

Ask HN: What is the most attractive, valuable, and learnable skill? - boldpanda

Attractive defined as increases your mate value.<p>Valuable defined as increases your income.<p>Learnable defined as fluency in 2 years or less.
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smt88
Communication, meaning the ability to exchange ideas, not just trumpet your
own.

Attractive: People love other people who listen to them and provide thoughtful
feedback.

Valuable: Communication is basically all that managers, salespeople,
politicians, and consultants do. You can make enormous amounts of money
without having any concrete technical skills. I have a friend who talked his
way to being the head of digital at a massive corporation (moving up through
social media ranks). He's 29 and has absolutely no skills other than talking.

Learnable: People will dispute this, but with concerted work and a willingness
to go (way) out of your comfort zone, you can learn to communicate. For a lot
of people, it isn't worth it. It's scary, embarrassing, anxiety-inducing, and
all other manner of unpleasant. That's what continues to make it a valuable
skill on its own.

~~~
galfarragem
Great answer. If I could, I would upvote it twice.

The most _successful_ people (despite this being subjective) I ever met were
always people whose priority is communication.

Making a bit of self analysis, my most sucessful times always happened when
communication was in the top of my priorities.

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Widow
Discipline

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ldd
skill: patience.

attractiveness:

1) rare.

2) It will make you react better to situations, which might make you reliable
and dependable. (ex: having a fight with your wife)

value:

1) Few people are interested in being patient, so you will see things where
others give up easily.

2) You will be less likely to act in the heat of the moment and consider your
interests and the interest of those around you. This will make your boss,
partners, etc come to see you in a different light. (ex: office environment
during crunch time)

learnable:

1) any skill takes a lifetime to perfect. Acknowledge this, and be a little
bit more patient today.

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quietone1
attractive: empathy valuable: empathy learnable: empathy

note: empathy <> sympathy

you may question whether empathy is valuable by your income-centric
definition, but the ability to understand the other side's perspective, to put
yourself in their shoes, has served me very well in business negotiations.

