"Teamwork. You have to know how to work with people and get others to want to work with you. It's probably the crucial skill, and yet education is mostly about solo performances." ~ Jeff Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, on the most useful skill not taught in college or graduate schools.
We forget that there were twenty-two versions of the light bulb before Thomas Edison "invented" it. Or that there were twenty mechanical flights documented before the Wright Brothers launched the first successful glider. (h/t Barry Svigals)
And we forget about all the advantages some of us were born with -- loving parents, a stable household, a good school district, sports leagues, SAT prep classes.
We forget because we'd rather believe it was simply hard work that got us here.
There's a wonderful story about an anthropologist who wanted to measure individual intelligence in aboriginal people. He gave each member of the tribe a pile of interconnected blocks to put together as quickly as possible. When he said "go," the entire tribe gathered around the first pile and put them together. Then they all moved to the second pile, then the third, and so on all the way down the line -- as a group.
When the anthropologist tried to explain that each person needed to work independently, they couldn't understand him. They didn't know what it meant to work outside a communal purpose.
Independence is a nice idea, but largely a myth.