One night around a campfire, Zach tied a knot without hesitation, and something clicked for the people watching. That small, wordless moment of competence sparked a question worth sitting with: what does it actually mean to be useful? Over the weeks that followed, the Speeed crew built a list of 42 practical skills they believe every person should have in their back pocket, covering everything from emergency first aid to how to introduce two strangers at a party.
The skills that keep things from falling apart
The list opens on the unsexy but genuinely useful: know how a toilet works and how to fix one, how to reset a circuit breaker, how to remount a bike chain, how to change a flat tire, and how to jumpstart a dead battery. On that last one, the order matters: dead positive, live positive, live negative, dead ground, and a word of caution that as cars get more advanced, finding the battery at all is becoming its own challenge.
Learn CPR, but with one clarification the list is direct about: CPR is not to resuscitate someone. It keeps oxygen flowing to give a person a better chance of surviving until help arrives. Step one is always to call for help first.
The financial entries land with similar bluntness. Understand compound interest and try very hard not to find yourself on the wrong side of it. Have a basic working knowledge of how taxes function, because even if someone else files them, knowing what you owe and why keeps audits and worse outcomes off the table.
The knot-tying breakdown from Zach himself
Because the whole list started with Zach and a tent, five foundational knots get their own section. The bowline, the butterfly loop, which can isolate a damaged section of rope so the rest remains usable, the sheet bend for joining two ropes of different diameters, the line hitch for an adjustable loop under tension, and the trucker’s hitch for securing a load. On the trucker’s hitch, Zach noted that someone once called it out at their campsite, adding: ‘somebody in our camping video said, hey, nice trucker’s hitch, and that meant a lot.’
Beyond the practical and the physical, the list turns social. Learn how to give constructive feedback, because, as the list frames it, feedback without a path forward is just criticism. Learn how to give a toast and understand that a best man’s speech is about the couple, not about how long you have known the groom. Learn how to introduce two people properly: both full names, your relationship to each of them, and ideally one thing they might have in common.
Number 41 addresses receiving compliments, and it lands as quietly useful as anything on the list. Deflecting or downplaying a compliment forces the other person to keep pressing. A simple ‘thanks, that really means a lot’ and moving on is not arrogance. It is just cleaner for everyone.
Number 42 is the one the rest of the list was building toward: learn how to learn. The ability and willingness to pick up new things is described as the most powerful skill of all, and the only way to get better at it is to keep doing it.
The dress code nobody explained
For anyone who has ever stared at a wedding invitation wondering what ‘cocktail attire’ actually means these days, the list has a practical anchor: own a well-fitting suit. It does not need to be expensive. A cheap suit tailored to your body will always outperform an expensive one that does not fit. For job interviews, the advice is to research the culture before deciding what to wear, because at a creative agency, dressing ‘weird as fuck’ might genuinely be the right call.
For everyday adult dressing, the list offers a surprisingly specific benchmark: dress like Harrison Ford. He looked right in 1978, right in 1992, right in 2005, and still right today, including, as noted, the earring.
The list is described as ongoing, with the goal of eventually reaching a hundred entries and beyond.
The knot that started everything
Zach’s hands moving in the dark at a campsite, tying a bowline that nobody asked for and everyone quietly needed.
The list that followed is sitting there, waiting to be useful.
