Speaker 1: Have you heard about dinosaurs? The largest creature we ever had. No one could beat them, no one could kill them. But where are they right now? They are in museums. And do you know why? For a simple reason that they were not able to adapt. Well friends, the world of work is changing and more so with COVID we are forced to change. Look at automation, look at artificial intelligence, look at the new business models which are emerging that are challenging the way we work every day. So if you want to remain relevant, if you want to remain competitive, if you want to edge out others, then it is very very important that you need to upskill yourself. You also need to sharpen your existing skills and new skills which can help you to remain relevant for the future needs of the work. Well friends, my name is Arun Tukral, I am a life and a leadership coach and in this video today I am going to talk about how to upskill yourself in the work areas. This video will give you lot of insights about why upskilling is necessary, what kind of skills that are important and urgent that you need to learn and how they are going to help you in the future. And more so, if you want to remain employable for a long term, you really need to work on these skills. I also want you to like and subscribe this channel so that the content that I am sharing can reach to more and more people. And if you find the content is relevant, do mention the comments, feedback for better improvement and better content in the future. Why it is important to upskill yourself? Let me share with you a very important fact. Human beings have an astonishing ability to learn, but the motivation to do so reduces with age. Now as you move into the adulthood, your learning appetite starts going down. But look at kids, what do they do? They want to explore the world, they want to do more mistakes and learn further. But what happens when you reach the adulthood? You want to preserve what you have learned. You don't want to make any more mistakes. Even if you are provided with more data and facts, you tend to resist it if it challenges your opinion or your thought process. While on the other side, research also suggests that employers are always looking for those employees who are very highly adaptable, who adapt to the changes and have high learnability. But if this is the scenario that people are not able to learn rapidly and adapt to the changes, they are not the ones who are preferred. And that's where the story of dinosaurs comes back to us that if we don't adapt, we are going to be in museums. So the answer to that, why it is important to be upskilling yourself is to make yourself employable, make yourself competitive in this competitive and ever-changing world that we are in. In the next section, I'm going to tell you how to upskill yourself, what are those skills that you really need to look into it that will help you to remain competitive. What is upskilling and what to upskill? Upskilling is all about sharpening your existing skills or adding value to those skills or learning new skills altogether. When you are able to do that, you add new skill sets and that brings a lot of confidence in you, which also means that you become available for different job opportunities in the job market and also you become competitive in what currently you are doing. Now the question is what to upskill? In my mind, there are three important areas that are very critical for you to upskill upon. Number one is softer skills. Now these are some difficult to master skills but are very very important because they are linked to your personality trait. Now these can be leadership skills, problem solving skills, decision making skills, negotiation skills, how to work in a team, how to behave in a team environment, in an office environment. Now these are all your behavioral skills or we call it as softer skills. That is what you need to excel upon. Number two is creative thinking. Now creative thinking is so important because there are always new solutions to different and existing problems but a lot of time people are not able to apply that. If you can sharpen those skills, your creativity can bring solution and innovation to the same existing problem in a different way and that creates an edge for you, particularly in an environment of machine learning and automation, your creative thinking skills will always have an edge over others. Number three is upgrade all your hard skills. No matter how much certification and no matter how much technical qualification you are carrying but every piece of knowledge has to be upgraded over a period of time. Not only it brings the new perspectives which has happened over a period of time but it also brushes up your basics which are very necessary to compete with all the new generation that is coming into the job. Once you are able to take control on these three areas, you would find yourself a very strong, competitive, agile and the most followed person in the work areas by others and that's where it makes you more and more competitive, more and more employable and more and more relevant to the work that you are doing. Now that you have understood about upskilling and why upskilling is very important, I am going to tell you now how to upskill yourself. There are six steps that will help you to upskill yourself in the work area that you are in. The number one tip is become a forever learner. Now what does it mean? It simply means that you learn from anyone and everyone. Once you are able to build this ability to learn and that too particularly from people who are younger or junior to you, you will find that you start building up a personality which is diverse, which is flexible, which is agile and have more awareness. Tip number two, embrace technology. You really need to appreciate that technology is now an integral part of your life. You cannot avoid it. Look at your phone, look at all your gadgets all around. It is all getting digitalized. It's time that you start accepting it and start learning with the technology and the changes that are coming around. This will help you to fasten the way you do your work and learn from the advantages that technology is giving. The more you are able to adapt to the technology, the better your skill set will become. Number three, how you are going to use your time wisely. We all have enough and plenty of time in a given day, but we don't utilize it properly and many hours slip throughout the day. It's important that you identify at least one to two hours every day to sharpen your skill, which can be done either through reading a book or through interacting with your superiors or learning from something that you have never tried before. Try this skill. This will really help you to create an edge for yourself. Tip number four is sign up for training programs organized by your organization. These days, organizations have understood and realized the importance of building skills for their employees. So they have decided and created training calendar based on the training needs and the skill development need in their organization. In such a case, you should sign up for those programs which are very relevant to you that can help you to build your skills. Don't miss that opportunity and inquire from your training manager or HR manager about those and such training programs already going on in your organization. Step number five is find a virtual mentor. Mentor helps you in shaping up your skills. They guide you, they coach you, they give you direction and experience that how those skills can help you to become better in the job that you are doing. Now, why I'm mentioning a virtual mentor? Because you may want to reach out to anyone today, anywhere in the world, and people are digitally connected. And it's the easier way that you can find a virtual mentor who can reach you out digitally and can guide you from anywhere in the world. And the sixth step is participate and enroll yourself on online training, online forums and online discussion. As I've already mentioned that human beings have an astonishing ability to learn and learn from everyone or anyone. Now, these are the forums that gives you different perspective of different people who are coming from different backgrounds. Once you listen to them, listen to their thought process, look at the way they prepare and the latest content and the information that they are sharing. This will enhance your knowledge from variety of sources coming to you just sitting at your home when you are digitally signing up for these programs. Well, friends, I'm sure these six steps would really help you to shape up yourself as a professional who is ready to compete in this highly vulnerable, changing environment where anything and everything is happening because of COVID. And more so the story that I began with was of dinosaurs that they thought that they were mighty. No one can kill them. And they are in museums. So I don't want you to be dinosaur. I want you to be an agile professional who is ready to take on the challenges that are thrown upon you by this uncertainties and the changes that are happening rapidly to us. I look forward to your feedback and your comments that how did you like this, my talk on upskilling. And if you find it interesting, do share it with your friends and colleagues. Thanks a lot.