People’s experience has been overestimated in the professional world.  Much of what we now know does not help us at all in a world of brutal and extremely fast changes.

It is clear that the skills and knowledge accumulated over our history are an important asset to develop any task, but neither is the only valuable factor, nor a guarantee of success for the future.

To have a confident and strong attitude to undertake any project on the future, I suggest dividing the management of skills and knowledge using the three- thirds  rule:

1/3 of capabilities provided by our experience: What do we know, learned both  from studies and the intense practice during our track until today. Here we need to consolidate the most useful coming from our experience, rejecting that one which is not useful any more, or even being alert that what we know doesn’t not become a limiting factor and a mental brake for being open to new needs and innovation to come.

1/3 of entirely new capabilities, that we need to learn and incorporate, in order to be prepared for the new challenges we will face in the future towards which we are heading. Here we have to be constantly open to learning new things with passion, humility and open-minded. Forget that classic expression that says "this has always been done like it", and understand that change is not the exception but the norm, and also an immense source of opportunities.

1/3 of capabilities that we do not know what they are and, therefore, we cannot even study or train, or prepare in any way, but which we will require when we will be in the facing the new challenge. We’ll have to be able to improvise an immediate learning, on the ground, in a situation totally unexpected, but equally essential to progress.  Maximising confidence in ourselves, our curiosity and our ability to adapt to each new situation.

So maybe the success formula to do any new project, is quite simple:

SKILLS REQUIRED = 1/3 EXPERIENCE + 1/3 NEW LEARNING + 1/3 ADAPTATION AND DEVELOPMENT