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Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#71

Post by snarkypixel »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #58

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's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'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, s…

Adding to that, even if you don't like negotiating, it's helpful to understand the tactics used by the other person so you can counter them (or at least be aware of it).

For instance, my favorite tactic when someone is pushing hard to sell me something or negotiate is the "Appeal to the authority" (i.e. "Let me first talk about it to my wife (or co-founder) about it."

Another popular negotiation tactic is to get asked between option A or option B, where in fact you could simply respond with "option C is more what I'm looking for".

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#73

Post by semicolonandson »

camnora wrote: post #9

Destroy All Software screencasts by Gary Bernhardt has some great content. Besides the typical CS degree, I felt that these videos were most pivotal in me writing better code. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts

I was so disappointed when Gary stopped filming these videos that I started making my own screencasts in that style (non-beginner concepts, fast-paced, language agnostic, and terminal-first).

They are on my site here:

https://www.semicolonandsons.com/

I'm not Gary, so the focus is shifted towards areas I have special interests in — namely: the day-to-day of running a software product business as an indie hacker/solopreneur.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#74

Post by deepstack »

deepstack wrote: post #72

if you have PSD just use some services to convert it to HTML5. No point hiring a front end developer.

What I mean is if you are making a SPA. Which is often NOT needed for regular web site unless you have a good reason to do so.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#76

Post by radihuq »

gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

How did you find your coach?

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#77

Post by esond »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #58

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's induced in many negotiation situations. So far I'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, s…

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.

You really don’t realize how much negotiating you do in day to day life. Its good to be comfortable with it.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#78

Post by zorked »

bJGVygG7MQVF8c wrote: post #16

A subscription to O'Reilly's digital library https://learning.oreilly.com

This is the thing that used to be called Safari, right? This is great, but a tad expensive at $50/month. I wish O'Reilly would just charge a bit less for that.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best money you have spent on professional development?

#80

Post by miguendes »

gtf21 wrote: post #67

As a founder / CTO the best money I have spent is on a really good coach. My coach (my cofounder's too, and now some of our leadership team) doesn't have particular expertise in founding or leading companies, but works with many founders, and she's not technical, but the things I think I have found hardest to learn are mostly around people management and leadership, which I think are underrated skills that require se…

I'm considering hiring a coach to improve my soft skills. The problem is finding the right person. Do you have any tips on how to find such person?

Edit: software -> soft

I mean stuff like better communication, goal setting, learning strategies, negotiation skills...

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