Become a success by stacking your talents or skills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a post by Bo Campbell at the Davidson Blog in 2018 titled Talent stacking – the key to standing out from the crowd. Bo explained that:

 

“The term ‘talent stack’ was coined by cartoonist Scott Adams – best known as the creator of the Dilbert Cartoon series – to describe developing a variety of skills which combine to make someone a sought-after commodity. Adams describes his own talent stack [as shown above] in the following terms:

 

‘I am a famous syndicated cartoonist who doesn’t have much artistic talent, and I’ve never taken a college-level writing class. But few people are good at both drawing and writing. When you add in my ordinary business skills, my strong work ethic, my risk tolerance, and my reasonably good sense of humour, I’m fairly unique.’ ”

 

Success may not continue unabated. The Wikipedia page about Scott Adams notes that in 2023 he was dropped by both his book publisher and his comic strip syndicator.

 

There is an article by Darius Foroux on November 6, 2018 titled Skill Stacking: A Practical Strategy to Achieve Career Success. A second article by Thomas Oppong at The Ladders on January 15, 2020 is titled Skill stacking: Instead of mastering one skill, build a skill set. And there is a 2020 book by Steven West titled Skill Stacking: A practical approach to life, beat the competition and do what you love. And there is a post by Naressa Kahn at the Mindvalley Blog on February 16, 2025 titled How skill stacking can future-proof your career and make you indispensable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My stack of skills (shown above) includes writing magazine articles and reports, speaking in public, creating graphics for presentations, telling stories, and blogging. I had editing experience with reviewing magazine articles for both the materials science magazine Metallurgical Transactions and the corrosion engineering magazine Materials Performance.