Concept
Increase your ability to earn
Increase your ability to earn is Clason's seventh cure: the surest way to more money is to become more skilled, more useful and more trustworthy, because what you can do determines what you can earn long after any single saving trick has run its course.
The first six of Arkad's cures work on money you already have: keep part of it, control spending, invest it, guard it, house yourself, provide for later. The seventh works on the person. Arkad tells his students that desire for more must be specific and backed by growing skill: the craftsman who studies his trade and learns the methods of those better than him earns more, and the merchant who keeps improving his goods finds more buyers. Clason ties this to character as well: pay your debts promptly, keep your word, look after your family, so that people want to deal with you again. In modern terms, income is rarely raised by working the same way for longer hours. It rises when you become better at something the market pays for, when you take on harder problems, and when your reputation makes others bring you work. Saving protects the gap between income and spending; this cure widens it from the income side.
A real-life example
Murat repairs phones in a small shop in Gaziantep. Instead of extending his hours again, he spends two evenings a week for six months learning board-level repair, which most shops nearby send away. He tells his regular customers and the other shops. Within a year he charges more per job and receives work that others cannot do.
How to use it
- 1Name one skill the market around you pays more for than your current work.
- 2Set aside fixed weekly hours to learn it from people who are already better than you.
- 3Keep promises and pay debts on time, so that improved skill turns into repeat work.