Like many other people, I spend some of my time doing brainless activities like walking, running, commuting. To make this time more enjoyable, I decided to give audible a try. While browsing the available audio books, I found Soft Skills by John Sonmez, which is great  since I’ve had this book on my to read list for a while. Since I usually prefer more technical books, I never got around to read it.

This book is about software development, without being about software development. It covers many aspects of a software developer’s life, from career and marketing to finance and fitness.

Structure

The book is split into seven sections: Career, Marketing yourself, Learning, Productivity, Financial, Fitness and Spirit.

Career

The first section, introduces a new way of thinking about your career – as a business. It discusses the importance of standing out from the crowd and of having clear career goals.

This section also has some good tips on how to get a job – from interview preparation and tips to hiring a resume writer.

Then it touches on almost every career path you could take, with pros and cons. Everything is there: from being either an employee, a freelancer/consultant or an entrepreneur to working for a startup vs. working for a medium-size or large company. Since most of the people are employees, the author presents a pragmatic approach on how to quit your job and start working on your own, either freelancing or in a startup. And if you go down this route, he also tackles some of the challenges of working remotely: time management, self-motivation and loneliness.

Marketing yourself

The second section covers how to market yourself as a software developer. This is basically a trimmed down version of the How To Market Yourself Course. When people hear marketing, many of them think of late night infomercial scams. This section discusses why we need marketing and how to do it right. It goes over the basics of what a brand is and how to develop your own brand using various mediums:

• Building a blog
• Using social networks
• Speaking in public
• Writing (articles, books)

There is a lot of good advice for people starting out in either of these channels.

Learning

The third section covers the learning process, focusing on learning how to learn. Most of this section discusses the 10 step learning process that is also presented in the 10 Steps to Learn Anything Quickly course. I was already doing some of the steps unconsciously, but it definitely helps to have some structure in the process. I have applied the process a couple of times in practice and I’ve got good results.

The rest of this section discusses what qualities to look for in a mentor and how to find one. It also tackles the other side of the mentorship relationship: how to find an apprentice and the benefits of being a mentor. This section also briefly touches on the need of a degree in the software industry. This particular chapter might be useful for people that don’t know what advantages does a degree have and if it is worth the cost.

Productivity

The next section in the book talks about productivity. It starts with discussing focus and why it’s sometimes hard to stay “in the zone”. Then the author presents his personal productivity plan, which contains quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily planning. I appreciate this chapter, since it’s putting theory into practice with a concrete example.

Any section about productivity wouldn’t be complete without the Pomodoro Technique. John focuses on pomodoro as an estimation and planning technique. You can estimate not only how many pomodori a task will take, but also how many pomodori you get done in a day. The number is probably lower then you might expect.

Then, the author describes his quota system. This is a solution for handling repetitive tasks (e.g. I will write one blog post each week).

The next chapter briefly touches on accountability and the importance of self accountability. If this doesn’t work, external accountability (e.g. being part of a group or having a partner) might prove useful.

I enjoyed the chapters on routines and habits. This is something I’m looking to improve and these chapters have reminded me of the importance of having a routine. He defines what a habit is by breaking it down into its main components: cue, routine and reward. It also gives a few tips on how to identify bad habits and how to replace them with good habits. This chapter is useful for understanding habits. It’s basically a short summary of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit.

There are also some short chapters on multitasking and batching, how to push through burnouts, tracking time and measuring how much time you waste and how to break complex tasks into smaller items.

Financial

This is my favorite section of the book. I just didn’t invest enough time in learning about finances and some of the chapters have been eye opening. I should have known most these things by now.  Appendix A is also a good intro for this section. It contains a quick overview on the value of money, inflation and deflation, central banks and “regular” banks. This information is pretty basic so it’s not part of the main book, but it’s a good read if you don’t know these notions.

The first chapter in the Financial section discuses a basic way of thinking about your finances: assets and liabilities. An asset is something that provides more value than it’s maintenance cost. A liability is something that cost more than the value it provides. By thinking this way, you should think twice before taking a loan to buy an expensive car. This would probably be a pretty big liability on your account.

The second chapter in this section tackles salary negotiations. Getting a job is strongly related with your brand. If a prospective employer wants to hire YOU, because of your reputation, you already have the upper hand. The author also mentions you shouldn’t name a number first. This will ensure you have an advantage and are able to base your decision on an offer. He also gives a few good tips on how to handle situations when you are asked about your salary requirements or your current salary. The answer is to refuse politely.

Some other topics tackled in this sections are

• Stocks and options. Options are explained using a couple of practical examples that make them easy to understand. This was useful to me, since I must admit I didn’t really know what an option is. Appendix B also discusses how the stock market works and how to trade funds in the stock market.
• Why debt is dangerous and what kind of debt might be good.
• Retirement plans

The author also talks about real estate investment which is, in his opinion, the best investment option.  He backs his choice with some compelling arguments (stability of rental properties, low risk) and a couple of examples. There’s also quick intro on how to get into real estate investing:

• get more knowledge on the market and run mock scenarios
• learn how to make offers
• inspect the property
• get financing
• use property management

As a bonus, John also shared his own experience of  how he retired at 33. It’s an interesting read, and you’ll see that he has made some wrong choices along the way, but also a lot of good decisions. With hard work, he has managed to get many passive income streams that provide enough money for him to retire.

Fitness

This section highlights the importance of nutrition and physical fitness. As most of the other sections, it starts out with why would this be beneficial. Apart from the obvious health related arguments, a healthy body will help us be more confident and boosts creativity.

I like the down to earth approach of this section. Most of the fitness and nutrition advice that you see on the web is mostly marketing, promising shortcuts to 6 pack abs and muscles in 2 weeks. That’s plain wrong and you need motivation, commitment and hard work to get in shape.

This section has a chapter on most of the things that you need to know to start getting in shape:

• Fitness criteria – to get results, you need to set a clear fitness goal and define milestones and a time frame. This will help you track your progress and keep you motivated.
• Calories – What is a calorie and why it is important. How to calculate calorie intake and how many calories you are burning using the Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) and the Harris Benedict Equation.
• How to stay motivated, using gamification apps, rewards (e.g. listening to audio books while you run, watching TV on the treadmill, buying a fitness gadget after lifting weights for 3 months) and sticking to your principles.
• Gaining muscle – It’s important to set your goal in advance: strength, size or endurance. This way you can tailor your workout program accordingly. This chapter provides a few tips on how to define your workout program, what lifts to do and what to eat to gain muscle.
• Why having 6 pack abs is hard and why nutrition is the most important factor.
• Running
• Some gadgets and apps that might help you in achieving your fitness goal.

Also, appendices C & D talk about nutrition basics:

• basic components of food: carbohydrates, fats and proteins and their role
• vitamins, fiber and minerals
• some tips on how to eat healthy

Spirit

The last section of the book covers spirit, discussing attitudes and emotions. Although it’s a bit harder to grasp and put into practice, it does contain good advice. The way you feel has an important effect on your life. There is scientific evidence that negative thinking is probably your worst enemy. To succeed you need to truly believe you can and positive thinking can take you a long way. Of course, changing the way you think is harder than learning a new technical skill. This section does give a few tips on how to rewire your brain: change your thoughts, meditate, play more and read some good books. One good piece of advice for changing your self image is to “fake it till you make it“.

John also shares his personal success book list for self-help, software development and investing.

The book closes with a discussion about failure. Failure is not that bad, and the way to success is usually paved with failures. We all need to learn to embrace failure, learn from it and move on. This is one of the best ways to grow as a professional.

Conclusion

I think I’ve learned a lot from this book. Since it tackles so many topics, almost none of them is covered in depth. But I think that’s a good thing, since all these topics are important.

If you have a lot of knowledge on some of these subjects, then you probably won’t get too much value out of some of the chapters. But I must admit I didn’t know some of these things. The problem is that there is so much information out there and it’s hard to distinguish the good from the bad, what’s valuable from just plain bad marketing schemes. So, although important, I just ignored some of the topics. This book distills all this information and presents it in a way that’s easy to understand. Many of the chapters are dense in information and contain a good overview on a given subject. If you want to get more in depth knowledge, the author usually provides books or other useful resources.

The writing style is also helpful – the chapters are small (most of them have less than 10 pages) and focused. This made the book a perfect fit for listening while walking. Each chapter also has a call to action, with two or three things to do or think about. By taking action, you think more about the subject and let the information sink in, which helps in the learning process. The tone is sometimes a bit too motivational, but I didn’t find that annoying.

I think one of the best things about this book is the authors’s personal approach. There are a lot of examples and John shares his personal experience. This gives the book more weight, since you know that the advice is tried and tested. I always learn more when people talk about real life situations and experiences.