What's your end goal? Do you want to be a great employee? Or a business owner? What kind of a business owner--hands on, or Olympian?

Big differences.

Specialized skills are what's necessary for being a great employee or hands-on business owner.

If you want to be a leading, delegating, deal-making business owner, then you need a different skill set.

In either case, simply knowing what you want and being able to articulate it will put you ahead of 99% of the pack.

Most people have no idea what they want and drift from thing to thing...their next job is similar to their last, or the first one that was offered to them...

You can literally shave years off your career path by being ultra-clear on your target and going straight for it.

I've had employers create custom roles for me four times. Each one knocked several years off my career path. It's why I was a production manager with six supervisors and over 150 floor employees reporting to me at 26. I created that job, by sending the employer a package detailing my plan and requirements.

Want to partner with the best to learn specialized skills? Sell them on the idea of why they need to hire YOU and only you.

Want to learn the art of deal making, delegating and other soft skills? Sell the right kind of business owner on why they need to hire YOU and only you as their assistant.

Get IN.

Once you're IN, you will get a completely different view of the world. For example, I worked for a national electrical wholesaler for four years. A guy was an accounting clerk when I started, and after awhile he got promoted to assistant to the GM for an area with 11 branches.

That guy instantly got access to all the high level data and IN on the decision making at that level. He got to see the issues, information, solutions, and people who played at that level.

Near the end of my time there I did a stock tracking project and worked with him. On my first day, I was shocked to see all this data. I was suddenly IN. Nobody else in my department got to see this data. And it was "no big thang" for these head office guys; they worked at this level every day.

Set your target and get IN. I bet you cut 10 years off your learning curve by doing so.