Do you think it's important to have soft skills to start and run an online business? Now, you may think, uh, Marissa, what the heck are soft skills? Well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about today on the Resilient Faith Online podcast. Welcome. I'm Marissa Shatterick, host of the Resilient Faith Online Show. I'm a digital strategist and certified copywriter, but more importantly, a woman of faith. In this podcast, you'll find a biblical perspective to the external and internal challenges we face as online content creators. Join me for some inspiration and practical tips as we let our faith shape our work to create positive change online. To connect with our private Facebook group of faith-based online entrepreneurs, go to MarissaShepard.com forward slash faith. Hello, hello everyone. How are you doing today? So glad to come in here and chat with you for a little bit. Today we're going to be talking about soft skills versus hard skills. Now, you may think, well, what are soft skills? Well, I'm going to give you a few definitions. I've got a lot of windows open. I've been doing some research on this. And it's something that really fascinates me because I often see people that are starting an online business, and some of them are all fired up, and it doesn't matter if they run across obstacles or challenges, they overcome them, they keep moving forward, and others kind of crawl their way and they they second guess themselves, they overthink things, they're kind of slow to launch. And you're thinking, well, is it that they just need skills? Is it technology? What is it? There could be various reasons. And I'm not trying to define what it is that causes people to move forward faster or slower, but I am going to present a thought about soft skills versus hard skills. And perhaps this will help those that seem to struggle to get off the ground to move forward faster. Now, the first thing I wanted to share was what are soft skills? So I just went Google and I just did some searching and looked around at some definitions of it. And I came across a few things. Interesting enough, most people, when you Google, you know, how to start an online business or how to run an online business, they focus a lot on, you know, you've got to have a business plan, you got to have a website, and you need to start a podcast, or you need to start a blog, and you need to, you know, market and you need to do all these other things, which really doesn't even touch on soft skills. So I'm approaching this from a different perspective. And I went online, I found this one site. It was called Edge Point Learning, and I like their definition. It was very clean and easy to understand. But they basically said soft skills are skills and abilities that are much harder to measure and a bit fuzzier to define. It's not like a hard skill. A hard skill are those things that you learn, those things that you um perhaps went to school for, those things that you've developed over a course of time. Those hard skills are the things that many employers will look for if they're trying to place you in a position. So the soft skills are harder to measure. It's harder to see what those are. And oftentimes because of that, it's neglected. So they continue to say that these are the interpersonal skills that help people get along with each other and collaborate. And they also say soft skills include things like character, ability to work on a team, and overall understanding and participation in your company's culture, right? So that's interesting that these soft skills are kind of the secondary skills. And interesting enough, as I looked in some additional articles, I saw one in um Lifeway Research, and there was an article from a pastor Craig Thompson, and he wrote an interesting article about soft skills and how oftentimes churches hire pastors for their hard skills, but then in looking back, pastors that are terminated or fired are fired because of soft skills. So it's interesting that maybe even in companies, people can get hired for their hard skills, but could get fired because they lack those soft skills. So it's very important for us to take a look at this, especially if we want to run an online business to really dive in and figure out what are these soft skills that we need to develop. And so uh in this article from this pastor, he was saying, even in scripture, when it talks about uh Paul lists the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7, when you read that, it's all soft skills. It's not hard skills, above reproach and sober-minded and self-control, respectable, hospitable, gentle, um, not a lover of money. And that, of course, has to do with um, you know, the motive of the heart and how to manage his own household and and you know, raising their children properly. All those things are soft skills. So it's interesting that even in scripture, when they give you kind of a framework of the people, the qualifications for an elder, it's all focused on soft skills. So I went to another site too, indeed.com. It's a job site that you probably heard of, and they list a you know, a comparison of hard skills and soft skills. And soft skills are things, again, it's hard to measure. It is more like the integrity of a person, the dependability of a person, you know, the creativity of a person, the adaptability. Boy, that's important, right? We saw that in 2020. How people that are adaptable were able to pivot. The empathy that people have, that's another soft skill. Problem solving, critical thinking, all those things are hard to measure, but they're important. And they're important if you want to start and run your own business. So as I look at this, I find it fascinating because there's not a lot of emphasis on that. And mostly what you see when you Google to start an online business, they focus on all the things you need to do, and oftentimes they focus on the hard skills. So, here as I was looking at this, you know, the the problem that I see is that there's too much focus on the hard skills and not enough on the soft skills. But I believe, and I I speak from experience, because I felt like many years back, decades, I didn't have a lot of hard skills. And I didn't have a lot of soft skills either. But I saw my own dysfunction, right? And I worked on my soft skills. And as you know, I have a ministry background of over, you know, oh, 30 years or so. And I I used the Bible to work on my soft skills, work on empathy, work on my character, work on me, the insecurities, the fears, all the things that I had. And that enabled me to work on my hard skills. And you know, now, you know, I have an online business and I've written and published articles, I've won awards for public speaking, I became a certified copywriter. That all would not have happened had I not focused on my soft skills. So it's interesting, isn't it? So, what are some of these soft skills that would help us if we want to start an online business or run an online business or maybe scale our online business? So I broke it down as an application of really from my own personal experience, what helped me develop me from within, because I truly believe your work is an extension of who you are. You got to work on you first because you're gonna deal with clients or you're gonna have customer support for digital products that you produce. And most of the people that I talk to are people that do have some type of either digital products that they offer or maybe services that they offer, like coaching or something like that. So it's either digital products or coaching online. So some of the things that I would recommend that I think is a good starting point if you want to know, well, where do I start? And for those of you that maybe don't read the Bible and that's not for you, that's okay. I want to give you some suggestions here that will help you develop those soft skills because we need it, because you never know what's gonna happen. You never know what obstacles will come your way, you'll never know what challenges there are. You need to be equipped from the inside out. And the other thing is the hard skills, those can be learned. I mean, you can learn them. Even technology, you can learn it. It's not like rocket science. You can learn it. It has a language of its own technology. Once you learn a few applications, softwares, you know, you see the similarities in others. So those are things that you can learn, whatever those hard skills are, like copywriting. I went to school for copywriting to get my certification and continued a year-long program to learn every aspect of copywriting. It was something that I applied my attention to develop that hard skill. Soft skills, here's some suggestions. The first one is embrace personal development. Embrace personal development. Determine I am going to improve who I am from within and embrace that. And there's different ways you can do that. You can begin to read more books, you know, you can, you know, tune into podcasts. There's just so much online these days. I mean, whatever you're looking for, if you're a person of faith, maybe it's uh uh some type of Bible study online. You know, there's uh right now media is a great resource, and there's lots of places that you can go and look to look for a Bible study if you want to start there. But embrace personal development and just determine that that's gonna be part of your rhythm every day to learn and improve you. The second is to leverage your strengths. Okay, we talked about some of our soft skill deficiencies, but you got strengths, right? There's things that are that you already have developed, and so leverage those strengths that you have to be able to do the next step, whatever those strengths are. So this is really a season of um self-discovery, and that's why I really encourage people to journal because that really helps you go deep and see what it is that makes you, you know, makes wonderful you. So the second would be to leverage your strengths. The third would be to create a plan that will support your goals. Really consider what it is that you want to accomplish online and why do you want to accomplish it, and then create a realistic plan and work in quarters as far as you know what you want to accomplish and what type of soft skills would you need to accomplish that, and what type of hard skills would you need to accomplish that? The fourth would be to begin to focus now on the habits that are gonna help you accomplish those goals. So if you have a set of goals for a quarter and you've decided, okay, these are the soft skills I need, these are the hard skills I need. Now, what am I gonna do on a daily basis? What muscle am I gonna develop? Your habits, what muscle am I gonna develop to be able to reach that goal? And we all have different things that we can develop. And so you focus on habits. And one of my habits, again, is journaling. I make sure I journal every day. It's part of my rhythm, it's part of what I do, among other things in the morning, my little morning ritual. So you focus on what are the habits, and then it becomes second nature to you to do these things, and then as you look back, you have made progress. The uh next one, which is the fifth one, is have difficult conversations with yourself. Again, a great way to do this is to journal. Have difficult conversations with yourself. Ask yourself hard questions like why are you fearful of that, or why don't you want to do that, or why do you have this contention with this person, or ask difficult questions and have difficult conversations with yourself to really get to the root of things because again, you're developing you, you're developing your character within. So you got to get really deep inside and start having that quiet time with you and give your soul an opportunity to speak. So have those difficult conversations with yourself. As you do that, you will uncover some of the things that you can work on as you embrace personal development, you can work on those things. All right, the next one, the sixth one, is anything that you've planned out for the quarter and you see, you know, what your soft skills are and your hard skills are, and you see that there's a deficit somewhere. Consider outsourcing anything that is a weakness for you. Like I don't like bookkeeping at all. And although I wasn't really ready to hire someone, I did anyway, because I don't like it. I don't want to figure out all the tax stuff, I don't want to figure out the monthly reports, I just don't. It's not my thing. Math is not my thing. So I hired somebody to do that, and she's a CPA bookkeeper, and she does that, and she tells me what it is I need to pay on taxes every you know quarter when I have to pay it, and all is good. So you outsource your weaknesses so that your business can run solid. And the last one is evaluate your progress, see how you're progressing, look back, celebrate those wins, celebrate the things that God is doing in your heart and transforming you. Um, there was so much that he had to transform in me, and I just couldn't have done it without God there beside me. So celebrate that and celebrate the progress in your business as well. You know, you do these things and you're be developing, you'll be developing your soft skills. And again, if you develop your soft skills, I truly believe that you'll be able to develop those hard skills that you need if you feel there's some things that you're not sure. And the biggest one I think that I hear over and over again is technology. So as you develop those soft skills and you build your character, there's a a great uh scripture that I love here. It's uh Romans 5, 3 through 5 from the New Living Translation. It says, We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance, and endurance develops strength of character. And then it continues to say, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation, and this hope will not lead to disappointment. We are developing that internal muscle and that those soft skills that we need to carry us. And we saw how important it was in some of the articles that I shared earlier that oftentimes people can get hired for hard skills, but they can get fired for lack of soft skills. And when you have a business of your own, you got to be your own boss and be a kind boss to yourself, right? But be realistic too and give yourself grace as you're working through and developing those soft skills. Let me just say this again, and let me um let me just to encourage you for a moment. I truly was able to develop my hard skills, the writing, the speaking, technology, the copywriting, because I had developed my soft skills. So I know that you can too. So your perceived deficiencies, your perceived fears, or maybe they're real fears, your insecurities, even past mistakes can lead you to finally develop those soft skills that you need so that nothing is going to stop you. And as a result, you'll be able to pursue your purpose and continue to run your online business to create positive change online. You've been called for this. You have a special calling, a special gift to be able to serve people online. Develop those soft skills, don't neglect those as you continue to develop those hard skills and start really impacting the world online. And I know you're gonna create some amazing things and create great transformation as well. Why? Well, because as we have this calling to serve people online, we're gonna see transformation because your work is truly an extension of who you are. And I know that sometimes people focus too much on the hard skills, and really sometimes there needs to be a little shift and look at the soft skills, develop those because those will carry us for the long run. Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful week. I hope you continue to look at any of those obstacles that you run into head on and know that I can do this. I can do this, and especially if you're a person of faith, you can do it because God is with you. So until next time, take care. If you found this podcast helpful, then subscribe from wherever you're listening today so you never miss an episode. Every subscription, review, or rating means so much to me. So keep them coming and share this with a friend. For more free content, go to marishashadrick.com and remember keep cultivating resilient faith online to create positive change in the world.