Category: Personal Development

This site was originally a blog dedicated to personal development. These posts date back to that era (though I still post the odd note on personal development here and there).


  • Turnovers Are A Part Of The Game

    Turnovers Are A Part Of The Game

    Dana Holgorsen – head coach of my beloved West Virginia Mountaineers – used his time in the weekly Big XII coaches teleconference to outline an interesting framing of a common issue in football: turnovers. Turnovers are typically seen in a negative way and they are indeed the very worst way for an offensive possession to […]

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  • Marginalia: “No One Understands You And What To Do About It”

    Marginalia: “No One Understands You And What To Do About It”

    Marginalia is a regular series on Toward Vandalia in which I review the books I’m reading and unpack their most valuable lessons. Today I’m looking at No One Understands You And What To Do About It by Heidi Grant Halvorson. Heidi Grant Halvorson is the Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia Business […]

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  • Lessons I Learned From My 2015 Reading

    Those of you keeping score at home know I love trying to find life lessons everywhere (even in movies). Books, of course, are not an unusual source of lessons but reading critically and identifying the thoughts and lessons that truly resonate with you is an enjoyable exercise that adds value to fiction and non-fiction alike. The […]

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  • Don’t Rush To The Middle

    Listening to comedians discuss their craft never ceases to fascinate me. In fact, I sometimes find it more interesting than watching their act. Sometimes. A great source of these discussions is the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, on which Jay Leno was recently a guest. Leno rolled out a few stories I have heard him tell in […]

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  • You Can Still Fix What “Ain’t Broke”

    Part of the fun of moving away from home is confusing your new neighbors with the colloquialisms that you heard while growing up. Having done my growing up in the hills of West Virginia, I have quite a collection of such phrases and truisms that frequently raise eyebrows when I slip them into conversation here […]

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  • YouCo. Part 2: Strategy And Scenario Planning

    This is the second in a series of posts I have lamely dubbed YouCo. I’m drawing on lessons from my graduate business studies to show how best practices from the business world can be applied at the most micro of levels: yourself. The first post considered how a mission and vision statement might be useful […]

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  • Define The Mission And Vision Of YouCo.

    I recently completed my MBA at the University of Technology, Sydney. My own shift toward personal development coincided with the commencement of my graduate studies and the two simultaneous pursuits really played well off of one another for the duration of my course. Since putting the finishing touches on my coursework I’ve begun to synthesize […]

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  • Don’t Be Surprised By Good Fortune; Be Ready For It

    On Monday I talked about prioritizing your own happiness. The idea ties into one of the main themes for this blog: that we have to make the most of opportunities that arise. If a door opens and we’re not prepared or willing to walk through, the opportunity has been missed. Unfortunately, some opportunities may not […]

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  • Give Yourself A License To Prioritize Your Happiness

    Hello again! Things have been a touch quiet on the site recently while a few exciting things took place behind the scenes. Chief among them was my graduation ceremony at the University of Technology, Sydney, where I received my Master of Business Administration degree in Sport Management and Marketing. My parents made the long trip […]

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  • Winter Is Coming

    My family lived in Kentucky for about three years when I was growing up, which meant I heard the name Henry Clay quite often in my history classes. Clay was a transplant from Virginia who made his name as a lawyer in the Bluegrass State before he gained national notoriety as a senator, representative, Secretary […]

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