I believe the most underrated skill in the 21st century is wisdom. Wisdom is ironic because it is absolutely free but it requires tons of introspection, mindfulness meditation, humility, self-management, reading books, journaling, lifelong learning and constantly humbling oneself. It also requires tons of personal and professional failures.
Many College Graduates and Young Adults are chasing short-term pleasures and instant gratification in today’s world. They also seek to get ahead or “win” at any cost.
However as we enter the 2020s, it is more important then ever that we all work together to solve the world’s pressing challenges such as Climate Change, Technological Unemployment, Digital Skills Gap, Political Polarization.
To do this requires skills not taught in school but taught in life through adversity and hardship.Wisdom is akin to EQ or Emotional Intelligence. The reason Wisdom is more crucial then ever now is because we are facing massive problems and many people are becoming more anxious and are going into a fear mindset.
Wisdom allows anyone to enter a fearless mindset anytime. But wisdom also gives people superpowers like the ability to think more clearly, see around the corners, and connect the dots. Wisdom allows you to learn and process information at a different level because you see forests instead of the trees. Wisdom allows us to connect the dots between seemingly disparate subjects and gives everyone the ability to have a Trillion Dollar Mindset. Wisdom also allows you to see wisdom everywhere because wisdom can be found in many places from any source. Wisdom allows us to live healthier and longer lives and allows us to endure hardship.
I believe this bigger picture thinking is more important then ever, because we truly all are connected. But many people are stuck in a narrow mindset of ME instead of WE.
The problem is many people gain knowledge and today we drown in information overload, but many people are lost and I believe it is because they are drowning in information but starved for wisdom.
To gain more wisdom we can study philosophy such as Stoicism, Taoism and Buddhism. We can also value ourselves as people more and value material things less.
This gives people a sense of greater purpose in their own lives, empathy for other people and the planet, connectedness in the broader world and resilience to stand strong in challenging and highly disruptive times where the pace of change and the noise is up.
The irony of wisdom is that I think it scales and will allow us to build better leaders, a better workforce and achieve the quadruple bottom line of People, Planet and Purpose Before Profit. The challenges of the modern world are now also highly interconnected as our Financial, Technological, Political, Societal, Planetary Systems are now interconnected. There’s alot of pressure and I believe people really need wisdom to manage and lead their lives better so they can empower themselves to empower others.
I think we have to be very careful and mindful in navigating the 4th Industrial Revolution and people need to be comfortable to fail, to take risks, to go beyond their comfort zone, to be more mindful, to be empathetic and to dare to be their internal selves and achieve more regardless of all the external noise and pressure.