If it was 20000 years ago and I was making a YouTube video titled, “The Most Important
Skill to Succeed in Life”, I would say, “Learn to run boy!”.
When you’re living on the African savannah and a tiger spots you, you better be able
to piss bolt.
Running fast would have kept you alive.
Fast forward to 2018, and no longer is running ability such a precious commodity.
Sure, you’ll find some “preppers” (read: survivalists) who advocate improving your
physical prowess in order to survive the upcoming zombie apocalypse.
But for the average office worker, the difference between being able to run and run fast won’t
help you with the upcoming promotion.
There are examples of people who can run fast that have made a successful living from it.
Think of people like Usain Bolt.
However, even with fast runners, there’s a much more important skill that has allowed
them to get where they are today — and I’ll give you a clue — it has nothing to do with
physical prowess.
No, the most important skill of 2018 is your ability to get on with the other humans.
That is, your ability to have a harmonious or friendly relationship with your coworkers
and peers.
I admit, it’s not really a single skill.
It’s probably comprised of a number of distinct competencies.
Things like being able to speak coherently and meaningfully; Knowing how to empathise
with people and show that you care; The ability to sense when someone is angry or upset and
knowing how to react (that is, knowing when to shut up).
However, I would argue that all skills are made up of smaller components.
It all comes down to semantics, really.
Imagine if Usain Bolt, a great runner, decided to swear at the end of a race in Australia.
He put up his middle finger to the audience and said in the post-race interview, “All
Australians are wankers and are just the criminal offspring of a former British penal colony”.
Well that would pretty much be the end of his career — at least in Australia.
It doesn’t matter if he can run fast, or not.
Getting on with people around him is far more important.
So if I was to teach a small child one thing that they should try to be good at in life,
it would be, “Learn to get on well with people”.
And it’s true.
I have seen enough evidence in my life where getting along with people is the single most
important thing that you can do.
Now, I know in some of my other videos, I have shown quite a lot of disdain towards
the human race, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are a social animal.
Our ability to socialise is what made us great.
Imagine if we were not social.
Imagine if we just walked into supermarkets and took what we wanted.
If somebody got in our way, we’d just punch them in the face.
Imagine if none of us stopped at red lights, or just ran over pedestrians for fun.
The world would be a mess.
Sociality, as it’s called in sociobiological circles, has made humans what we are today.
Sociality is a survival technique, and it’s worked very, very well throughout human history.
Conor McGregor, one of the most famous mixed martial arts fighters of recent times, has
done very well for himself — not because he’s the best fighter necessarily — but
because he knows how to talk to people to make them like him.
He sometimes says the most outlandish things — things like, “I run this whole thing.
I run New York.
I run this whole ship.
Without me none of this happens.
I run this whole shit.
Everyone in this game does what they're fookin’ told except for me and rightly fookin’ so.
If I say you're on the prelims, you're on the fookin’ prelims, If I say main event,
it's the fookin’ main event”.
Sure, he’s cocky.
Sure, he’s a little bit rude — but it’s all a show.
He knows what people want to hear.
When he tells people before a fight that he’s going to “rearrange their facial structure”,
and that their “children won’t recognise them anymore”, he’s doing it all for show.
He’s doing it because he knows how to speak to the crowd — and it’s been very, very
successful for him and the UFC.
I’ve said it in other videos — I put on a show when I’m at work or at school.
Not quite in the same vein as Conor McGregor, but certainly, a show nonetheless.
Whether it’s sincere or not, we have to be able to get on with people in our lives
just to make life bearable.
If you went to work and always spoke the truth, you’d soon be out on the street.
There will always be managers who don’t know what they’re doing.
There will always be premenstrual ladies who tell you to clean out the microwave after
you’ve used it, or that the forks go in the left-hand side of the drawer, not the
right.
There will be men who wear bright pink bow ties and lairy socks.
There will be people who have obnoxiously loud ringtones, or smelly food that wafts
throughout the office.
But you know what, you have to bear it all if you want to be successful in this world.
If I told the man, “Your bow tie looks stupid, mate!”, or told the lady, “I’ll put
the forks where I fucking well want to”, then I’d very quickly be ostracised and
probably would end up losing my job.
When I first started working in computer programming, there was one boy who started at the same
time as me.
He was only 21, but was a brilliant programmer.
He knew it all.
He could program anything that was requested of him.
The only problem was that he wasn’t a people person.
He rubbed people up the wrong way.
He had almost no friends, so naturally, I tried to be friendly with him — mainly for
reasons of self preservation.
I didn’t want him coming into work one day with a gun, or something, and shooting up
the office.
As expected, he ended up losing his job.
It didn’t matter that he was the next Mark Zuckerberg — he didn’t get on with people
and he lost his job because of it.
My six-year-old son is a very good student.
He’s not the best at maths or reading, or very good at sports.
However, he is very good at getting on well with his classmates and listening to his teacher.
Teacher-parent interviews have always been very positive.
Basically, if students do their work and don’t interrupt the class, they’ll fare very well
in school and in their future life.
On the other hand, there’s a boy in my son’s class who is very good at school work, but
is very disruptive.
You can see that the teacher is tearing her hair out half the time trying to manage his
behaviour.
The boy has been suspended from school before — which is very rare at this school — but
yet, he still continues to disrupt the class.
I was sitting in on an ethics class yesterday with him sitting up the back.
It was a nightmare.
Out of a 30 minute class, only about 10 minutes was actual work thanks to his constant bad
behaviour.
Obviously, I don’t blame the boy.
There’s probably lots of problems at home.
Maybe his parents don’t discipline him, or maybe there’s some other deep-seated
issue.
Either way, it goes to show you, getting on well with people is important — the most
important thing that you will learn to do in life.
Some of you out there might consider yourselves to be solitary individuals.
And that’s fine, I get it.
Personally, I would prefer never to have to go to work and deal with all the crazy students
and staff, but sadly, I don’t have that option.
There are probably some ways a person could be successful in life and be solitary at the
same time.
The first thing that springs to mind is a writer.
I suppose you could write books and novels at home without having to deal with many people,
but then again, famous writers still have to take interviews; They still have to deal
with publishers and go to book signings, and so on.
If you went to a book signing and made your fans feel like crap, that would surely be
detrimental to your career, especially now that we are living in the age of social media
where people can just pop online and let the whole world know how rude you were in person.
So in conclusion, no matter what your path in your life, the best thing you can do to
be successful in life is to get along with people.
It doesn’t matter if it’s in the workplace with your fellow workers, or at home when
dealing with your family and friends.
At least at some point in your life, you will need to be able to interact with the other
humans in a way that won’t make yourself look like a dick.
Fake it if you have to.
But either way, it’s the most important skill for 2018 and beyond.
Eventually the robots will come, and they’ll be better at doing all the physical and manual
jobs than you.
So you better be damn good at getting on well with people, because that will be the only
advantage that humans have left.