Mark Cuban: 3 Soft Skills Lead To Success — Why He Says They’ll Never Stop Doing So
Written by
Laura Beck
Edited by
Rebekah Evans
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Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur and investor, has built a career on identifying opportunities and staying ahead of the curve. He often talks about business strategy and technology, and he frequently emphasizes that success is more than just industry knowledge and technical skills.
More important than anything else, Cuban said, are three soft skills — curiosity, agility and adaptability. These are key to thriving in any era, he said.
“The skills you need for a job today, ten years, 100 years from now, are always the same,” Cuban explained. “You need to be curious, because everything’s changing. You need to be agile, because everything’s changing. And you’ve got to be able to adapt, because everything’s always changing.”
These traits can help anyone succeed in a world that’s always changing.
Curiosity
Curiosity is the foundation for staying ahead in a fast-paced world. The drive to learn and explore new ideas will keep you from simply reacting to change, but instead actively looking for new opportunities within it.
Curiosity pushes you to expand your skill set and your knowledge base. Curiosity means you’ll be taking advantage of new technologies and pushing their boundaries, instead of resisting change.
“If I was a 16-year-old kid,” Cuban said, “I would be all in on large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini.”
Embracing tools like ChatGPT and other AI technologies means you’re not just keeping up, you’re getting ahead.
Agility
Agility means more than just moving quickly. It’s more important to be nimble — able to pivot immediately when you have to change strategies. After all, circumstances are always changing, bringing new information and new hurdles to climb.
Being agile means embracing that uncertainty. Cuban pointed out that even as technology evolves unpredictably, if you stay agile, you’ll always be able to shift direction when and follow the markets and the trends as needed.
Adaptability
Adaptability is closely tied to agility. Adaptability is about being able to weather unexpected challenges and thrive in unfamiliar environments.
This means being ready to respond to the future and whatever changes it brings. Being able to adapt is what keeps leaders and businesses competitive, especially when they’re going through a period of upheaval.
How These Skills Work Together
Curiosity, agility and adaptability aren’t standalone traits — they complement and reinforce each other.
“I can pretend that I’m going to be able to predict where AI is going and the exact impact on the job market, but I’d be lying — I have no idea,” Cuban said. “But I do know that I’m going to pay attention and be agile and be curious and be able to adapt. “
Curiosity drives you to explore and learn, agility ensures you can pivot when necessary and adaptability helps you survive and thrive throughout.
This is more relevant today than ever. AI and related tech are reshaping industries, and technical know-how on its own isn’t enough. Tools and systems will always be changing. If you want to stay on top of these changes, then you need to stay curious, stay agile and stay adaptable.
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