This one skill is one of the most valuable, most crisis-proof skills you can have.

I know — I’ve witnessed other people use it, in the hard times and the good.

My Harvard MBA is nothing compared to this skill.

In fact, you don’t have to have a fancy degree and you don’t need to have a dedicated career in the profession I’m about to describe.

It’s a skill, not a profession though it can be a full-blown profession.

Yes, sure, over the entire span of my career and life more generally my MBA comes in handy, as do some other fancy brands on my resume.

But when you face hardships and are dealing with failures, the value of these degrees and work experiences is greatly diminished. In some ways, they become a burden, a liability, because they are not very “liquid”. They are like an extremely heavy load that makes it very difficult to turn the cart you’re driving when you are lost and need to take a narrow turn.

In recent years I’ve watched my wife turn to this skill and I’ve seen other relatives and acquaintances use it. It proved critical for financial and other reasons, critical for building the foundation that will last a lifetime. I was humbled watching them use this skill. When there was a storm, when there was a post- storm flood — figuratively (think for example of the Covid times) I’ve seen them navigate the hard times with ease and grace I couldn’t imagine.