs on Linux if you’re into hacking or cybersecurity, think of Kali Linux, think of Parrot OS just think of the tools that you need they run on Linux if you’re into machine learning, AI, Linux, once again if you’re into networking, networking devices often run or have a basis on Linux Cloud runs on Linux I mean, I can just repeat myself over and over again you need to learn Linux this is a paradigm shift for a lot of people don’t be a consumer, be a creator when you learn to code, it changes everything because you can create your own tools You’re not limited by the tools available that others have created best programming language to probably start with is Python if you haven’t got any coding experience, look at Python but very soon after that, look at Golang, look at Rust is the language I would suggest you look at if you’re serious about becoming a developer or coder if you’re in cybersecurity, if you’re into machine learning, Python is a great place to start great place to, you know, learn it’ll really help you in your career but also have a look at Golang, have a look at Rust soon after you’ve learned Python now, another foundational skill is networking basically, the world runs on a network, the Internet of things means networking cybersecurity means that you have to understand networking.
You don’t need to become a CCIE like me you don’t have to become even CCNP if you’re not interested in networking per se you’re perhaps interested in something else but you need to have an appreciation of networking you need to understand an IP address you need to understand port numbers have a understanding of networking as a foundational skill important in cybersecurity just to understand what a port number is as an example, or what an IP address is the cloud foundational skill, once again, it’s one of the hot training areas in the last few years, becoming more and more mature you need to learn about the cloud in the old days, we used to install applications on physical hardware now we put them in virtual machines and that gets me to the next topic, virtualization and that’s changed now to Docker containers, so containers have become really hot so have a look at virtualization.
Make sure you have an appreciation or understanding of virtualization if you work in cybersecurity you’re gonna wanna run Kali Linux, as an example, in a virtual machine you need to understand what a virtual machine is but you may wanna take it a step further and put that in a container which is a lot more lightweight make sure that you learn virtual machines, Docker and Kubernetes great foundational skills to learn in if you haven’t learned them already lot of repetition of previous years here but this stuff is foundational, it’s important right at the top, Linux. Make sure you learn Linux make sure you learn a programming language, even if it’s just Python make sure that you understand core networking principles make sure that you understand the cloud make sure that you understand virtualization as a suggestion, go and get the CompTIA certifications in these areas so as an example, get Linux Plus from CompTIA get Network Plus for networking get Cloud Plus for the cloud, et cetera there are a bunch of introductory certifications that you can get for networking, if you wanna focus on becoming a network engineer, CCNA is still my recommendation but if you wanna do cybersecurity, you may not be as focused on networking so Network Plus is fine for that moral of the story is Read books, go on YouTube there are many, many places where you can get free content to learn these skills you don’t have to pay a lot of money to learn the stuff.
Okay, but what are you gonna do in Are you gonna put the effort in are you gonna put the time in and learn this stuff and change your life in tech? The responsibility is on you need to decide what you’re going to do I’m going to continue learning I’m not gonna stop learning you can’t stop learning if you wanna be in tech ou have to keep on learning and for me personally, areas that I’m gonna really focus on in is AI and development I wanna get back to the old days of me doing development I also want to expand on the cybersecurity content, but specifically AI I wanna put AI into different spheres AI in cybersecurity, AI in programming, AI in many places big focus for me this year as always, I wanna wish you all the very best in go out there and make a success of your life.