Has everyone heard this word? We've been taught for so long that a "skilled" person is the one who ranks first in exams, memorises quickly, answers the most questions correctly. But once we step out of the classroom and into real life, the meaning of "skilled" changes completely.
So I went looking at how others define "skilled."
Situational competence — having the skill to survive in a crisis. A quality specific to a person, combined with learning.
The ability to know oneself, stay motivated, make decisions to solve problems, and communicate effectively with others.
Let me give an example from the person closest to me — that person is my own father.
Whatever problem I face, I just describe it to him, and he looks at it for a few seconds and immediately gives me the solution — even for things I'd spent a long time thinking about without finding any answer.
Is my father skilled? Yes… my father is skilled.
But not because he's never made a mistake. On the contrary — I think my father is skilled because he's made mistakes before, learned from them, and can now understand problems faster. My father's definition of skilled is:
My Father's Definition of Skilled
My father once explained "skilled" to me in the simplest terms — so simple that at first I didn't think it would be this deep. He said:
Skilled means the ability to solve problems
that come into your life, even problems you've never encountered before. He didn't see skilled as knowing the answer, but as the ability to take the many pieces of knowledge you have and assemble them to find a solution. When I heard this I immediately thought of what AI does today — not thinking from zero, but connecting what exists to reach an answer.
My father summarised it simply:
Clever
And he believed this kind of intelligence doesn't appear by accident — it comes from a mind continuously trained. But he told me there's one more level of skilled, deeper than this.
He called it:
Wisdom (เจ้าปัญญา)
The ability to understand a problem directly without needing to analyse it; to know the solution immediately without walking through each step of reasoning. He compared this to the teachings of the Buddha — not everyone can understand it, but only those with genuine wisdom can reach it. And the final thing he left me to think about:
To become a person of wisdom you don't start by understanding the world — you start by understanding your own mind.
He said we must perceive ourselves truly, without bias, accept our own flaws, and not deceive ourselves.
For me, this is the deepest definition of skilled my father ever taught.
Not a kind of skilled you can show off to anyone.
But a kind of skilled that lets you live your life with understanding.
Wowza's Definition of Skilled
At some point I had the chance to talk with the Wowza group — a group where each person isn't skilled in the same way, but their perspectives on "skilled" all come from real experience. What I love is that no one defined it the same way.
Kim
Skilled means seeing through the whole system
Hard Skill side: Knowing techniques, but more importantly, being able to spot which point truly matters — from both the attack, defence, and remediation angles. A quick look at a system reveals vulnerabilities more accurately than waiting for AI to analyse, because the understanding goes beyond raw data to context.
Soft Skill side: Seeing direction as if seeing the future.
Sharp planning
Problems that arise tend to fall within predicted bounds (true meta vision)
Most importantly: not just skilled alone, but knowing how to bring out the potential in people who seem ordinary — guiding them to grow gradually. This is the skilled of a "leader."
Boing
Boing's definition of skilled starts with a simple phrase — but one that's very difficult to do:
Constantly striving and developing yourself
He sees skilled as having many sides — both Hard Skill and Soft Skill — and neither is less important than the other.
Soft Skill: Communicating so others understand; solving problems and passing on what you've found so others can continue the work even when you're not there — because skilled doesn't end at "I can do it." It extends to "I can make others do it too."
Hard Skill: The ability to find vulnerabilities and bypass defences, even if the system has been patched incorrectly.
As a junior, bypassing a WAF might take many hours — but as experience grows, the same task shrinks to minutes.
All of this comes from reading, studying, practising, doing research, and tracking new CVEs constantly. One crucial thing in this field is self-doubt. In the beginning the learning curve is steep — even "easy" boxes can leave you stuck, until self-esteem starts to drop.
But he chose not to stop.
Read more
Study more
Practice more
Until one day, looking back, he felt: it really was easy. And he summed up skilled simply:
Just be responsible for your work and be better than yesterday — I think that's skilled.
One More Person Close to Me
If you ask the definition of skilled from another person close to me, the answer I got was short and direct:
My definition of skilled is myself.
No long explanation. No reasons. No theory. But strangely, this sentence made me stop and think for a long time.
Sometimes, someone's definition of skilled
might not be about never failing, not about special ability, but about seeing the value in the person in front of you and believing in them even on the days they still doubt themselves.
I think that kind of definition of skilled carries no less power than any other.
Skilled People Aren't Skilled Because They Never Fail
From everything shared, I've come to believe that some things in life you have to fail at before you can become skilled. Of course not everything — some things, with good preparation, you might never need to fail. But real life is like learning to ride a bicycle for the first time: if you've never fallen, skip this article — because you're genuinely heaven-gifted.
So I believe:
A skilled person isn't someone who never fails — because those who never fail usually haven't tried anything hard enough.
If you've read my OSCP Journey blog, you know I sat the OSCP 3 times. Passing it wasn't something to be proud of at the time — but looking back today I feel grateful for every one of those failures.
Because I got back up every time. Not because I'm smarter than anyone else — but because I like to win. Not win against others — but win against myself. And honestly, winning against yourself is much harder than winning against someone else.
You need discipline.
Train
Try
Fall
And admit that you're not good enough yet
Think of something as simple as losing weight — you can't lose 10–15 kg in one day. Some people need more than a year.
Exercise
Control food
Control rest
Success doesn't come from "skilled" alone — it comes from trying, failing, learning, and persisting.
Many people have been there
My Final Definition of Skilled
Skilled isn't a matter of natural talent — it's our attitude toward failure, toward not knowing, and toward ourselves.
Nobody is born succeeding immediately. Nobody is skilled at everything. Nobody is entirely terrible at everything. We all have things we're good at and things we're not.
Everyone has fallen, been hurt, been disappointed. Others only see the result — they never see the path.
I love a line from the Naruto anime — when Rock Lee says:
Stronger than I was yesterday
Today is better than yesterday
It reminds me that we don't have to compete with anyone — just being better than yesterday's version of yourself is enough.
Skilled isn't about never failing — it's the ability to always get back up without losing yourself, and without abandoning responsibility.
And you?
What is your definition of "skilled"? How many times have you gotten back up?
