Many of the most useful skills are ubiquitous. For example, everyone here can speak, read, and write English. Most of us can drive a car, and I don't know of anyone here who can't walk.

In terms of skills that not everyone has, I was unusually good at schoolwork. To break it down into some of its most significant parts:

1) I was good at translating problems stated in English into mathematical expressions. 1a) I was good at identifying the information needed to do #1, and finding that information in textbooks.

(I actually know how I learned to do #1. I had an educational computer program that I used before I learned algebra that taught me how to do this. It would give a word problem of the kind used in an algebra class, and act out, step by step, the process of creating the equations used to solve the problem.)

2) I could do math very well; I could learn the rules for "shuffling symbols around" quickly and apply them to solve equations. I could also derive results on the fly that I didn't quite remember from class when taking a test.

3) I was good at answering questions on tests. I don't know why, exactly, apart from my math skills and overall good memory for the kinds of things that get asked on tests, but I was good at it.

Another, somewhat related skill: I am an unusually good writer, at least when compared to my high school classmates. (I'm not necessarily better than the average blogger, but the average person doesn't blog.) I think it came from spending an awful lot of time reading books, but I have no idea how to teach writing.

I also have the "useless" but fun skills of being good at video games and at Magic: The Gathering.