[edmundsauto]

Being able to narrow your focus to the important big things.

Building for the long term.

Everyone wants to do things quickly. That’s hyperscale hangover. while you can make a decent whiskey in just a year or two, the really good stuff requires more time.

Practice saying “no” to good ideas that excite you.

[bosch_mind]

I’m going to +1 this. I’ve been doing a lot of breadth stuff in my career to see what’s out there and see what I like. UI, backend, distributed systems, CS masters in ML, bunch of just random shit.

All I can say is now that I’ve seen a bit, I’m ready to kind of just focus on the fundamentals more. Everything is rooted from the fundamentals and as I learn more raw, low level stuff, the less daunting all the other crazy stuff seems

[mightybyte]

Both breadth and depth are useful. See my comment elsewhere here about learning with iterative deepening.

[nextos]

This is so true. However what are the important big things of the 2020s and 30s?

Most people won't persevere because they usually loose faith or lack perspective.

[edmundsauto]

Have you ever gone surfing for an entire day?

Opportunities are like waves. They come in bunches, but a good set doesn't mean every wave is good. Sets are unpredictable, but you know when they're on you. You need to be ready to catch the wave, and sometimes it fails underneath you despite looking like a winner.

So not to be too vague, I would say the best adaptive skill is being able to recognize a wave, paddle hard into it, and cut out as soon as you realize it's not going to give you the ride you want. There may be patterns out there, but instead of predicting it's best to react with vigor.