Introduction

Looking at life and the way we as humans interact both with our surroundings, each other and information in general, it appears there are a few fundamental skills which all the other more specific skills we as humans acquire over the courses of our lives are built upon.

In this blog-post, I give you an overview over what I believe these skills are, why they are so fundamentally essential and how we can go about improving these skills so as to enable us to live our best lives.

This post covers...

🏛️ The skill-foundation
👂 Listening
👀 Reading
🧠 Thinking
✍️ Writing
🗣️ Speaking
🌍 Conclusion

The skill-foundation

When I created my list of the most fundamental skills, I noticed a pattern. Like I always do, I grabbed a blank sheet of paper, a pen and started sketching. What I came up with, I call the "skill-foundation".

The skill foundation metaphorically speaking is a structure of fundamental skills which all other skills are built upon. If this foundation is fragile, building new skills on top of it is difficult. Strengthening this foundation on the other hand, making it as resilient as possible, pursuing new skills and goals and coping with life in general are much more frictionless.

The skill-foundation consists of three pillars.

👀 The first pillar is the absorption pillar and it concerns itself with the fundamental skills related to information intake.
🛠️ The second pillar is the processing pillar, where - you guessed it - the related skills are about information processing.
🍽️ The third pillar is the production pillar. Here the skills are about putting the absorbed and processed information back into some useful form so that the work you put in wasn't for nothing.

In the form of an analogy, the absorption pillar is like grocery shopping, the processing pillar like cooking and the production pillar like plating. They form a repeating algorithm that allows us to navigate the map of life.

Now, let's take a closer look at these fundamental skills individually.

Listening

Listening is part of the absorption pillar of the skill-foundation. And the simple reason why listening is so crucial is that you simply don't know everything and are inevitably dependent on the thinking other people have already done in order to progress.

Great listening is about being able to truly listen, to not interrupt, to really try to understand a person's point even if you don't agree. Only in processing the absorbed information, you then form your judgement and make adjustments to who and what you listen to in the future.

Reading

Reading is the second part of the absorption pillar. And whilst this skill does refer to reading text and literature, too, it also refers to reading in the sense of observing. Examples for this observational reading are reading people, reading settings, reading atmosphere and mood.

Intentional reading - both literature and observational reading - is so valuable because it provides you with context so that you can make the most appropriate decision for achieving your goals in a given setting or situation. It provides you with additional perspectives to your own to see more clearly in complex situations and to make more informed decisions.

Thinking

Thinking as an admittedly broad skill is the primary skill related to the processing pillar of the skill-foundation. It's about what you make of the information you've taken in by listening and reading and how you deconstruct, compare, categorize and recombine it in order to form arguments, make decisions, develop plans and strategies and adjust your behavior in the future to achieve better outcomes (whatever those may look like to you).

Referring back to the cooking analogy: How are you going to use the groceries you bought at the supermarket? Which parts of the foods are you going to use and how are going to combine them? What are you going to do differently next time?

Whilst I am not going to attempt to define great thinking, fundamentally, it's about learning to wield the powers of your brain, learning to distribute mental capacity effectively and developing techniques and skills to process information so that the outcome is of some use. Acknowledging thinking as a skill that needs to be developed over time is the first step to improving it.

Writing

Moving on to the production pillar of the skill-foundation, writing is an incredibly valuable skill. Even though it may seem like only authors need to write well, the success of artificial writing tools proves that this is not the case. Whether you like it or not, you are a writer. From writing essays at school or university, writing a job application, writing emails and text - if you are able to clearly express yourself in written form, if you can bring across what it is you need, what it is you believe and why someone else should be interested in what it is you think, you will have so much more freedom in pursuing whatever you want to pursue.

Speaking

Speaking is the last of the fundamental skills. It has to be practiced and learned in order to become really good at it. From intonation, to pronunciation, being able to focus on a point you're trying to make and being comfortable with intentional pauses - Once you learn to speak well, language allows you to solve problems, create bonds, spark interest and connect with the world around you on a deep level. It will get you that job, it will strengthen your relationship and it will help you express your thoughts so that you aren't forced to bottle them up or turn them into mental distress or even physical violence.

Conclusion

The more we are able to do, the more freedom we have in going about our lives and adapting to new circumstances. But having a toolbox full of hammers isn't all that useful what it is you are trying to do is cut a piece of wood into two.

The skill-foundation is a visual reference for understanding that there are certain fundamental skills that we should focus on developing if we seek out to do well in all areas of life, both in a professional but also in a personal sense.

Honing these core skills and acknowledging them as such allows us to overcome challenges in life, to learn from our environment and ourselves and to connect with the people around us. It is the gateway to building the life you want.