Category: Weekend Reading

ToVa Weekend: Passwords As Mantras, Travel, Being Compelling

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is reading The Postman Always Rings Twice

The weekend is here! Escape boredom over the weekend by finding a clever use of your password, reading over a few tips for short business trips and considering what characteristics make people compelling.

How a password changed my life. (via)

Here’s a touching story to go along with a clever idea for taking something mundane – any of the passwords you must type repeatedly during your day – and making it something significant. Simply using passwords as reminders (to forgive, to save) or mantras (quit smoking, don’t drink) changed Mauricio Estrella’s life and could change yours, too.

The Busy Professional’s Guide to a One-Day Business Trip

This one is pretty specific but the advice on offer is also great travel wisdom in general. Traveling light is key, but so is preparedness. It can be tempting to be a bit too casual about short trips but they actually require the most forethought – especially since you might end up stranded in an airport with no change of clothes!

A Throwback Link Relevant To Our Interests…

What Makes People Compelling

This article seemed like a great way to conclude our week of self-defining and introspection. If strength and warmth are part and parcel of your character you will find people drawn to you in a meaningful way. Possessing and displaying one but not the other isn’t quite enough and executing both at the same time is definitely a challenge. Fortunately, the ultimate reward – the respect and trust of your peers – is totally worth the effort.

ToVa Rewind:
Define Yo Self Before You Refine Yo Self
You Control Your Own Reality

Rupert is reading: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

Have a great weekend!

ToVa Weekend: Entrepreneurship, Resistance, Rudeness

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is reading 'Everything Matters!'

The weekend is here at last! As always, here is your roundup of the best of the week that was. This week: unleash your inner entrepreneur within the bureaucracy of your company, beware of creative resistance from within and learn to handle the worst behavior on the part of others.

Channel Your Inner Entrepreneur to Excel at Work

This is fantastic – one of the best career-advancement pieces I’ve seen in a few months. Lauren Berger shows you how to be an entrepreneur within a large company and the insights are invaluable, especially for those in Gen Y and Z who don’t see how their creative energies can be appreciated by the corporate machine. Tips like mastering your day job and being informed seem straightforward but they also tend to be the first things to slip and – as Berger points out – who’s going to take you and your ideas seriously when you can’t get your everyday duties right? Other pointers, like considering the view of your boss and his or her allies, round out a great article that will help you see yourself as something more than just another cog in the machine.

Why, #1

Steven Pressfield pauses to consider why he is writing his blog and why anybody would be reading it. It’s the first in what will become a series of posts and his ideas seem to mirror my own in many ways. Central to his thesis is the phrase “the rightful lord and owner of his own person”, which is taken from an oration delivered by Pericles in ancient Athens. Pressfield dives deep here, determining that this idea of autonomy relates to freedom from resistance both external and internal, making self-actualization the ultimate goal. It resonated with me because the ideas correlate with my aim for this website. It’ll resonate with you because it will remind you of your freedom to act.

How to Deal With Other People’s Rude Behavior

Do you know a few people who have irritating habits? A coworker who chews with their mouth open or a friend who helps themselves to bites of your dinner? You may have a social allergy, according to Dr. Michael Cunningham. He suggests that such behaviors fall into four categories according to how impersonal/personal and unintentional/intentional the behaviour is. As with most cases involving the behavior of others, though, the problem (and solution) might come back to your own attitude.

ToVa Rewind:
Welcome to Toward Vandalia!
Jellybeans Illustrate The Importance Of Maximizing Our Lives

Rupert and I are reading: Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr.

Have a great weekend!

ToVa Weekend: Failure, Anticipating Hindsight, The Silent Treatment, Following Murad’s Girlfriend

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is watching.

Happy West Virginia Day! This week: coping with failure, setting ‘future you’ up in a way that ‘present you’ thinks they’ll like, ditching the silent treatment and one photographer following his girlfriend around the world. Enjoy!

How to Fail and Live to Talk About It: 10 Tips for Explaining Your Missteps Without Sounding Like a Train Wreck

Art of Manliness take the long-form route to help you embrace your failures without looking like a complete failure. While failure will be the result of some of our more visible efforts (at work, among friends, at school, etc.), it’s important that we learn how to frame that failure so as not to create the impression that failure is our baseline. After all, others are more interested in how you cope with adversity than they are in the adversity itself.

The Psychology of Your Future Self and How Your Present Illusions Hinder Your Future Happiness

We work hard and make short term sacrifices in service to our future selves: foregoing enjoyable foods that are bad for us, taking jobs that aren’t great but ‘might lead to something great’, and socking away money for eventual retirement rather than hopping on a plane to New Zealand. What if our future selves aren’t interested in any of that, though? Recognizing that human beings never stop being a work in progress is the first step to striking a balance between short-term pleasure and long-term interests.

How and Why to Ban the Silent Treatment from Your Relationship

Anybody who has been the victim of – or even, I’d wager, the perpetrator of – the silent treatment knows that it sucks and can set off a self-perpetuating cycle of isolation and anger. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to fix and continually avoid if both parties are willing.

 The ‘Follow Me To’ Project by Murad Osmann (via)

Photographer Murad Osmann has been following his girlfriend around the world and capturing exotic locales in a simple but breathtaking way. Each photograph features his girlfriend (typically dressed in a way to match the scene) holding his hand and leading him toward destinations both famous and obscure (but always beautiful). It’s fascinating stuff that will only irritate your itch to travel – but why not go with that? Your future self won’t mind.

 Have a great weekend!

ToVa Weekend: Your Money at 30, Mapping Gotham City, iOS 8 Details

Posted on by Greg

IMG_1856 (1280x837)

The weekend is here and with it comes a selection of interesting reads from the week gone by. How your money should look at 30, the process of mapping a fictional city and all the nerdy details about iOS 8. Enjoy!

 30 Financial Milestones You Need To Hit By Age 30 (via)

Lists like this are best read with a healthy grasp on your own realities but bench-marking is always a great way to maintain forward momentum. I will hit 30 myself later this year, but considering I’m only just now wrapping up my MBA it seems unlikely that I’ll have paid off my student loans by my birthday – and that’s OK, considering my reality. Other items – like steadily raising your net worth and establishing proper insurance – are achievable on an ongoing basis regardless of your debt situation. Click through for the full list.

 The Cartographer Who Mapped Out Gotham City (via)

Gotham City is the only major comic book locale that has an official map – a fact that helps infuse the Batman saga with the gritty realism fans can’t get enough of. The map was first drafted in 1998 by Eliot R. Brown and has been used in the comics and movies ever since. An interesting takeaway from this article, which explores how the map was initially devised and the subtle changes it has undergone over the years, is that “restrictions can sometimes create the best art”. Whether you agree or disagree with that notion, the piece is a compelling examination of a bold creative undertaking.

All The New Stuff In iOS 8
Two of the Best iOS 8 Features Apple Didn’t Talk About
How To Get (Some Of) The Best Features Of iOS 8 Right Now

Apple released details concerning iOS 8, which is always a fun moment for productivity geeks. As usual, the crew at Lifehacker and Gizmodo have all the details across their network.

 Have a great weekend!

ToVa Weekend: You, Your Resume and Your Brain on Caffeine

Posted on by Greg

Rupert is a literary dog.

The weekend is here at last and with it comes two articles (and one video) that’ll help you even out your E-v-E ratio. Read on for tips on how to change your core self-image, represent softer achievements on your resume with numbers and avoid a caffeine overdose.

How to Change Your Beliefs and Stick to Your Goals for Good (via)

I’ve dedicated most of the digital ink here at ToVa to the idea of living up to your ideal self. James Clear has a few thoughts on the subject, including a prescription for how to change “you” rather than merely accomplish specific goals – the difference between seeing yourself as a writer or merely finishing a certain story. He suggests casting tiny votes of confidence in your identity, an idea that I might have described as writing your life story one sentence at a time.

How to Quantify Your Resume Bullets (When You Don’t Work With Numbers) (via)

Lily Zhang gives practical tips on how to use numbers to underscore the impact of your professional achievements. This can be a little trickier for those of us who dabble in things not easily measured in this way. Range (“I manage 80 – 100 people”), frequency (“I deliver quarterly presentations to the CEO”) and/or scale (“I liaise with clients that represent $400,000 in billings”)  can be used where the real number isn’t certain, consistent or appreciated.

The Science of Caffeine: The World’s Most Popular Drug

Caffeine – what a drug! It keeps America moving, but how? Watch below for a little insight into how caffeine goes to work on your brain. You might be surprised at how vast the gap is between “healthy” and dangerous levels of daily caffeine intake.

Have a great weekend!