Leveraging Soft Skills

In my past life as the head of a real estate firm, my day was a whirlwind of roles — financial analyst in the morning, IT support by noon, followed by spurts of being a negotiator, sales guru, maintenance overseer, and marketing strategist. It was like wearing a different hat every hour, swiftly adapting to meet the demands of each role.

Fast forward to today, I find myself leveraging this chameleon-like adaptability in my tech career, where I am nurturing my dream of becoming a solutions architect. Let’s explore how the soft skills honed in the chaos of real estate are becoming my greatest assets. Of these skills, I find active listening to be the most important.

More than just paying attention and asking open ended questions, active listening goes beyond just hearing what someone says but trying to understand the true why behind it. I recently worked with someone who runs a non profit supporting cancer patients struggling with basic necessities. She initially came to me with a laptop that was infected with malware. I wasn’t, she was, however, the victim of a phishing attack. Through the conversation, I discovered that she was struggling to get donations, and her frustrations with the computer were stemming from her difficulty to raise money.

Taking the time to teach her the basics of safe browsing practices, I set up a secure password manager to her account and showed her how to use MFA. We set her up with a more official email address, added her address book to a email marketing platform. I trained her on its use and she sent off her first mass email from her new email address.

As I reflected on our session later, I realized this interaction was a mirror to my journey so far, a journey marked by adaptation, understanding, and a deep-seated desire to offer solutions that go beyond the superficial layer of presented problems. This experience was not just about fixing a technical glitch; it transformed into a mission to empower a noble cause, to facilitate a reach that could translate to substantial support for those in need.

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, where the surface problems are often just symptoms of deeper issues, active listening emerges as a beacon of empathy and understanding. It guides us to unearth the underlying challenges, the hidden fears, and the unspoken dreams, offering solutions that resonate on a much deeper, more impactful level.

As I continue on my path to becoming a solutions architect, this episode stands as a testament to the potency of active listening, a skill nurtured in the chaos and dynamism of the real estate world. It is more than a skill; it is an approach, a philosophy, one that turns transactions into connections, solutions into partnerships, and clients into extended family. It fosters a world where technology serves not just as a tool but as a bridge to understanding, empathy, and true progress. It reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, we are not just solving technical issues; we are facilitating dreams, nurturing hopes, and sometimes, supporting causes that hold the power to change lives.