Skills

Skills are built, not born.

A simple phrase that can become the bedrock for great learning.

Of course it takes time, effort, some experiments, and struggle to earn a skill. But, if it’s a skill and you do the work, you can build it.

The best news: most of the good things in life are skills. There are the obvious skills like riding a bike, learning to read or write, or shooting a basketball. But there are also bigger, more unexpected skills like problem solving, leadership, feeling gratitude, friendliness – even being a great teammate is a skill.

The rule of thumb: if someone can get better at it – it’s a skill. Which means we can get better at it too. Maybe we won’t reach their level, but we can learn enough to be dangerous, and that’s what matters.

Don’t let the punchiness of this message fool you. This is not fluff, or some pie-in-the-sky fake positive attitude. There’s actually decades of good science that supports it…

Dr. Michael Merzenich is known as the ‘father of neuroplasticity’ – he’s been studying brains since the 1970s, and in 73 seconds he pretty much drops the mic on this:

That’s not some influencer trying to sell us something on Instagram. That’s one of the most experienced people in the field of neuroscience saying: “Absolutely everyone can get better at virtually anything.”

To be clear, we’re not saying anyone can do anything, because that’s not necessarily true. Like, I’m not going to go play in the NBA because I know about neuroplasticity.

But I am going to bat on the fact that we’re all better learners than we realize.

When we put our brain in the right place, give it enough time, allow it to solve the problems, and move through the obstacles – we’ll be surprised. Our capacity to grow is so much greater than we know.

We’re all different, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and we might move at different speeds. Our genes, personality types, and physical gifts play a role. There are certainly some traits we can be born with that can help us along the learning process. Our environment affects the process as well: privilege, discrimination, the negative limiting systems and labels that society operates under. All of this is certainly part of the equation – but so is that fact that we can all build skills. And that is legit awesome.

Skills are built, not born. And they are yours if you earn them.