<story><title>Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?</title><text>For the past several years I&amp;#x27;ve been putting in a lot of time into learning and sharing people skills (without the bullshit).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m interested in skills from dealing with your own emotions, through communication with close co-workers to high-stakes negotiating.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious: what are some people skills that you wish you had learned earlier in your career or that you wish your co-workers had easier access to?&lt;p&gt;Also: what are your favorite books and&amp;#x2F;or other resources that helped you?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>whiddershins</author><text>“How to win friends and influence people” is an absolutely wonderful book I wished I’d read 10 or 15 years before I did.&lt;p&gt;Some important ideas&lt;p&gt;- Just, get along with people. A bit reductionist but if you don’t place a high priority on getting along with people you certainly won’t learn how. It really is a habit, and it’s incredibly effective to remember the Cognitive Behavior insight that when you don’t get along with someone, you are almost always choosing not to get along with them ... you know exactly what to do to get along with them and just don’t want to do it.&lt;p&gt;- Conversly, not everyone will like you and that’s ok. You aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Being ok with that is an important mental tool.&lt;p&gt;- To crib from 12 steps or The Four Agreements, nothing is personal. DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. Even if someone hates you, it’s not YOU per se. It’s their experience of you. It’s not personal.&lt;p&gt;- It may be fair to say that it’s impossible to win an argument. Getting your way by “winning” an argument seems to come with an unacceptable cost attached most of the time. Try getting good at “yes and” style conversations where you run with the other persons point and build upon it creatively, it tends to make conversations more interesting than debating people. Truly, I find compulsive disagreement to be a boring conversational style.&lt;p&gt;- Take personal appearance seriously, and view it as an ongoing project too. So many people fall in to the trap of thinking they can avoid dealing with signaling, which is silly, you always are signaling so best take a look at what you are sending out there. I think it is very psychologically healthy to care for yourself, the act is good for you, and you can change how you present yourself gracefully as you age, which people screw up all the time and it makes them look older, somehow, instead of younger.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lookathrwaway</author><text>Throw away for obvious reasons. I find almost everyone intensely boring. How am I supposed to get along with people without feeling like a complete fraud?&lt;p&gt;Small talk, feigning interest in kids, in sports, in wine, in whatever useless dull, pedestrian thing a coworker is into.&lt;p&gt;I find that anyone who isn&amp;#x27;t a PhD (or could easily have been if they hadn&amp;#x27;t gone into industry) might as well be a paper shell. I can put on a mask of civility and charm when needed, but all I really want is to talk to deeply self-aware people struggling with the boundaries of human knowledge.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like you try to peel back a single layer of why people believe what they believe and there&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;nothing there.&lt;/i&gt; No reflection, no relevant context, no mirror provided by an intimate knowledge of history or literature ... just nothing.&lt;p&gt;Nearly every time I work up the motivation to try to really get to know someone who I think I may have judged too quickly I find religiosity, passive consumerism, an unexamined life, something so distasteful that it takes ages before I can do it again.&lt;p&gt;How do people put up with it?</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?</title><text>For the past several years I&amp;#x27;ve been putting in a lot of time into learning and sharing people skills (without the bullshit).&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m interested in skills from dealing with your own emotions, through communication with close co-workers to high-stakes negotiating.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m curious: what are some people skills that you wish you had learned earlier in your career or that you wish your co-workers had easier access to?&lt;p&gt;Also: what are your favorite books and&amp;#x2F;or other resources that helped you?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>whiddershins</author><text>“How to win friends and influence people” is an absolutely wonderful book I wished I’d read 10 or 15 years before I did.&lt;p&gt;Some important ideas&lt;p&gt;- Just, get along with people. A bit reductionist but if you don’t place a high priority on getting along with people you certainly won’t learn how. It really is a habit, and it’s incredibly effective to remember the Cognitive Behavior insight that when you don’t get along with someone, you are almost always choosing not to get along with them ... you know exactly what to do to get along with them and just don’t want to do it.&lt;p&gt;- Conversly, not everyone will like you and that’s ok. You aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Being ok with that is an important mental tool.&lt;p&gt;- To crib from 12 steps or The Four Agreements, nothing is personal. DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. Even if someone hates you, it’s not YOU per se. It’s their experience of you. It’s not personal.&lt;p&gt;- It may be fair to say that it’s impossible to win an argument. Getting your way by “winning” an argument seems to come with an unacceptable cost attached most of the time. Try getting good at “yes and” style conversations where you run with the other persons point and build upon it creatively, it tends to make conversations more interesting than debating people. Truly, I find compulsive disagreement to be a boring conversational style.&lt;p&gt;- Take personal appearance seriously, and view it as an ongoing project too. So many people fall in to the trap of thinking they can avoid dealing with signaling, which is silly, you always are signaling so best take a look at what you are sending out there. I think it is very psychologically healthy to care for yourself, the act is good for you, and you can change how you present yourself gracefully as you age, which people screw up all the time and it makes them look older, somehow, instead of younger.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cannonedhamster</author><text>Just getting along with people is pretty reductionist on that idea I agree. It&amp;#x27;s a fantastic book and I agree with you on every part other than that bit of explanation. I think a better way to phrase it might be to find a way to say things in ways that aren&amp;#x27;t offensive, which takes a long time to learn, and don&amp;#x27;t look for a fight when it isn&amp;#x27;t looking for you. You&amp;#x27;re not always going to be able to say the same thing to different people and get the same results, this is a lesson that took me a long time to learn. I would say things I didn&amp;#x27;t find offensive in the slightest, nor did I mean in any way insulting, however others would take it as a personal insult, even if it was just simply the reality of the situation.&lt;p&gt;A way to meet the second part of don&amp;#x27;t go looking for a fight is to follow advice that&amp;#x27;s actually a rule here and assume the best possible interpretation of what&amp;#x27;s being said.&lt;p&gt;I really love this recommendation.</text></comment>