This is NPR's Life Kit.

My name is Ramell Wood.

I've been a radio producer for about five years.

I've never hosted anything for NPR before,

so it's fitting that this episode is all about how to learn a new skill.

I suggested this topic because one of my favorite questions to ask people when I first meet them is

what was the last thing you taught yourself how to do?

The question came in handy when I was booking contestants for NPR's game show asking another.

I found that it tends to crack people open and lead them to share something that they're really

geeks about having accomplished. So I reached out to a couple former contestants to see if they

remembered how they had they answered. This is Sam Capoli. He lives in San Diego.

Oh goodness, that was, teach myself how to drive a manual transmission.

Do you remember what the motivation behind that was?

Yeah, well, my mom tried to teach me years ago and I was like, I'm Hayes School Care.

It was my first year of college because it was a while back, but I was just not amenable to it,

got too frustrated and dropped it without giving a second thought.

Then they sold the old car that had the transmission and I felt, I know, sad or guilty.

Like I had missed that part of the family from doing that.

I also called up Amy Paul. She's a stay at home mom in Houston. A few years ago,

she told me she was trying to learn how to do a pull-up. And the reason really surprised me.

It was escape rooms. She and her family were getting really into them and while she was great at

the Puzzle Trivia themed ones, she struggled with the other kinds of escape rooms.

...