A couple of years ago, I was reading the book entitled “Soft Skills” by John Sonmez. The book was super useful to me especially that I was exploring ways to improve my soft skills and learn all the tricks I can regarding how to start my own business, organize my time, etc.
In this blog post, I share with you some of the takeaways and excerpts from that book.
Job security is a state of mind:
“The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!” –Earl Nightingale
Becoming complacent at work:
When you’re used to getting a regular paycheck that isn’t really dependent on your performance, it can be easy to develop a mindset that you’re just an employee of a company. While it’s true that you may be an employee of a particular company at any given time in your career, it’s important to not let that particular role define you and your career.
Treating your employer as a client:
It’s better to think of an employer as a customer for your business of developing software. Sure, you might only have a single customer, and all of your revenue may be coming from that single customer, but viewing the relationship this way moves you from a position of powerlessness and dependency to one of autonomy and self-direction. (In fact, many “real” companies have one big client that makes up a majority of their revenue.)
A good product alone is not enough, marketing is also important
It’s important to at least realize that having a product or service by itself is not enough. You’ve actually got to be able to let potential customers know about that product or service if you want to make any money. Companies all over the world realize this key truth about business and that’s why they spend so much money and effort on marketing.
Most successful companies figure out how to get customers to come to them to buy their products or services; they don’t go out chasing customers one by one.
Breaking larger goals into smaller goals
The smaller goals keep you on track and motivated so that you keep heading in the direction of your bigger goals. If you set out to accomplish a big goal and don’t have smaller goals along the way, you don’t end up having time to course-correct when you’re off track. Smaller goals also give you frequent rewards that help motivate you. Small victories each day and each week help us feel like we’re making progress and accomplishing things, which makes us feel good about ourselves and helps us keep moving forward. Smaller goals also don’t seem as daunting as a big goal.
Taking action sit down and write out at least one major goal for your career. Break down that major goal into smaller goals that correspond to months, weeks, days. Write down your major goal where you can see it each day to remind you of what you’re striving for.
Be considerate and treat others with respect
Everyone wants to feel important Perhaps one of the most important concepts you should know when dealing with people is that, at their core, every single person wants to feel important. It’s one of the deepest and most desperate desires of the human race and the primary motivation for most great achievements in society and life. If you want people to accept your ideas and think them valuable, you have to extend the same courtesy first. You can never win a person’s heart if you do not leave their pride intact.
Being a thoughtful leader
Time and time again, studies have shown that rewarding a positive behavior is much more effective than punishing a negative behavior. If you’re in a position of leadership or management, this is an especially important principle to observe. You have to learn to bite your tongue and only speak words of encouragement if you want to inspire people to perform their best or you want to effect change.
“Avoiding arguments As software developers, we sometimes tend to think that all people think about things from a logical perspective. It’s easy to fall into the trap of falsely believing that solid reasoning is enough to compel another person to accept your way of thinking. The truth of the matter is that even though we like to pride ourselves on our intellectual prowess, we’re all very emotional creatures. I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument—and that is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.” –Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
If you recognize someone as being caustic, don’t try to change them, and don’t try to deal with them; just stay out of their way and limit your interactions as much as possible. You can recognize the signs of a caustic person by the trail of destruction they leave behind them. Some people seem to always be involved in some kind of drama and have bad things happen to them. They often try to play themselves off as the victim. If you recognize this pattern, run—run away as fast as you can.
How to get a job at a company you love
How I got my last job For the job I held before going out on my own, I determined ahead of time that I wanted to work for this particular company because they seemed like a very good company and they allowed their developers to work from home. I spent some time researching the company and found that some of the developers for that company maintained blogs. I started following all of the blogs of the developers who worked for that company and began putting thoughtful and relevant comments on many of their blog posts. Over time, many of the developers working at that company began to recognize my name and started to know who I was based on my comments on their blog. Some of them even started reading my blog.
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