
A short soft skills course - rfreytag
https://www.createcapsule.com/
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cwyers
It costs $84 for an individual. I support their right to charge whatever they
want for their product, but I had to click through about three pages to get to
that info, so I though someone else here might want to know that up front.

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ghostbrainalpha
This sentiment gets shared a lot. In cases where someone is shopping around
for a specific product, it definitely makes sense to make the price as obvious
as possible.

But in cases where the service needs to be explained and demand generated
AFTER explanation in can be counter productive to lead with pricing.

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jjeaff
That's why I have noticed a lot of sites lately don't show a pricing page at
all. And no amount of looking and searching through the site will turn up a
price list. Just places to sign up to learn more.

But if you google the product name and the word pricing, they will have a
dedicated pricing page in the search results that isn't linked to from
anywhere inside the site.

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DisruptiveDave
> Working on yourself shouldn't feel like work

Yes, it should. It should be difficult, challenging, at times it should make
you want to give up, confusing, even painful. It should take quite a while,
too.

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geoffreyhale
Working should produce results. How it feels is incidental.

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DisruptiveDave
Let's imagine someone goes to the gym everyday and never feels a struggle
whatsoever. Just straight up leisure. Somehow that person ends up with the
desired results of working out.

Now someone else goes through the same process, but it's at least a partial
struggle. That person has bouts of wanting to give up, of having to fight
through pain and discomfort. That person wakes up half the time and their
monkey brain is telling them to skip the gym today, just go back to sleep.

Person B has earned much more than a six pack in this scenario.

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Asooka
Apart from more suffering, I fail to see what person B has earned more of.

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borski
The ability to persevere. You will face difficult challenges you are
unprepared for; knowing how to handle such challenges when they appear, and
having practice persevering... that’s a very important win.

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manjana
Boils down to problem solving capabilities which is always useful.

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komali2
If you're looking for alternatives, I recommend reading "How to Win Friends
and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. Get the OG version (even if it comes
with forwards or whatever), not the "for the age of the internet" or whatever
version.

It sometimes uses outdated language but it is to date the _best_ compilation
of "how to interact with other humans effectively" advice that I've read, and
I've read lots of these sorts of books.

Honestly, I think it should be required reading in highschool, if nothing else
because of the huge focus on empathy would be very healthy in interpersonal
communication in our country.

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hi41
This is my personal experience. I read HTWFAIP when I was in 8th grade. As a
young teenager I was a timid person and I placed huge importance on what other
people felt about me. As an adult in 40s, I am still timid and never say no. I
say yes to everything and I usually get assigned to shitty tasks. I wish I
wasn't such a people-pleaser and I wish I had the guts to say no. I attribute
my current professional breakdown to reading HTWFAIP which by its very title
hopes to be a book through which you can influence others. I wish I did not
care so much about what other people thought about me and I wasn't such a
back-bone-less people pleaser. I hate "How to Win Friends and Influence
People"

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sprucely
I also didn't care for the book. But my problem was that it seemed
disingenuous. It claimed to be about influencing others, when in fact it was
about being genuinely interested in others. Halfway through i put it down
because it gave no indication that it would actually get around to explaining
HOW to develop an interest in others.

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loco5niner
> It claimed to be about influencing others, when in fact it was about being
> genuinely interested in others.

Isn't influencing others simply a side-benefit to being genuinely interested
in them? I would imagine that is the natural outcome. I would be glad for
people to go into the book wanting to "fix other people" or "take advantage of
others" and come away wanting to genuinely care for others.

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jc3110
Hi everyone,

WOW, thank you for all the feedback and signups! My name is Jasmine and I'm
the creator of Capsule. To sign up free, just submit your name and email (no
need to complete the PayPal screen), and I'll send you an activation link
(check for yourteam@createcapsule.com). I did NOT expect to get featured
today, so thank you for bearing with the slight delay!

I originally wrote Capsule for myself and for my friends -- busy professionals
who “didn’t have time for self-development” but were struggling with problems
we all face, whether relationships, career uncertainty, stress or self-doubt.
I'm also an independent introvert - the type to want to introspect as opposed
to seek therapy. So, I set out to create a one-stop-research-shop. An avid
reader, I quit my hedge fund gig to bring you only the research that I found
compelling from a sea of content :) My hope is, if it can help me, maybe it
can help others, too. Any and all comments appreciated and will help improve
the product -- many thanks!

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funmi
I just tried to visit the site on mobile Safari with adblockers[1] enabled,
and all I see is a blue background with no content:
[https://ibb.co/z5cH5FC](https://ibb.co/z5cH5FC). Going to Chrome on iOS
(where the adblockers don’t work) worked fine. Thought I’d share!

[1] On Safari, I have 1Blocker and AdGuard — General enabled.

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didymospl
The course description certainly strikes a chord with me but there's no trial,
no opinions on it outside their website, it looks like they've barely
started(in late June this year), basically no way to find out the course
quality whatsoever so I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke.

Maybe OP can elaborate on that submission?

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jc3110
Thank you for the feedback! That makes a lot of sense, and we've included a
free option based on your comment. Just input your name and email, and we'll
add you to the course, no payment info needed. We're indeed a young company
(incorp in March), but the research behind the course has been long in the
making. All scientific sources (139 of them) are cited in-text so you know the
exact attribution of each takeaway.

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filmgirlcw
I’ll probably get downvoted in this crowd by saying this, but I attribute my
soft skills and self-awareness (which aren’t directly linked, but I would
argue that if you have good awareness of how you are perceived and an honest
assessment of strength/weaknesses, that has a direct line to social and
emotional intelligence) to psychotherapy.

(I’m also of the opinion that regardless of mental health status, every person
can benefit from a good therapist. Note, I said good. A bad therapist can be
worse than no therapy.)

A lot of soft skills really do come down to introspection — and while it’s
certainly possible to get those insights outside of a psychologist or
psychiatrists office (my psychiatrist also does psychotherapy, but it’s more
common for the disciplines to be separate), having a third-party pose
questions and stimulate discussions is something difficult to replicate by
self-study alone.

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mattnewton
I have never been in therapy so I can’t weigh in there, but I am commenting to
say I hope you continue to feel free to talk about mental health services,
which seem to often be unfairly stigmatized. I hope this community wouldn’t
downvote that.

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RIMR
$84 is really steep for a product I don't even get a sample of.

They really should offer the first lesson for free so people know what they're
paying for.

I pride myself on my strong soft skills, so I know I won't be paying that kind
of a price on these lessons just to see what they look like.

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jc3110
Thanks for the feedback! We'll set up a free trial for anyone who includes
name and email during signup (no need for PayPal). We are always looking for
ways to make the content even more advanced, and would really value your
feedback as someone who already has strong soft-skills.

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sct202
I'm going just off the website, but this honestly feels like one of those
personal development courses that your employer pays for and you go to and
feel like it's a waste of time.

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waylandsmithers
Am I the only one who abhors the term soft skills?

I have been trying to put my finger on what about it rubs me the wrong way so
much but can't quite figure out why the phrase makes me so uncomfortable. Part
of it is the implication that we're all socially inept computer nerds, part of
it is the implication that technical skills are "hard"...

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ddrager
This seems interesting, but without knowing what a course looks like, I won't
sink $84 into it.

If the creator(s) are reading, I would suggest making the first chapter free.
That would work better to get visitors to sign up & pay. For example, from
what I can see there are 9 missions, so the first is free, pay to continue.

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jc3110
Thanks so much for the feedback! We've changed it to the first week free, so
you can see the entire course in that span if you'd like. Hope you like it!

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babblingfish
When I click on the plan with the first week free, it asks me to pay. How do I
access the free week without paying?

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jc3110
If you include your name and email (no worries about the PayPal page), we will
send you an activation link. Let me know if you did not receive this link and
I'll send you one personally.

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nick007
DISCLAIMER - I am a customer.

I found Capsule very valuable. The content is 2nd to none, they boil down some
huge concepts that span thousands of pages across multiple books/papers into
dense and digestible bites of material. Very high bandwidth and efficient.

I see a lot of commentary about the price being high. I'm not sure whether
they have the right price point or not, but what I would say as someone who
considers myself pretty frugal, I would compare the value I got from Capsule
to a series of books and probably therapists that would've cost hundreds or
thousands of dollars (and many more hours).

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egorfine
What is it like inside? Is it videos, content pages or some soft of
interactive tutorials?

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nick007
No videos, it's written content with questions to answer/reflect on.

There's also a way to write in to a real-life person/team with follow-on
thoughts/questions after each section. I've done this a number of times not
really expecting much, but have been blown away with how fast and thoughtful a
response I've always gotten. Almost feels like you're getting personal coach
(which they are really underselling IMHO).

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proc0
Soft skills really means learning the corporate protocol, which is basically
top-down control, akin to military. Leadership means understanding and
contributing to the hierarchical nature of companies. There's nothing wrong
with this except when it comes to software companies that should be more
creative yet they push these soft skills almost like military has code of
conduct. In any software company, if everyone could code, they would, and then
they would realize soft skills are just an indirect way to influence what
people code without knowing how to.

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filmgirlcw
I completely disagree with this assessment. Soft skills may be synonymous in
some areas as “corporate protocol” or politics, but it’s really about
effective communication — and that’s beneficial regardless of what you’re
doing or what type of place you work in.

>In any software company, if everyone could code, they would, and then they
would realize soft skills are just an indirect way to influence what people
code without knowing how to.

This is completely untrue and is frankly, insulting. It’s not an either/or.
You can know how to code or know how to architect a system or do design _and_
also have soft skills. Moreover, the idea that non-coders can only have an
indirect influence on what people code seems to be a fairy fundamental
misunderstanding about how projects work.

Plenty of people can code and don’t — and plenty of people who don’t code
don’t have any interest in doing it — still have major roles in software
development. Look at Steve Jobs.

If anything, the soft skills are what allows a programmer or a program manager
or PM or designer or architect to help express the case for any something is
coded a certain way or why it isn’t.

Being able to explain and communicate design decisions — and to be able to
talk through problems and blockers is incredibly important, not just to push
or influence a decision, but to solve problems or come up with new
innovations.

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proc0
> the idea that non-coders can only have an indirect influence on what people
> code seems to be a fairy fundamental misunderstanding about how projects
> work.

Knowing how to code and actually coding is different. I'm claiming if everyone
could (in a software company) have the knowledge of coding, they would, as
this would influence virtually every decision being made. Of course most
people are happy not knowing how to code, but if they could snap their fingers
and simply know everything about developing their own products, they would.

Usually this is dealt with "methodologies" like agile. Technical and non-
technical people have to close the "gap" so that the stakeholders (who usually
don't code in any advanced way) are happy with the direction that is being
taken. There's a lot of efforts wasted in meetings to coordinate and prevent
non-technical leaders from making the wrong technical decisions.

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jcroll
Can anyone not related to the company attest for this course? Does anyone else
know of a soft skills course they recommend?

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nick007
Yes, I can attest that the course and company are first rate. See previous
comment ->
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508974)

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motohagiography
A bit confused about the point of a personal improvement program if you can't
use it as a pretext to fire yourself after.

Or maybe that would be the best improvement program of all?

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goelsar1
Thank you for being so quick to respond to user feedback - shows how dedicated
you are to shipping a high quality product :)

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babblingfish
It says the first week is free, but then it asks you to pay? How do we access
the free first week without paying? @jc3110

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jc3110
Hey @babblingfish! Thank you for the ask! All you do is submit your name and
email -- you can skip the PayPal page for now :)

