Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson needs no introduction. From a failed football player with seven bucks to his name, to one of wrestling's most legendary characters of all time, and ultimately becoming the leading male in Hollywood, The Rock has become the embodiment of work ethic, and oddly enough, “cheat day.” 

Over the last year, The Rock has leaned into his polarizing persona, and whether you love him or hate him, he’d say, “it doesn’t matter!”

We are going to discuss how The Rock can teach us how to become a polymath by introducing “the hub skill.” But first, here’s a quick primer...

There are THREE FOUR TYPES of Skills.

1. Soft Skills - Skills that relate to social awareness or connecting to others (ie. creativity, teaching, etc.)

2. Hard Skills - technical skills that involve learning through specialized training; can be associated with career-specific skills (ie. sound engineering, coding, editing, etc.)

3. Meta Skills - Mental skills comprised of habits and situational awareness that allow for the acquisition of new skills (ie. time management, goal setting, adaptability, etc.). Note that soft skills and hard skills can morph into Meta Skills. For example, reading begins as a hard skill and once internalized, becomes a meta-skill that allows for the acquisition of new skills.

4. Hub Skills - After studying the journey of hundreds of polymaths and multidisciplinary artists and entrepreneurs, I stumbled upon a fourth skill that nobody talks about, Hub Skills. These skills are the result of stacking a combination of the above skills in order to gain command of one skill. The biggest advantage of a hub skill is that once the overall skill is perfected, the stack can be broken into individual pieces to become hub skills of their own.

Similarly to meta-skills, hub skills can start as hard or soft skills, but when paired with a stack of other skills, habits, and resources, they create a flywheel effect (like a fan) that gives the perception of being one mastered skill.

SELECTING A SKILL

Here’s THE SECRET SAUCE to becoming a multidisciplinary creator (or polymath) and commanding many skills: stick to the pursuit of mastering one hub skill and pair it with consistent habits. Counterintuitive, I know. To illustrate, let’s talk about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

With a career-ending injury and seven bucks to his name, football was over for The Rock. He had to make a major pivot, and he needed to do so fast. Assessing what skills he already possessed and what he had been exposed to throughout his life, he landed on the idea that his current skillset could help him transition into a skill he knew he could learn: wrestling (👈 the hub skill).

LEANING INTO EXISTING SKILLS, HABITS & AVAILABLE RESOURCES

The Rock had only one shot to make it in wrestling. Keep in mind, this was a business where nepotism made you a target, so, as the son of an iconic wrestler and grandson to a legendary grappler, The Rock needed to be more than a decent wrestler. He had to be an expert. He took inventory of his existing skills, habits, and available resources and then leaned into them to help his transition into the sport. He was already athletic, knew how to practice, had a solid work ethic, knew how to train, and had a general idea for the business. 

Instead of starting from absolute zero, he used his existing skills, resources, and habits to help bridge the gap to where he needed to be to become a wrestler.

THE SECRET KEY TO TRANSFORMING ANY SKILL INTO A HUB SKILL: THINK BIGGER

When he was coming up in the independent scene, wrestlers made most of their money during autograph signings, and if you weren’t a crowd favorite, you went home with little to no money. Forced into a financial corner, Rocky quickly realized that if he wanted to make “bread,” he would need to expand his skill by learning and perfecting additional skills and go from “just another wrestler” to “the most electrifying wrestler.”

The Rock wanted to be more “marketable,” and ultimately broke down the skill of wrestling into smaller micro-skills that he needed to work on to expand his wrestling skill. The first stack of micro-skills were: selling (making the action believable to the audience), his promos (delivering interviews in front of fans), gimmick (portraying a character), crowd work, move set, business acumen, merchandising, etc. 

What started as just a hard skill that he needed to learn through training became a hub skill as soon as he thought “bigger” and expanded the skill by pairing additional skills with it.

In most of the cases I’ve studied, hub skills are born either out of the need to separate oneself from the pack or because the creative was forced to acquire additional skills due to limited resources. A good way to discover what skills you’ll need to pair in order to create your hub skill is to define the title or profession associated with the skill (aka who you are aiming to be), then add a pre-positive attributive adjective (describing a desired attribute, quality, or characteristic) before the chosen word that transforms the profession into an expert.

Example: The Rock would start off with “wrestler,” then add the pre-positive attributive adjective, “The most electrifying,” before it. Doesn’t that feel different?

LAUNCH IN BETA, FINETUNE & DARE TO FAIL BIG

The Rock improved and perfected every skill he could on the independent scene, and eventually “got the call” to try out for WWE (WWF at the time). While still “green,” and not yet having mastered his hub skill, he had amassed enough basic experience where he could finally be introduced to the public.

In tech startup terms, The Rock launched in beta.

He would now have to finetune his craft in front of an audience and adjust with instant feedback.

During this time, The Rock was once told that he couldn’t throw a punch to save his life. He took the feedback and obsessed with throwing a proper punch. Once perfected, he made it his own by turning it into a punch combo where he spits on his hand and slaps the bejeezus out of his opponent.

The one thing that evaded him was his “artistic voice.” His gimmick or character failed to land with audiences. He was not connecting with crowds… it got so bad that audiences across America chanted “Rocky Sucks!” This was all unfolding on national television. It was during this big ass public failure that, then Rocky Maiavia, found himself. He leaned into the hatred, and began to test a new character… The Rock.

“I am a lot of things, but sucks isn’t one of ‘em,” is one of the most iconic promos delivered in a wrestling ring in response to the feedback.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, don’t be afraid to publicize your work. In daring to fail big and publicly, you put yourself out there. And, putting yourself out there forces you to face feedback. Take notes on the feedback you receive, and if you receive it more than once, consider what skill(s) you need to pick up to plug that hole in your game!

ISOLATING SMALLER SKILLS AND MORPH THEM INTO HUB SKILLS

Fast forward a couple of years… The Rock went on to become one of the biggest names in wrestling and perhaps the most entertaining in the history of the sport. He became “the most electrifying wrestler.” When he reached his peak, he began receiving offers for Hollywood movie roles. That was when “acting” became his new hub skill… a skill he had already been working on to learn the hub skill of wrestling.

He leveraged his existing skills into his “acting” hub skill in Hollywood and became one of the most influential people in entertainment. The various skills he once used to stack in order to attain his hub skill, fell off and evolved into their own hub skills that he could build entire businesses off of.

After finding success in Hollywood, he expanded and broke off skills like merchandising, and branding, into their own hub skills when he launched a lucrative partnership with Under Armour.

The Rock had successfully isolated skills from the stack he used to build his hub skills and expanded them into their own hub skills. All by defining a key skill he wanted to learn and figuring out how to create his own unique version of the skill.

Let me introduce you to “The Skill Fan.” It’s a literal fan.

I created this exercise by combining elements of the S.W.O.T. analysis and goal mapping exercises, to help me uncover what I was missing in my career as a screenwriter to help me create a regimen of learning and a plan of attack. I want to share it with you!

Let’s use The Rock’s journey to learn how to use it.

STEP ONE:

You’ll need a notebook (or at least two pieces of paper), and something to write with.

On the first page, draw two lines to make three columns (see below). At the top, you’re going to write your desired skill, then label the columns: “SKILLS,” “RESOURCES,” and lastly, “HABITS.”Start writing down as many skills, resources, and habits you already possess. Under skills, you can use the four types of skills mentioned above as a roadmap to help you determine your existing skills. Habits may sometimes appear like a meta-skill, and that’s okay. Resources are anything or anyone that is readily available to you to leverage; you can also add things you have general knowledge about or things you possess. 

STEP TWO:

Draw a circle in the middle and write in the title or profession of the person who’d be an expert in the skill you’ve selected in.

Example: “wrestle” is the skill we want to learn, so, “wrestler” would be the title or profession.

Take a moment to think bigger. What would separate you from all of the other wrestlers? Being “the most electrifying” definitely would. Add this pre-positive attribute adjective above the title. This is the hub of your skill fan.

Next, our fan will need blades. Draw three blades and label them: “SKILLS,” “RESOURCES,” and, “HABITS.” Remove yourself from the equation and write from the point of view of the individual you’re trying to become. What skills would “The Most Electrifying Wrestler” possess? What sort of resources do they have access to? What do their daily habits look like? 

STEP THREE:

Draw a vertical rectangle (the shaft of the fan) and at the bottom draw a horizontal rectangle (the base of the fan). You are going to separate each rectangle into three quadrants. In the base of the fan, you will add your existing skills, resources, and habits.

Inside the shaft, write down the most immediate action you need to take or the milestone you need to hit in your journey first to becoming “the most electrifying wrestler.” The sequence of milestones and actions does matter. We can dive into that another time!

Underneath the action or milestone, select and write in 3-4 skills from the blades that you still need to learn and bridge the gap with 3-4 existing elements from your base. You may even uncover that you need to acquire additional resources, skills, or habits you initially didn’t think about.

By filling these out, we quickly realize that we are going to need wrestling boots ASAP, and maybe learn a few basic wrestling moves while we are at it!

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