I did two years of welding in high-school. It's not a skill I use very often, but I'm glad I have at least the basics down. It could come in handy one day.
I started dabbling in hobby electronics as a small child and while I'm not professional electronics technician or anything, I can solder reasonably well and know my way around a multimeter / oscilloscope / etc. and can do some electronics repair and construction.
And in my years as a volunteer firefighter, I got my Firefighter Instructor certification and taught some certification classes, which has been valuable in terms of learning content delivery and being comfortable in front of large groups. Being a firefighter was also just generally valuable in terms of learning to be more confident / self-assured and having a stoic approach to high stress situations.
I'm bringing my vehicle to a mechanic next Saturday (first maintenance not in the vendor). I'm going to ask him how to change the tires. So far I only changed the driver swipe so there is a lot to learn.
Heh. I don't think anybody has ever used the word "perfect" to describe anything related to me before. But if my example can serve as some sort of inspiration or motivation or something for somebody, then I've accomplished something useful in life. :-)
> I'm bringing my vehicle to a mechanic next Saturday (first maintenance not in the vendor). I'm going to ask him how to change the tires. So far I only changed the driver swipe so there is a lot to learn.
No worries. As the old saying goes "start with where you are." One great thing about the age we live in, is that there is SO much knowledge "out there" to be consumed and large swathes of it are free. When it comes to, for example, auto repairs there are so many Youtube videos detailing step by step how to do many, many of the common (and some not so common) repairs one might be interested in. And so on for a myriad of other interesting tasks. The only thing I'd specifically add is that if you ever start doing any serious auto work, really really put "safety first". If you need to get under your car for any reason, make sure to use jack stands (and get quality ones, not from Walmart!) and chock the wheels so the car can't roll, etc.
It took some time, but once I applied it to work I was able to view my coworkers from a much more loving lens. Even when we don't get along, I always try to imagine that they might be going through something or have gone through something that's eliciting certain behaviors. It's a little creepy, but I do try to consider that they have a family, or are alone, or had a certain life, stuff like that. Might not even be entirely true, but this is how I chose to view things to keep the lantern burning at a modest brightness (not too bright, not too dim).
I don't use AI except for checking for basic mistakes. I may start using AI for research but I refuse to use it for generating a word of content.
I am thinking of writing a book. I have a rough idea of my rate 100 words per hour (including edits, research) so a 50k word book would take 500 hours or about a year of consistent grind. I'd probably blog the book content allowing for a win even if I abort early.
Most recently I’m learning fiberglass repair and gel coat (including color matching, which is really difficult for me). Before that, I built a wooden boat. Before that, sailing (which I’m still learning and intend to master at some point).
Fundamentally, learning not to be afraid to try something and learning the patience to be slow and make mistakes.
Local meetups like this are a great way to cut your teeth at presenting and public speaking. And yes, I speak from experience here. I did the firefighting instructor stuff mentioned above in my early to mid 20's but after I left the fire department behind and moved to a new area, I got involved in the Meetup / User Group scene and started doing a lot of these kinds of talks. Both experiences combined definitely helped me overall in terms of becoming a (somewhat) confident public speaker.
Toastmasters is also an option I hear good things about, but I have no first hand experience doing that.
* Test automation. I once wrote this test automation tool executed tests in the browser, file system, and command line. It also allowed remote execution of tests on other machines running the same application. That was super helpful and was the best window into performance analysis.