Twenty-two years old, newly redundant and considering my first career pivot, I went to see a neighbour—COO at a London law firm—for feedback on my CV and any wise advice he could offer.
After our usual friendly introduction, I handed it over, proceeding to talk at him and attempting to explain my achievements so far.
Not wasting a second, he flipped modes in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“Can I just read it. Sorry.”
A euphemism for ‘shut up’ which I needed to hear.
Then silence.
“Right” he said, politely—pointing to my list of ‘skills’—“I would say these are more qualities than skills.”
My CV didn’t really list any ‘skills.’ It’s not that I didn’t have any, or that I hadn’t been contributing, but what were my actual skills? It was all about me—why I felt I was worthy and special—and had little to do with the person reading it. The reader might have come to like me and enjoy working with me, but I wasn’t speaking to them.
Somehow I had missed the memo growing up and early in my career. It wasn’t enough to simply make an impression—you needed to understand the needs of the world, and you needed to communicate them in a universal language.
Believe it or not this was actually quite a lesson for me (and I’m not alone). You can have aptitude, a fine attitude and a willingness to apply yourself, but you also need to think in terms of and communicate clearly the language of contribution.
The language of contribution is skills, and it has a taxonomy that is important to know—at least as it pertains to yourself, your contribution and anyone you seek to work with. This language is rooted in both personal facts of individuals, and the needs of the world as it’s configured.
But just like with any language, the language of contribution is inherently limiting. Anyone who values uniqueness and authenticity (as well as anyone who craves to feel special) will naturally feel averse to describing themselves in terms of their skills. They may realise that skills don’t define them, but they hate the idea that others might not.
‘I’m an artist! I can’t define myself by SQL, Python and database engineering!’
If this resonates, remember the words of Goethe, speaking to the Romantics of his day, that “the master shows himself in limitation.”
The irony is that knowing your skills precisely, and being willing to be limited by them, is a prerequisite for just the kind of self-realisation you seek.
And while all language is limiting, it’s notable that the word ‘skill’ itself implies limitation.
It derives from the norse ‘skil,’ meaning discernment, distinction, the capacity to separate one thing from another. So to speak of your skills is to cognitively delimit who you are and who you aren’t—and that is how the word was intended. The skills-based picture is an impoverished representation of what you is, but you can work with that while also knowing its limitations. It’s actually necessary that you do.
The language of skills provides the cognitive building blocks for bridging the gap between what is uniquely you and what the world actually needs. Those of you familiar with my Seven Habits model will recognise this back and forth iteration between knowing your own unique set of facts and contributing to the needs of the world. These two facets contain and depend on each other. Neither on its own can be a full expression of you and your potential.
For these reasons, improving your ‘skill vocabulary’ can be a powerful exercise—both for developing self-knowledge and your ability to work with others—and there is a more or less universal nomenclature across the working world and within each industry. There are literally lists of skills—hard and soft—that you can peruse to help with this and understand your working contribution more precisely.
The best resource I’ve come across for expanding your skill vocabulary is Google’s Career Dreamer. It can also help you get clear on your ‘career identity.’ It’s one of the neatest AI tools I’ve come across and draws from the Lightcast skills database.
Just a few years after the first encounter, having not fully learned the lesson, and still full of energy for all the wrong things, I was handed another instance of the same pattern.
I had taken an afternoon to seek feedback, and hey, maybe a sale or two, for an early product I’d created. I set out from my east London apartment, and simply walked into local beauty salons, striking up conversations.
After walking into one particularly bright and spacious establishment, I introduced myself to the two owners and proudly shared my product with them. It was something they hadn’t seen before—interesting, meaningful, it had a use case. Their customers would surely love it. They seemed genuinely interested.
We’d been in conversation for a good few minutes when in marches another guy—scruffy, pulling a trolly—the kind your grandma might use—and gruffly announces:
“Blue rubber gloves!”
“Yeah, I’ll take three,” responds the salon owner without a moment’s hesitation, and hands him a few quid.
She turns back to me.
“Well it looks interesting…”
The other guy if anything appeared to be making an anti-effort to impress, and yet he was speaking the salon’s language and showing up to meet a defined need.
I knew this was too ironic to be happenstance, and that I needed to take something on board.
The metaphor of the ‘blue rubber gloves’ stays with me as a reminder of the pattern. For a moment I considered titling this post after it in recognition, but that would have been to make the very same mistake.
Obviously blue rubber gloves are a commodity, and I’m not suggesting anyone attempt to realise themselves merely by selling a commodity or commoditised skills. The point was that he had a communicable something for which the salon owners had a defined, existing need—the banality of the item showing up as the perfect counterweight to my own miscalibrated fanciness.
What skills are you developing? And which will you develop going forward?
What are your ‘blue rubber gloves?’
What are the personal assets you’ve invested in that, when you show up and announce them, someone simply says yes?
