My apologies for the delay in posting, like my fellow authors, the last few days have been very busy. That’s not a good excuse for not posting. We (the authors) all believe how important it is to share our thoughts with our children and the other readers of Our Digital Dust. That said, I like to talk a little bit about five crucial skills that every successful human should have.
The first skill is associating. The ability to connect seemingly random events, problems, ideas, thoughts, and questions into one coherent supposition. One example of this is the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, who is able to take his girlfriend’s passion for collecting Pez dispensers along with the difficulty in finding Pez dispensers for her, and the idea of emerging Internet markets. The result was eBay.
The next skill is questioning. Not so much the question why, but the question why not? When Elon Musk was told that it was not competitive to reuse rocket engines for launching satellites, he asked why not? Subsequently, Musk’s company, SpaceX, does just that and has driven the price of satellite launches down by more than 75%.
The next crucial skill is observing. The ability to set back and closely observe the behaviors of others and what motivates those around you. The idea for the iPhone came to Steve Jobs from watching people fumble with their iPad and phone and wonder, “why can’t we put that together?”
Another crucial skill is experimentation or experimenting. A willingness to try new ideas and keep an open mind. No one took Jeff Bezos seriously when he said he wanted to start an online bookstore when there were already big box stores such as, Books A Million, Barnes & Noble’s, and the now defunct Borders bookstore.
The last skill that you should be working on is networking. Interacting with others from a diverse array of thought, occupations, ideas, and political persuasions. You do not grow or develop by solely interacting with those people of the same political and ideological background.
Hopefully this is given you some food for thought and encouraged you to try something new tomorrow.