In a world where many folks love to brag and show off, there’s a special group that’s really good at keeping things low-key – the art of downplaying their own awesomeness. Imagine it: someone quietly rocking at something without making a big fuss. While others are shouting for attention, these unsung heroes smoothly go about their business, avoiding the urge to brag. So, spill it, friend. What’s your secret skill, the thing you’re great at but don’t brag about? Welcome to the club of unsung skills, where being chill isn’t just nice; it’s a whole skill.
My 2 1/2-year-old has recently been hugging me and saying “I love you, Daddy” and saying “please” and thank you” unprompted. He’s recently out of diapers and drinks from a regular cup/glass most of the time and is at the very beginning stages of learning how to read.
So, while it’s certainly not all because of me, lately, I’ve been killing it at the whole dad thing. I’m average or less in many aspects of life, but I’m a dad through and through.
I make dentures for a living. It’s probably quite boring to most, but I do it quite well and have certainly been appreciated by Dentists for coming into their surgeries to help with difficult cases. I get a kick out of helping people and making them smile, and other than that, I just disappear back into my little room, and the world keeps turning.
I felt particularly bothered to log in and write this because it seems to be only the fun things that people get credit for… there are awards and accolades for Sports, Art, Photography, etc but never for the boring more mundane things. We certainly don’t live in a merit-based society.
Hyping people up. I will hype you up for literally anything, all day long. I don’t even have to know you. We could just be passing on the street. You wanna ask out your crush? LETS GET IT. You’re finishing up a run? YES BABY GOOO. Youre gonna ask for a raise at work? GET. THAT. BAG.
I try to compliment strangers every single day and generally just help people feel better because life is hard, bro.
So if any of y’all need some hype, lemme know. Also, don’t forget ur a beautiful person inside and out, and you are way stronger than you think you are. ❤
Cleaning. I’m so good, that I started my own home cleaning business (I’m a one-man show) and, in almost five years, have never needed to advertise. All of my clients have come to me by word of mouth.
I finally was able to achieve my childhood dream and got picked to be a pilot in the Air Force. And I’m going to make it 4 years in college without any kind of student loan, all cause of how stupidly lucky I got on my ACT.
I finished Law School on Friday at the age of 25. I’m one of the youngest members of my class, and I’m proud of it. There were a lot of people betting against me since I walked in on my first day with an Elle Woods-type pink laptop, but I DID IT!
I am consistently one of the two top loaders in the warehouse I currently work at. I would also scan 10 per cent of the daily volume at the last place I worked and also won employee of the month in the first month of the first facility I worked for. I like boxes.
I just got a job offer after being unemployed for a year. It allows me to work remotely, and I am making twice as much as I was when I got laid off last March. I am so grateful, and I just wanted to tell someone without feeling like I am bragging.
I’m a pretty sweet drummer in a band I love. I have so much fun at gigs, and people keep telling us that we are awesome and refreshing. A sound man said the other day, ‘Wow! That reminds me of everything I like about music!’ after our soundcheck. Also, my girlfriend is awesome, and I have cats.
If you are interested in hearing us, then we’re called El Burro. There are some pretty poor-quality videos on YouTube under their username elburroband.
Came to the US 10 years ago by myself with only $50 in my pocket and a small backpack with 2 extra pairs of jeans, 4 extra T-shirts (and some extra underwear and socks). I also couldn’t speak English well. I had no real plan and nothing but my brains and my 2 hands “to make it.”
I now run a marketing company, live in a nice apartment, own a nice car, and a nice motorcycle, and am married to a smart, nice, and beautiful girl.
Well, I’ve come in first place at several science competitions, and also in several math ones. The really awesome part was when I moved schools, after helping the first school take the math trophy from our rival school. Then, as I moved TO the rival school, I helped them take it back. It was the exact same teams, but the difference was me. Then I also spent a year practicing maps so that I eventually could draw the entire map of the world (countries and provinces) from memory, with labels. Then in an individual math competition, I came in the top ten in the state, which I am REALLY proud of. I’ve also kept straight A’s my entire life, while also doing sports, theater, clubs, band, you name it. And I’ve found that I seem to be pretty much good at every single thing I’ve ever really tried. Singing, dancing, anything intellectual… even video games. Every. Single. thing.
Wow. That felt really good. I never get to say all that out loud without everyone hating me.
I play on the varsity lacrosse team for my high school, and I scored the game-winning, overtime goal in our opening game against our conference rivals a couple of days ago. So that was fun.
I have a very well-developed musical ear. I can point out just about any detail you can ask about if I hear it, and I can replicate most songs I hear on the piano. Can’t really brag about it since I feel like it just comes out sounding pretentious.
I successfully ran away with the circus over the last five years. Now several of the progenitors of the circus art I perform say that I am among their favorite artists in the field. I am making my living in one of the most expensive places to live as a full-time performer, and I have frequent foreign visitors and places to stay all over the world.
Freshman year of college I rescued a football player from drowning in the pool. This was like the second week of college. The extent of my swimming ability is to barely get my skinny 6’7″ frame where I need to go. A group of football players came in while I was diving off the diving boards. The football players all start doing flips and crap, having a good time. Then the last guy, a Freshman safety, decides he wants to go. He jumps in, but when he gets in the water, he starts flailing around. The lifeguards were there, but they were laughing with all of his friends because they thought he was “joking.” After a while of him struggling, I figured I would jump in because no one else was doing anything. So I, who sucks at swimming, jump in and try to grab this football player who is considerably shorter, but stronger. His instincts had him grab my neck and head and push me down. I had to elbow him off of me after taking two big gulps of water. At that point, I thought I just killed this dude.
I swam two big strokes toward the edge of the pool and was able to reach his flailing hand. I reeled him in, and, all of a sudden, we were both fine, and all of his friends and the lifeguards were standing there like idiots.
Turns out this guy couldn’t swim, but, his friends made it look ‘easy’. I am the sole reason why this kid’s parents didn’t get a call from half a country away saying their son drowned in the college pool with two lifeguards on duty and seven people in the pool. Who knows what sort of bad PR I saved the school? Those lifeguards kept their jobs.
……..Didn’t ever get any recognition for this except the fact that the kid was really thankful. This taught me that I actually can react in an emergency situation.
I mean, I’m by far the best illustrator in my class of aspiring graphic designers and one of the strongest in my whole building (that specializes in applied and fine arts). Not the most experienced, I’m painfully aware of it, but one of the most skilled, passionate, and perhaps promising (if I’m responsible and diligent about practicing hard and daily, as I plan to)
I know I’m not that great in the big picture, there’s a lot of amazing guys out there that easily put me to shame… But I’m a big fish in my little pond, and it makes me proud sometimes. Especially the potential of being one of the great guys worldwide if I apply myself hard enough.
My babies were born at 29 weeks, weighing just 2lb each. They are happy, healthy 5-year-olds now, and I could not be more proud of them. They spent their third trimester in the NICU learning to breathe, eat, maintain body temp, and everything else a fetus usually learns while floatin’ around a uterus, all calm and quiet and dark. They endured daily heel pricks for blood tests during their entire NICU stay. They had two blood transfusions each. One had hernia surgery before he left the NICU, and only 2 days of Tylenol for pain management after. No one is stronger than a preemie IMO. They were the coolest before they even left the hospital.
I may not be the toughest or strongest soldier but I certainly try my best, and I was chosen to be the platoon machine gunner despite my small size because I was the best at handling infantry weapons.
Uh, I never get to brag because people just downright down, believe me, or think I’m trying to one-up them. I’m not i swear 🙁
I drove cattle for 8 years across the great American West, have been riding horses since I was 3, and have been a highly awarded jumper, reining, and one award in dressage. Worked with predatory birds (eagles, hawks and stuff) for 3 years, helped in relocating and nursing back those that had met unfortunate circumstances. Ended up going into falconry but left it when I saw the state of long-time falconry birds. In short, it got too personal with politics and stuff. Then I went into volunteering with the herpetology society and fell in love. I worked there for 2 years with alligators, crocs, snakes, tarantulas, you name if it has teeth and isn’t a fish, I’ve handled it. wolves, bobcats, and illegal animals that are being quarantined. etc 🙂
I’m a really skilled driver, of pretty much anything on four wheels. Race track, drifting, snow, mud, quads, race cars, trucks, buggies, jeeps, I’m just good at it. None of my friends like cars or spirited driving, so it doesn’t come up.
I’m a hospice nurse, and I have always gotten these “feelings” when something is about to happen. I can often tell when someone is going to pass away. For obvious reasons, I don’t “brag” about it. Over the years, I’ve gotten those weird feelings about something, like I should take another route or I do something I usually don’t do for some reason. Afterward, I found out that there was an accident on the road I usually take or something happened at the place I always go to.
I’m very good at imagining 3d objects with perfect details, which enabled me to draw them on paper perfectly.
this is my last year at high school, and during this year, I was at the top of my school in terms of mechanical-related subjects. Not only was I able to quickly understand any given blueprint with little to no effort at all, but I also helped my colleagues to understand them better by drawing them in 3d which they took home later.
we have very little access to 3d modeling software here since they are very expensive, and even if we had one, that probably dates to the Stone Age.
this is the reason, my dream since I was a kid to become a mechanical engineer since I had a superb love for that subject, and with my skills, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to handle it perfectly
I have done a fair amount of disaster relief work. I’ve held people and cried with them as they told me of their lost family members, and their destroyed homes, and been able to compartmentalize that and lead groups of volunteers to build shelters.
I’ve dealt with corrupt politicians, and dangerous gangs, almost died in an earthquake, and been about to keep going when it was so hard, my body hurt so much, and I was so emotionally drained.
I’ve had my moments. I’m currently depressed and in a very dark spot, but dammit, I’ve helped this world. I’ve helped people who were sleeping in the dirt to get under better shelter. I’ve helped a baby whose mother was crushed in an earthquake get formula when no women were lactating in her village. I’ve played with children in a refugee camp and given my heart fully.
I work in customer support for a game, and I had a low-ticket day. A guy was writing in that his 8-year-old daughter really loves the game but is struggling a bit with the more complex parts of the game, and he asked if a sandbox environment is planned for the app on Android. The game has been finished for a few years, and it was never meant to have continuous updates or DLC or anything like that. Android, unfortunately, doesn’t really allow mods on phones and makes it nearly impossible (I actually don’t know the exact reason) to implement them, but the game is available on PC and consoles as well. PC is the only device where mods are supported, and we have a clunky cross-save mode where you need to manually upload your save file and then type in a code to your other device in order to download it somewhere else.
So after exchanging a few replies with the father, it was clear to me that she’s REALLY into it, but they don’t have a PC where unlimited money/points/etc. cheats are possible. So for the first time while working there, I actually looked into mods, and I found a simple save file modifier that can give you those exact things, money, skill points, etc., so I downloaded that, started a new game, entered her name and “gamer girls rule” as her save game name, started the modifier, gave her all the things she wanted, saved the game, uploaded it and then sent it to her father. She can now play the modified save file on the phone because it doesn’t require any third-party files like big mods usually do. He messaged me again a few days ago, saying she is having so much fun and is getting super creative in her game because there is just nothing stopping her experimenting with it 😀
I was never told if I was allowed to do that or not, but at this point, I just didn’t care. It felt good, I did it off-clock and I’m sure there is absolutely no harm in it. I haven’t told anyone this yet, lol
I can recommend a book to almost anyone that they will like after a few questions. :D. Sounds stupid, but I love reading and books so much, and I LOVE having people come up and tell me how much they enjoyed whatever book it was.
My wife and I got married when we were 20, and we had only been together for a little over a year before the wedding. A lot of people tried to talk us out of it, thought we were pregnant, or made it clear that we were being reckless. We just had our 10-year wedding anniversary and haven’t been more in love with each other. Also, we still don’t have any kids (we don’t want them), so that’s something else to brag about.
I was able to let an 8-year-old enjoy cake for the first time in his life.
This happened a couple of years ago, but I used to work at a cupcake shop when they were super trendy. We were used to making dairy-free and gluten-free cupcakes, sometimes even “sugar-free” (Splenda and xylitol sweeteners).
One day a lady came in and asked if we could make something for her child, who was allergic to ALL the things. No dairy, no eggs, only a specific type of salt, and he had some kind of issue with gluten. Like, I don’t remember her saying he was allergic/intolerant to gluten. She just said he couldn’t have it.
I almost turned her away, because I just couldn’t think of anything. But luckily, a few days prior, we made some vegan cupcakes for a special order. At the time, I forgot vegan things even existed, and that was our first-ever request in the 2 years I was working there.
So I remembered the vegan cupcakes, and then I just decided to follow that recipe and just substitute the flour for gluten-free flour. The frosting was just shortening and powdered sugar. I checked with the mom about the other ingredients, and she gave the go ahead.
I made a batch of cupcakes, with one that was a bit larger just for him. I was admittedly a bit anxious after I gave them the cupcakes. No matter how much precaution you take with someone who has an allergy, nonetheless several, you’ll always have an “Oh crap, I hope they don’t die” in the back of your head.
The mom and her son came back a few hours later, and they both thanked me.
My boyfriend. I’ve been single for 8 years and had given up on finding anyone. Just over a month ago, I started dating the most perfect guy that I already know I’m gonna spend the rest of my life with. He works so hard even when he really doesn’t have to. He takes care of his friends and me and doesn’t ask for anything in return, even if I say I’m not hungry he brings me food he cooked, he brags about me to his friends, and he makes every effort to show and tell me how much he loves me, and he’s always honest about everything. He may not be perfect for everyone, but it’s like he was made just for me, and I’ll never stop bragging about how well he treats me.
Crocheting and it doesn’t help that I can’t sell products because of all the competition :/ I am pretty good at it, in my opinion, though I learned fast.
I am a great time manager. I can get so much work done without having to cancel anything important and I never leave anything last minute. I don’t like to brag about it because I know how many people struggle with that and I don’t want them to feel insecure about it. I don’t know how I got that skill but I feel really privileged with it especially after I seen how many closed ones suffer from the lack of it.
I passed the most difficult level (N1) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), after studying intensely in my free time, as a hobby, for 7 years. This included learning to read and write over 2000 Japanese characters. I live in the United States and rarely get to use my Japanese skills at all. On the rare occasion that I meet a Japanese person and start speaking with them, they marvel at my abilities and the fact that I passed the test because, apparently, it is perceived even by native speakers to be quite difficult. The other 99.9% of my life, that massive effort and a huge chunk of my life, kind of sits there idly, as if it never happened.
I have a great phone voice. Coworkers regularly point it out or make comments on how I should do toilet paper commercials. When someone doesn’t feel confident about how to handle themselves on the phone, they get told to listen to me.
I’ve never done anything professionally, but I’ve done the IVR recordings for a few places I’ve worked, e.g., press 1 for Sales, and press 2 for support. Please stay on the line to hear our privacy statement. I record the Christmas message every year when our office shuts down, and we turn the phones off. Makes me feel like the queen.
Years ago, I read somewhere that successful newsreaders are men, or women with deeper voices – lower tones command authority. So I made an effort to speak slowly, softly, and at the bottom end of my range, and the amount of times I had to repeat myself at work dropped dramatically.
I rekindled my love for working out. I have a workout diary which I have filled in 4 workouts now. It feels so motivating. I have lost 3lbs this week (and 10lbs this year) but am not focusing on weight loss.
I was to be strong and fit and eat nourishing food (I used to calorie count, and it has become depressing, and I am aware of what portions I should be eating, so it shouldn’t be something I dwell on anymore). I am sure that will lead to weight loss.
I want to be fairly fit before I turn 30 in January. I have 8 months to lose 30lbs. I live for the outdoors and love hiking, rock climbing, and gymnastics. I just want to be healthier. It’s important for me to have a flexible schedule as I work shifts and not put too much pressure on myself so as not to exacerbate my anxiety and depression.
Right now, I am proud because I feel like I have found the key to success for being healthy, and I feel pumped after a hard morning workout.
I make amazing chicken soup. I am making some tomorrow. I make the stock from scratch. It’s actually a 3-day thing. Day 1 I roast a whole chicken covered in rosemary lemon butter. I shred the leftover meat off the carcass. Day 2 I make chicken sandwiches out of some of the leftover meat. Basically, a chicken melts on sourdough bread with the leftover chicken, Jarlsberg, and smoked gruyere cheese. Then I make the stock out of the chicken carcass, herbs, carrots, celery, and onions. I add the last of the chicken meat and egg noodles to make the soup. I’m no pro chef, but it’s really good soup.
I am an expert at sleep. I can fall asleep even when caffeinated. I once went to sleep after snorting speed. My record is sleeping for 72 hours straight through, only allowing for peeing.
I wish I could monetize it by being a Sleep Surrogate.
skiing!! Like nothing I ever did before I could fly! By the end of the first day, I was hitting the big jumps. I went 5 times then I found a tumor in my knee. This was in 2001. Surgery was a waste knee too painful to run, let alone ski. But it kept me outta the military (I really wanted to go. It was just after 911 when I was 18 years old). While recovering, I met my wife never been happier, so I would not change anything.
Playing host. Even at other peoples’ functions, I generally tend to end up organizing, coordinating, fixing, cooking, prepping, etc… to ensure everyone else has a great time.
Its something I enjoy doing because I get to stay busy, feel like I’m not a mooch, and it helps those who planned the event by relieving some of their stress. I don’t like sitting around, and I’m horrible at segueing my way into conversation groups, so I just float around doing what needs to be done.
I was so good at basketball. Nobody could hang with me. I understood it and dominated at a high level from a young age. Went to college camps from jr high through my freshman year, and sat on the bench for my varsity team. It was set in stone that I would be starting point guard the next year for varsity. My mother’s problematic habit took over again in my 10th-grade year, and we moved 4 times in 2 years. Killed my hopes of playing basketball on a high school team, and I never knew about walk-on college tryouts.
Colours (or colors for the USA folks). I’m pretty darn good at matching them, even if I haven’t seen them for a few days. I can pick fabric or paint etc, that’s an exact match to something else I’ve seen without having with me.
I can rewire guitars and understand wiring fairly well. I’m a decent player, sure, but I nerd out about engineering and wiring, and it’s something I don’t get to nerd out about often. I can understand complex wiring charts and break them down into individual sections to learn how they work, and I love experimenting with “How will this affect tone?” and “How can I stuff a flanger pedal in this thing?”. I can understand on a basic level how pickups work and explain the different types and how they react to different things. I also love to try and design my own parts, though I’m not good at fabricating. I’m a tinkerer at heart, and guitars allow me to both play music and keep my tinkerer side happy. I’m grateful that my handful of friends let me nerd out about this stuff, but I’m nervous that I bore them with all the science stuff, so I try not to do it too much. I also don’t really like bragging about my playing skill cause I don’t wanna be like YJM, but I don’t think I’m half-bad. Eruption isn’t as hard of a solo as everyone hypes it up to be. If you can tremolo pick and fret tap and own a guitar with a Floyd Rose, it’s actually easy. And restringing a Floyd Rose is also only a living crap the first time. After that, it’s actually easy and pretty fun.
I’m good at arranging the contents of the refrigerator. Most of the time, when my family thinks it’s full, I just rearrange it, and then boom, there’s enough space.
I’m really good at transcribing accurate sheet music and tablature. Everything I’ve put out has been rated at 5 stars and it makes me smile every time I get a new rating. I only wish I had more time to write, but I have a fairly severe chronic illness, so I’m lucky if I put out a new transcription every few months.
I’m super good at whistling. It’s just something I picked up really young because my dad always did and I tried to replicate it until I eventually could and haven’t stopped since. I’ve actually had a few people tell me on separate occasions that I should like to compete in it because I’m that good, lol.
I’m about 20 hours away from finishing my book. It’s by far the most effort I’ve put into any one thing. And I’m PROUD of it.
Overall, my personal discipline was lacking when I wrote most of it. The key is consistency. I told myself, “No matter what else happens in my life, I’m going to write for two hours each day.” And I stuck to it. Two months later, I had a rough draft.
Consistency is so key! If I had said to myself, “I have to write a book now,” it would’ve felt too big to tackle. But two hours? That I could do.
So, a lot of you are asking what it’s about. The super short version: it’s nonfiction, self-help. The “standard” way kids are taught to study doesn’t work very well. The effort-to-results ratio is pretty bad. I teach a different way to do it based on modern memory science. By embracing my approach, a person could get A’s while reducing study time by 50-75%.
I’m stupidly good at puzzles. Like 15 puzzles, mazes, and those wooden geometric puzzles that you have to put together. I had a math teacher once who had one of those wooden geometric puzzles, and she said that no one had ever solved the one she had, so I spent Christmas break on it and eventually figured it out. I think maybe I’m just stubborn and don’t like admitting defeat, but it’s one of the few weird skills that literally never comes up in conversation for me.
I’m really good at track stands on my bicycle. With every set of lights (of which there are many in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland) I can be sat down in my seat, with my feet off the ground, and be almost completely still until the lights change. I’m pretty proud of it though I feel like people don’t really care or understand that it’s quite a skill. Always makes my day when a fellow cyclist gives me a wee nod or acknowledges it.
I make awesome grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches. I made them all the time for my Shmu. Such happenstance running into this thread… I was just thinking today how I haven’t cooked one since Shmu left and thought I should make one for my daughter. I haven’t since she was younger, and I know she will love it as much as her grandma did.
Buttered bread with a whisper of garlic salt, fresh tomatoes sliced and cooked ever so slightly in southern gold, then pop those warmed slices on your bread with a choice of delicious melty cheese. (Tomatoes between slices to avoid soggy bread) grill till golden and crispy then wait till cheese and tomato goop in just this side of blistering your tongue and enjoy. It was always very validating when she’d ask me for one because she was a great cook, and I wish I’d gone over every day and cooked for her.
I’m quite good at geography, I can name almost all countries of the world (I like to use a Sporcle quiz to practice), and I can correctly place a good chunk of them. I like the challenge of memorizing them, and it often drives me to do research on these countries. I highly encourage everyone to try and do that. It’s not a hard skill and makes you much more curious about the world!
I have around 30 piano songs, mostly covers, on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, etc. I earn around $10 a month in royalties, lol. Used to pay for my Netflix each month, and then that went up. I never get to talk to ANYONE about it. No one gives a crap. Something I love to do, people couldn’t care less. Thank you for letting me talk about it here.
Thanks to Animaniacs, I can name all the US presidents and all 50 states and their capitals. The former netted me a ton of extra credit on an AP US History test where we could earn a point for every president we could list in order (and the teacher suspected me of cheating until I started singing the song to him). Meanwhile, the neighborhood ice cream truck has “Turkey in the Straw” as its jingle, and my brain immediately starts going, “Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus is the capitol of Ohio…”
I’m the #1 high school fencer in San Francisco after practicing for only a year (Technically, I got 2nd but the other guy graduated… still counts!). I am also very smart, if a bit lazy. I read and write at a much higher level than my classmates and ace tests without studying (I have never studied for a test in my life). I also have excellent speech/debate skills.
I always get the right-sized Tupperware for leftover food. My sister says that if there was a TV show type thing where you need to choose the exact size Tupperware or something – like you have half a pot of leftover soup and need to store it in the fridge and need to choose the right bowl out of ten or so -, I’d win every round. I learned it so I wouldn’t waste the big ones on little stuff or need two bowls for the same food. I’m pretty proud of it (Sorry if I didn’t use the right words for it, non-native English speaker)
