– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

A lot of people are turned off by

learning. And if you don't find learning

one of the most exciting things in the

world, then the whole game, everything

else will fall apart. But it has to be

something that excites

[Music]

you. I've said to many people that live

in a world where knowledge and skills

are the most important thing. That's the

goal that you are after more than money.

You want to develop knowledge and

skills. And so this person asks, "What

would be the three or so skills that are

the most essential moving forward in the

21st century?" And you know, it's not

like specific skills that I'm going to

talk about like coding or, you know,

mastering AI or going to some business

strategy because I think that's not

really what the spirit of the question

is. In general, there are certain kind

of personal skills that you want to

develop. Okay. So, number one, and this

is something that I have in my book,

Mastery, you must see being social and

getting along with people and

cooperating and knowing how to work with

people as a skill. It's not something

you were born with. It's not something

that some people are good, bad, or bad

at. Like anything, it is a skill that

you develop. being social and knowing

how to work with people and knowing how

to be sensitive to their energy. And in

this skill, what it is is you're able to

pay attention to people and see who they

are as an individual and see what their

particular needs are, what they're

missing in life, and you're able to

supply that. You're able to enter their

spirit. You don't offend them

unnecessarily. You know how to work with

them, right? you know how to properly

criticize them if that's necessary.

Because if you don't understand that

being social is a skill, if you don't

develop it, you could be the greatest at

whatever you could do. You could be even

the greatest athlete in the world, but

you're going to be offending your

teammates. You can be offending the

people that you work with and all of

your knowledge and your other skills are

going to be completely neutralized by

how bad you are in dealing with people.

And so when you look at social as a

skill, what that means is you have to be

spending time with people. You got to

get out of your phone. You got to get

out of your office. You got to get out

of all of your virtuality. You have to

be around people. You have to interact

more. That's the only way that you will

become social. And if you find yourself,

you know, alone a lot. And and I have

found that difficult. You have to force

yourself out there. You have to force

yourself to go to clubs, to go to bars,

to hang out with people. So developing

social skills is incredibly important,

but it's not the only thing, right? So

another skill that's extremely important

and probably the most important of all

is to develop a love of learning. I know

personally when there's something that I

don't know, there's something that I'm

not good at that I then take an effort

to like learn it to get better at it.

And I'm not going to make say specifics.

It could be some sports or it could be

playing a musical instrument or a game.

That process of learning to me is so

exciting. It's like I know it because

when I was a child, getting better at

something is a really, really exciting

process. So, I will give you an example.

years ago when I was writing the war

book, I got myself a pool table because

I wanted something to take my mind off

the war book which is really heavy and

was like kind of driving me crazy and I

wanted something where I could just do

kind of feel the strategy in the game

itself and just kind of get out of my

head. And at first I was really bad at

it, but slowly I got better and better.

I was practicing and I was playing

against myself, you know, which is

pretty easy. And I would read books

about it and I would practice certain

shots and when I could make like a

double bank shot and things like that or

put spin on the ball, I was so excited.

Man, this was really great. The feeling

that you're improving at something. A

lot of people are turned off by

learning. And if you don't find learning

one of the most exciting things in the

world, then I think you're never going

to develop the whole game. Everything

else will fall apart. But it has to be

something that excites you. If you are

somebody who's interested in literature

and you try and learn algebra, that

could be interesting. You may enjoy the

challenge, but you won't learn as much

because you're not really that

interested in it, right? But if you

learn like a foreign language like

French where you can read the

literature, you're so motivated that you

will learn and you will that natural

love that you have will come out. The

other skill that you must develop, so

just to reiterate, is being social,

having a love of learning. The third one

is kind of related to the second one,

but it is patience. A lot of people

nowadays are really really impatient.

And the reason I think is I mean, I'm

very I I have a lot of impatience

myself, so I I can't preach about that.

But the reason why I think it's gotten

worse is we're so used to the power of

our phones, of our computers, that we

think everything should be happening

quickly and instantly. If we have to

wait 5 seconds to get a piece of

information on the internet, we think,

"Oh my god, it's taking so long. It's

takes so long to download." Whereas 20,

30 years ago, you would have had to go

to the library. You would have to spend

an hour to do it. You learned how to

develop patience to find things. But

people are so impatient because

everything is so quick and easy and

powerful right now. So you want to be

able to slow things down. You want to

have the ability to say if it's going to

take me an hour to learn this, if I have

to spend time practicing something

that's tedious, I'm okay with it. I like

the

slowness. I actually embrace the pain

that's involved. So learning anything,

developing any skill involves pain. When

I first got that pool table, I was so

bad at it. It was so frustrating and it

really made me kind of upset because I

like being really good at things, right?

But I played every day and I got better

and better and better and better. And

then I remember one day I I mentioned

this before. I was playing with 50 Cent

in his office and I beat him three times

in a row and he's a pretty good pool

player. I felt, "Wow, man, I've

arrived." But then I had a humbling

experience a few days later when I went

to this pool hall in Manhattan and I got

creamed by this other guy. So, you know,

put kind of put it in perspective, but I

was getting better at it. I had to be

patient because at first I really sucked

at it. So, developing patience is

absolutely critical thing. And related

to that, so all these things are kind of

related to that is the ability to be

bored. Right? So sometimes boredom is a

good thing. Sometimes being frustrated

in in what you're doing is okay because

it forces you it forces you to be

patient and to slow things down as well.

One other thing I would say is and I had

a a interview about this is the ability

the skill it is a skill of managing your

anxiety. So, when you're starting

something out, when you're trying to

build a business, when you're trying to

write a book, when you're trying to

create a movie, you're going to feel a

lot of anxiety because it's not there.

It's going to take a lot of work. You're

looking a month, for me, years of work

to produce it. And it makes you kind of

anxious and it makes you, as I said

before, impatient. But being able to

deal with your anxiety and being able to

handle it and manage it and not get in a

hurry to get to the goals that you want

is very important. Those elements of

dealing with boredom, dealing with

anxiety, and impatience are all

interrelated. They're the ability to

slow things down, to deal with the micro

aspects of any kind of learning process.

Those are skills that I think are

absolutely essential for going forward

in the 21st century because what you

want the endgame of all this is because

you love learning because you've been

patient and you've developed skills and

you're good with people you will reach a

point where you have mastered a couple

of things. Right? So it's not like you

want to go through life and just master

one thing. You want to master two at

least two kind of real skills in the

world. For me it was writing and

research and there were a few others but

being able to combine writing and

research as I had was what led to the 48

laws of power. So you reach a point

where you develop two two or three

really basic skills and then when you're

30 or or in that vicinity you're able to

combine them and to create something a

new kind of business a new kind of

enterprise. And because we live in an

age where there's so much information

available and so many skills you can

learn even online developing that I

absolutely guarantee that something

brilliant will happen for you. But if

you don't have the patience and the love

of learning then none of this will ever

matter. So those are the skills I think

that are essential.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
exciting /ɪkˈsaɪtɪŋ/ A2	adjective - causing great enthusiasm or interest
knowledge /ˈnɒlɪdʒ/ A2	noun - information and skills acquired through experience or education
skills /skɪlz/ A1	noun - the ability to do something well
essential /ɪˈsɛnʃəl/ A2	adjective - absolutely necessary; extremely important
social /ˈsoʊʃəl/ A1	adjective - relating to society or its organization
cooperating /koʊˈɒpəreɪtɪŋ/ A2	verb - to work together to achieve a common goal
sensitive /ˈsɛnsɪtɪv/ B1	adjective - aware of and responsive to the feelings of others
criticize /ˈkrɪtɪsaɪz/ B1	verb - to express disapproval of someone or something
neutralized /ˈnjuːtrəlaɪzd/ B2	verb - to make something ineffective or harmless
virtuality /ˌvɜːrˈtuːələti/ C1	noun - the quality of being virtual or almost real
patience /ˈpeɪʃəns/ A2	noun - the capacity to accept or tolerate delay
frustrating /ˈfrʌstreɪtɪŋ/ B1	adjective - causing feelings of anger or annoyance
anxiety /æŋˈzaɪəti/ B1	noun - a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease
interrelated /ˌɪntərˈrɪleɪtɪd/ C1	adjective - connected or related to each other
mastered /ˈmɑːstərd/ B2	verb - to become skilled or proficient in something

Key Grammar Structures

• You must see being social and getting along with people and cooperating and knowing how to work with people as a skill.

  ➔ Gerunds as subjects and objects, parallel structure

  ➔ The sentence uses multiple gerunds (**being**, **getting**, **cooperating**, **knowing**) functioning as parts of a compound subject. The parallel structure emphasizes the multifaceted nature of social skills. 'as a skill' functions as a complement.

• It's not something you were born with. It's not something that some people are good, bad, or bad at.

  ➔ Cleft sentences, use of 'that' as a relative pronoun, comparative adjectives

  ➔ The sentence employs a **cleft sentence** structure ('It's not something...') to emphasize that social skills are not innate. The use of **'that'** introduces a relative clause. The repetition of 'bad' is stylistic, emphasizing a spectrum of ability.

• If you don't find learning one of the most exciting things in the world, then the whole game, everything else will fall apart.

  ➔ Conditional sentences (first conditional), superlative adjectives, emphatic structure

  ➔ This is a **first conditional** sentence (**If** you don't find..., **then**...). **'one of the most exciting things'** uses a superlative adjective. The phrase **'the whole game, everything else'** is an emphatic way of saying 'all aspects of your life'.

• And I'm not going to make say specifics.

  ➔ Causative verb construction ('make someone do something'), infinitive without 'to'

  ➔ The phrase **'make say specifics'** is a causative construction. The verb **'say'** is used in the bare infinitive (without 'to') after 'make'.