In your readings around the subject of prepping you’ll probably come across the terms “soft skills” and “hard skills”. What are they? How do they compare? And do you need both to become a practised prepper?
Soft skills
The recruitment agency Reed explains that the term soft skills is typically used to describe general attributes which are not required for any one specific task or type of employment.
Recruitment specialists such as this welcome soft skills because they can be put to good use across a range of different roles in any organisation or workforce – whether it is formal or informal. In addition to their use in many different situations and interactions with others, soft skills are usually highly valued because they generally require no organised or formal training programme and are largely self-taught or developed.
For these reasons, soft skills are sometimes seen to belong to a particular personality type – the so-called “people person” – who is naturally open, friendly, and the voice you’re most likely to hear in meetings.
For the prepper in the throes of an emergency, attempting to organise a coordinated response together with others, in an otherwise chaotic situation, some soft skills are going to be paramount. Amongst these, one of the universally recognised soft skills is the ability to communicate clearly and with quiet authority. In these circumstances, communication skills will be crucial.
Your communication skills will serve as the foundation stone for the essential business of getting along with other people and working together in harmony.
Hard skills
On the flip side of this particular coin are the hard skills you are likely to lean upon when the going gets tough.
Unlike the general and naturally-acquired soft skills, hard skills tend to be far more specific. They relate to the technical know-how that you require to get a particular job done. Typically, you will have learnt your hard skills through a combination of study, practical, hands-on experience, and by copying the skills you learn from established craftsmen or experts in the field.
In a posting dated the 2nd of April 2021, recruitment specialists Indeed give the example of the engineer, whose hard skills are likely to include talents such as doing mathematical calculations, resolving equations, and testing.
In a prepper’s survivalist context, hard skills come down to the practical know-how you have picked up – whether taught by backwoods experts, gleaned from your own research, or your own training through practical trial and error.
Hard skills most likely to come in handy for any prepper, of course, will be the ability to start a fire, build a shelter, or know where and what foods can be foraged.
Why you need to work on both
Depending on your temperament and personality you might be drawn more towards the acquisition of hard skills rather than soft skills.
Hard skills might be able to provide practical solutions in an emergency and can be learnt through your own trial and error or picked up by copying masters in those crafts.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are more likely to be innate or inherited – simply a part of your personality and the person you are. It might be tempting to argue that you either have them or you don’t – and that there’s precious little you can do to acquire new soft skills as you get older. But, there are always ways in which you can practise to improve both soft and hard skills.
The underlying message is that both hard and soft skills are likely to be assets in any walk of life – and that includes those more extreme walks of life when you are faced by the particular challenges of an emergency, natural disaster, or civil crisis. If you are going to make maximum impact and increase the chances of the group surviving and prospering during any crisis, you’re likely to find that hard skills and soft skills are very much two sides of the same coin.
Another way of looking at it might be to recognise that it’s all very well being the all-round nice guy who gets along with everyone and has a certain persuasive way with words. Even with all those soft skills in spades, however, if you want them to really work for the benefit of you, your loved ones, and your group, you’ll also need some practical skills you can bring to the party.
Combining the can-do spirit of your soft skills with the know-how of your hard skills is likely to be the ticket to success.
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