<story><title>Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a software engineer with a budget for professional development, I&amp;#x27;m looking for a good way to spend it. 
I&amp;#x27;m curious what other people have found valuable, it could be a book, MOOC, conference etc</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>esond</author><text>Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This relatively short book has made more of a difference to my personal livelihood than maybe any other pice of literature or advice.&lt;p&gt;You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.</text></item><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that&amp;#x27;s induced in many negotiation situations. So far I&amp;#x27;d say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, simply because I negotiated more effectively.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d highly recommend honing this skill as it will also help you as an employee, as even small gains in salary can add up to quite a lot of money over the years. For freelancers and entrepreneurs negotiation is also important of course and will greatly help you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ethbr0</author><text>+1&lt;p&gt;One key component that Voss spends a lot of time on -- if your counterparty comes out a negotiation &lt;i&gt;feeling&lt;/i&gt; like they lost, everyone loses.&lt;p&gt;The outcome of a successful negotiation is that a fair deal is struck, and everyone feels good (or at least not bad) about it.&lt;p&gt;There are very few situations in the real world that are true one-offs, where you&amp;#x27;ll never have to interact with that counterparty again. Consequently, scorched-Earth is a poor long-term approach.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?</title><text>I&amp;#x27;m a software engineer with a budget for professional development, I&amp;#x27;m looking for a good way to spend it. 
I&amp;#x27;m curious what other people have found valuable, it could be a book, MOOC, conference etc</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>esond</author><text>Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This relatively short book has made more of a difference to my personal livelihood than maybe any other pice of literature or advice.&lt;p&gt;You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.</text></item><item><author>ThePhysicist</author><text>I once did a two-day workshop on negotiation techniques, which covered not only methods but also helped me to become more comfortable dealing with the psychological stress that&amp;#x27;s induced in many negotiation situations. So far I&amp;#x27;d say the course (which was free as I won it as a prize in a business plan competition) is directly responsible for at least 50-100.000 € of additional revenue that I made in the last years, simply because I negotiated more effectively.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d highly recommend honing this skill as it will also help you as an employee, as even small gains in salary can add up to quite a lot of money over the years. For freelancers and entrepreneurs negotiation is also important of course and will greatly help you.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>5555624</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s also a TEDx talk: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ted.com&amp;#x2F;talks&amp;#x2F;chris_voss_never_split_the_difference&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ted.com&amp;#x2F;talks&amp;#x2F;chris_voss_never_split_the_differe...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>