Social Skills for Survival

The human species is fascinating. We've evolved over millions of years to construct vast civilizations and create the amazing world we live in today. What is the key to our success? How did we thrive as we evolved in Africa and how do we continue to dominate the earth today?

Our social skills.

Humans have a unique ability, compared to other animals, to have a language that allows us to communicate vasts amount of information about the environment, the animals, and perhaps most importantly, about other humans.

...the most important information that needed to be conveyed was about humans, not about lions and bison...Social cooperation is our key for survival and reproduction." (Harari, 22)

If we can't effectively communicate with other humans, how can we get anything done? Everything in our lives is based on social skills; we cannot succeed in life in a vacuum. We must talk to our spouse, read the body language of our friends, sense the distress in our children, and respond to the tone of voice of our colleagues.

Treat social skills as critical to your success in life; be intentional about improving in this skill as you are about improving other "hard" skills.

Imagine what could happen if you got better at working with your fellow humans.

References

Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. Sapiens. New York, NY: Harper.

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