Hi everyone. Good morning. I want to wish everyone of my readers Happy Diwali. Diwali is the festival of lights celebrated by many Indians. It is like Christmas or Hanukkah in terms of importance. Over the weekend my sister and my sister-in-law are visiting us. In addition to catching up, we were talking about education. I remembered this article I had read about skills that everyone must have to be successful. The first is to be able to sell. Everyday we find ourselves in situations where we have to sell ourselves. In your job, you have to convince your manager that you are the most capable person for the job and you deserve a raise. While dating, you have to convince your date that you are the best choice. I have to confess that I myself am not a good salesperson. I need to learn this skill. The second skill kind of goes hand in hand with the first one. You have to market yourself. If your boss is not willing to give you a raise and you want to change jobs, you have to be able to convince potential employers that the skills you have are a match for the position they want to fill. Steve Jobs was a great marketer. He positioned all the Apple devices such that people thought they must own them and buy the newer models. Third one is the skill of being creative or innovative. A few days ago, I had written about innovation. Unless you have creativity or innovation, you won’t be able to differentiate yourself. The fourth is the skill to buy right. I don’t mean buying things on sale or during the Thanksgiving or after Christmas sale. I mean paying the right price for the value it delivers. I used to mow my lawn using a walk behind mower. I used to spend hours getting my lawn cut. But then I bought a riding mower. It cost twice as much as the walking mower, but I was able to finish mowing the lawn in 1 hour. So was it a good value? I think so. Same thing with my snow blower. I used to spend hours cleaning up snow using a shovel. Not to mention risk getting a heart attack or hurting my back. But with the snow blower, I was able to finish it in a short period of time and not hurt my back. Another example is in the pharmaceutical industry. Gilead, a pharmaceutical company specializing in antiviral drugs, paid over a billion dollars to buy a company called Pharmasset for 1 drug that was in development. Everybody criticized Gilead for overpaying. A few years later this drug that was in development, was approved by the FDA and it made $2.4 billion in one year. Gilead was laughing all the way to the bank. They definitely bought right. Finally learning how to maintain what you have earned and creating new products or growing existing products and ideas. Hope you spend time trying to acquire these skills.