According to billionaire Warren Buffet, communication skills lead to wealth.
In the video, Buffet advises young people to “focus on learning how to write and speak clearly.” He equates the ability to communicate with the ability to earn money:
“The one easy way to become worth fifty percent more than you are now…is to hone your communication skills— both written and verbal.”
Students tend to tune out this sort of advice when it comes from their English teachers. The fact that so many highly visible celebrities scorn Standard English doesn’t help. Actually, nonstandard language seems to be a requirement for some kinds of celebrity.
Young people whose career plans lie in the direction of developing innovative ideas, however, need more than ideas.
According to Buffet,
“If you can’t communicate…nothing happens. You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you have to be able to transmit it. And the transmission is communication.”