42 Things Everyone Should Learn How To Do

Basic Household and Vehicle Maintenance [0:00]

• Learning basic useful things can significantly enhance one's life.
• The list begins with foundational skills like understanding how a toilet works and how to fix it.
• Other practical skills include resetting a circuit breaker and remounting a bicycle chain.

"To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing. That is enough for one man's life."

Safety and Emergency Preparedness [0:15]

• Learning CPR is vital, emphasizing that its purpose is to maintain oxygen flow, not to restart a heart, and the first step is calling for help.
• Knowing how to jump-start a dead car battery is essential, with a reminder to connect positive to positive and negative to ground, and to be aware of battery locations in modern vehicles.
• Changing a flat tire is another critical skill presented.

"Imagine saving a child's life or a hot person's life. That would be so sick."

Driving and Financial Literacy [0:20]

• Driving a manual transmission is suggested for everyone, not just car enthusiasts, for practical reasons.
• The ability to exercise alone without equipment is listed as a useful skill.
• A fundamental understanding of compound interest is stressed, highlighting the human tendency to grasp linear growth better than exponential growth.
• Basic knowledge of how taxes work is important to avoid audits or legal issues, with a recommendation to hire a professional if affordable.

"Our human brains understand things that go like this. And we're really bad at gauging things that go like this."

Personal Care and Everyday Skills [0:33]

• Sewing a button is presented as a useful skill, exemplified by a wedding scenario.
• Learning to iron a shirt is also included.
• Restarting a water heater is a practical household task.
• The ability to ride a motorcycle is mentioned, with a humorous anecdote about potential apocalypse scenarios.
• A more abstract skill is learning to stop paying for things you don't understand, exemplified by mysterious phone bill charges.

"Good thing you're there. Your little brother technically got the job title, but we all know who the best man is today."

Culinary and Food Preparation Skills [0:49]

• Cooking a good steak and grilling a good burger are presented as essential skills, covering skillet, gas, and charcoal grills.
• Dicing an onion is demonstrated with a standard method and a humorous "crazy way."
• Cooking rice correctly, including rinsing and a precise water-to-rice ratio, is explained.

"I rinse my rice to get rid of starch. I don't want to hear it. One part rice, two parts water. Bring to boil. Lower heat. Cover. 15 minutes. Turn heat off. Let it sit for another five. Fluff it."

Navigation and Fire Management [0:21]

• Reading a map and finding north without a compass are fundamental navigation skills.
• Starting and tending a campfire is a practical outdoor skill, described with a playful analogy of building and burning a tiny house.

"See, the fire, gentlemen, is right here, but it's also been inside of all of you all along."

Entertainment and Social Skills [0:48]

• Having a solid party trick is recommended.
• Learning one song on an instrument from start to finish is ideal, with "Wonder Wall" humorously mentioned.
• Telling one actually good long joke is encouraged, though the example provided fails this criterion.

"Wonder Wall used to be illegal. Wonder Wall not illegal anymore."

Essential Knots [0:35]

• Learning useful knots is crucial, inspired by a friend's knot-tying skills.
• Five key knots are demonstrated: the bowline (for a mare on an island), the butterfly loop (for damaged rope), the sheet bend (for joining different sized ropes), the taught-line hitch (for adjustable loops), and the trucker's hitch (for tightening loads).

"Bunny comes out of the tree, around the tree, back down the hole."

Communication and Interpersonal Skills [0:53]

• Giving constructive feedback is vital, emphasizing kindness and clarity to provide a path forward rather than just criticism.
• Delivering a good toast or speech involves being concise, focusing on the subjects, avoiding inside jokes and negativity, and speaking from the heart.
• Memorizing names is a skill that can be practiced by using a person's name multiple times in conversation.
• Introducing two people effectively involves stating both names, your relationship to each, and ideally a commonality to facilitate connection.

"It's not about you. Have a plan. Keep it short. Don't make it about you."

Politeness and Practical Advice [0:52]

• Politely declining offers is presented as more honorable than making excuses.
• Putting out a grease fire safely, specifically by not using water, is a critical safety tip.
• Dressing appropriately for various occasions—weddings, job interviews, and generally as an adult—is discussed, with a strong recommendation to dress like Harrison Ford for timeless adult style.

"For a job interview, you want to look like you have your shit together because a job is basically getting paid to help everyone else keep the collective shit together."

Social Interaction and Respectful Disagreement [0:48]

• Talking to strangers is a skill that can be improved with practice and is often rewarding, despite potential social anxiety.
• Lifting things without hurting your back is a fundamental physical skill.
• Disagreeing civilly is presented as a key to maintaining positive relationships and a productive community.

"It's scary talking to people out in public, but it gets easier with repetition."

Receiving Compliments and Lifelong Learning [0:36]

• Receiving compliments gracefully is important; rather than deflecting or joking, a simple "thanks" is sufficient and less awkward.
• The ultimate skill, and the core message of the video, is learning how to learn new things, emphasizing that the ability and willingness to learn is the most powerful skill one can possess.

"The most powerful skill is the ability and willingness to learn. And the only way to get good at learning is to constantly push yourself to learn new things."