Welcome to Toward Vandalia, a personal development blog that I hope will empower you to discover your truest self and maximize the potential of that self. The aim of ToVa is not to be an airy-fairy feel-goodery that encourages you to “Reach for your dreams!”. No, the goal here is to offer practical insights and wisdom. I do want you to reach for your dreams, of course, but I’m hoping to help you conceptualize those dreams before developing and implementing a plan of attack based in the realities we all face out in the real world.

What you will not see: a poster featuring a hand reaching for the sunny sky and a caption telling you to “Reach!”

What you will see: advice on engaging in constructive introspection that will indicate where you should reach and practical tips on how to get there one step at a time.

That said, inspiration will feature on the site (on Wednesdays, specifically) but it’s going to be practical inspiration in the vein of real life success stories or lessons to be gleaned from creative works. You’ve probably read stories similar to the ones I will share, but the mission of this site will be to help you bridge that gap between “Man, I wish I had the ability to do that” and showing yourself – by doing it! – that you’ve always had that ability.

Each week is going to have a prevailing theme. The meat is going to appear on Monday and Wednesday, while Friday will feature curated content gathered from around the interwebs that particular week.

Monday is going to set the pace with a longer thought piece and discussion of the theme that week. These themes might be general like “leadership”, but the Monday post will typically have a specific point to make on the topic. Occasionally the topic will be quite specific – such as a specific tool that will help you achieve forward momentum – and I’ll break the article into parts so as to give you the option of reading a brief overview or an in-depth walk-through.

Wednesday will give you a mid-week blast of practical inspiration. Typically this will fall in line with the theme of the week but every now and again something ‘breaking’ might be featured instead.

Friday will close out the week and give you a few pieces to check out over the weekend. Typically these links will be from that week (a “best of” the articles that I found helpful) but I’ll also include “throwback” links when they’re appropriate matches to the theme of the given week.

The Monday posts may sometimes be broken into two and concluded on the Tuesday. Off-topic issues that I feel might interest some segment of the readership (but may not appeal to the whole readership) may occasionally appear, but always on an “off” Tuesday or Thursday.

The goal will always be to get you thinking constructively about yourself and your goals. Whether your ambitions are to tackle and finally complete a pet project (like that novel you’ve been “working on” for the last ten years) or to scale the ladder at your company, ToVa aims to help you along the way.

I hope that you find the content to come both helpful and interesting. If you ever have any comments or suggestions, I urge you to get in touch via the “Contact” link in the main menu. Alternatively, feel free to comment on any given article so that the readership at large can benefit from the ensuing discussion.

Thanks for reading – best of luck out there!

Montani Semper Liberi,

J. Greg Joachim

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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 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.

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 Have a great weekend!

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!

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 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.

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 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.

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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.

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 Have a great weekend!

When considering travel to a neighboring city by car, the easiest route is usually the fastest route, as well. The highway. The freeway. The interstate. The bypass. The turnpike. These major roads go by many names and as convenience goes, they are a godsend. However, the highway is not the only way to get from Point A to Point B – any number of smaller roads connect the many smaller towns that highways have bypassed and forgotten. Sure, you’d have to endure intercity traffic and lower speed limits and traffic signals and the occasional tractor (or horse-drawn buggy!) but maybe it’s still a route worth consideration.

On the freeway, you limit your choices.

Lifehacker recently highlighted the above quote from David Klein – creator of Jelly Belly – as featured in Candyman, a documentary about Klein. It seems like common sense, but the implications are limitless and can extend to many parts of our day to day lives. Reading between the lines, it’s a statement about the sacrifices we make in the pursuit of convenience.

By zipping from town to town on the freeway, you may miss any number of interesting destinations in between. By choosing to shop at big box retailers that offer convenience and low prices by limiting their selection of items in each category you may be missing out on, say, a specialty shampoo that makes your hair look better than it ever has. By choosing to invest your energy in the CliffsNotes on Macbeth rather than reading the play itself, you’re missing the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare.

We’re all busy and little time savings get us back to House of Cards a bit faster, but maybe it’s worth taking the road less traveled here and there. Maybe in choosing the path of least resistance you’re missing out on something that would add unprecedented value to your life. Is that not worth slowing down for?

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

Fernando Tatís has a unique claim to fame: he is the only Major League Baseball player to hit two grand slams in one inning of play. He accomplished this feat on April 23, 1999 against the Dodgers. Roll the footage:

What makes this feat all the more incredible is the fact that Tatís is the only player to have the opportunity to accomplish it – no other player has ever found themselves at the plate with the bases loaded twice in one inning. It’s the most impossibly perfect meeting of opportunity and execution you could ever hope to see and it offers an important takeaway: when opportunity knocks, dig in, wait for your pitch and swing for the fences.

We’ve all heard the phrase “success is when preparation meets opportunity” but Tatís shows us that sometimes history will open the door to you and you alone, so you have to be ready to step across the threshold.

[h/t]

Every kid has that fantasy career when they’re growing up: firefighter, police officer, movie star, author, etc. For me the dream was to be an astronaut and walk on the moon. Unfortunately, two realities brought me down to Earth (see what I did there?):

1. I was not interested in acquiring the math and science background that such a career would require.
2. We don’t fly to the moon anymore so why even bother?

As we mature, most of us abandon those childhood dreams due to similar reality checks. In the process we lose that part of us that could put a cardboard box on our head, call it a space helmet and envision no future in which we are not exploring the lunar landscape. We stop calling ourselves astronauts-in-training and we get on with life. Mortgages can’t be paid with hopes and dreams, after all.

Unfortunately, these self-inflicted limitations that we place on our imagination and self image begin to hold us back from accomplishing the dreams that are in reach.

Say you want to be a writer – what does it take? As near as I can tell, all you have to do is write.

That’s right: the mere act of writing automatically makes you a writer. No MFA required.

Want to be an actor? You don’t need drama school – you just have to act.

Want to play guitar? Strum a guitar and you’re a guitar player.

You see the pattern here. Am I simplifying things? Absolutely. Am I over-simplifying? Not at all.

Read back over the past few sentences. You’ll notice that I didn’t give you one step instructions on how to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, Leonardo DiCaprio or Dave Matthews. All I did was show you what it takes to begin down those particular paths.

One thing you will never encounter is a best-selling author who never wrote a word. I’ve told you how I feel about math and even I can see that this doesn’t add up.

Your experiences between your childhood dreaming and your present reality might make you feel as though it takes a publishing deal to be considered a writer but this is a lie: all it takes to be a writer is to write.

You are the sole author of your life story. If you want there to be any possibility that the story ends with “and all of his albums went platinum” then the next chapter must begin with “He picked up the guitar and began to strum”.

Here are some of the best articles I’ve come across this week, including fantastic advice from creative professionals and the best way to talk to yourself when you want to excel. Have a great weekend!

99U Conference Recap Vol. 1: What Are Your Creative Values?
99U Conference Recap Vol. 2: Rethinking the Way We Work
99U Conference Recap Vol. 3: Rethinking the Way We Lead
99U Conference Recap Vol. 4: Design
99U Conference Recap Vol. 5: Entrepreneurship

The focus of the 99U conference in New York City is on how to make ideas happen. The recaps above highlight insights from creative professionals and leading thinkers from around the world. They are worth reading as a whole, or you can just pick the topic that interests you the most. Please share your favorite bits in the comments!

‘Self Talk’: When Talking to Yourself, the Way You Do It Makes a Difference

Most of us will talk to ourselves when we need to focus on an upcoming task or reflect on our past actions. It turns out that something as simple as addressing yourself by your name or as “you” is much more effective than the first-person “I” when it comes to this self talk. (h/t)

Deadspin recently ran a great piece that was ostensibly about the expense of weddings and the tendency of some couples to lose sight of the only necessary components of a wedding: two people wanting to get married and the person of official authority who can make it legal. In such scenarios – and in everyday life – it can be hard to keep things in perspective. However, the author, Albert Burneko, goes well and truly beyond the wedding example and touches on being practical, tempering expectations and – if one reads between the lines – doing the work.

Life is only as complicated as you make it

The wedding example is a classic – a couple can convene at the courthouse and be Mr. and Mrs. in less than thirty minutes OR many thousands of dollars can be spent on venues, travel, outfits, food, flowers, cake, drinks, favors – the list can go on forever.

That is, it can go as far as you want it to. Burneko’s point is that you should only take that list as far as two considerations will reach:

1) What do you actually want?

2) What can you afford?

To go beyond either limitation is to have lost perspective. To arrange more than you actually want is silly – to arrange more than you can afford is irresponsible. To surpass either limit and then complain about the outcome is a great way to lose friends.

Be ambitious, but temper your expectations

Burneko’s own example of his basketball dreams is too great to not just quote directly:

Sadly, bitter experience and a dawning awareness of the harsh realities of genetics taught young [Burneko] that, at the very least, becoming Penny Hardaway would require many millions of dollars, as well as several still-far-off and probably completely ludicrous advancements in the likely nonexistent scientific field of Replacing Young Boys’ Entire Bodies With Much Larger and More Athletic Bodies for the Fulfillment of Sports Fantasies. This was quite a bummer. 

He knew he would never be Penny Hardaway, but he goes on to make the point that this does not mean he couldn’t (or shouldn’t) play basketball – or that playing the game required anything other than a ball and a hoop.

Just because you can’t have everything doesn’t mean you have failed or that you can’t have anything. To not play basketball because it would not likely lead to NBA stardom is to not be in touch with reality. Ambition is important, but tunnel-vision that limits your potential is a dangerous trap that should be avoided.

So get started

Even though it goes beyond his thesis, my main takeaway from Burneko’s piece was the next logical step to his commentary: do the work. It has long been my ambition to be a novelist and last April I took an important step – the only step neccesary, in fact – toward that goal: I began to write a novel.

The process of writing a novel can also be expensive… if you want it to be. Professional cover design, paid promotion, the opportunity cost of foregone salary if you decide to quit or take leave from your day job.

Or it can be done for essentially nothing. Really, you just need words. Any number over 50,000 will do nicely. Cover designs can be simple (and are hardly an upfront consideration), marketing can be done for free via social media, and there is no opportunity cost (outside of less time for House of Cards) if you commit to writing in your free time.

But what if my ambition is to write the Great American Novel or to be as acclaimed as my own favorite author, F. Scott Fitzgerald? Well, that’s a nice thought and a lofty goal indeed, but I would do well to keep my expectations a little more grounded.

I’m probably not the next Fitzgerald, and that’s OK. It hasn’t stopped me from doing the work. I have my story and when I have my allocated time I flirt with the muse and begin to type. Sometimes I’ll write a sentence or maybe a mere phrase that I convince myself is worth reading – potentially Fitzgerald-esque. I’m probably wrong, but it feels good anyway. If I let the minuscule odds of achieving literary immortality keep me from trying, I wouldn’t have that feeling of accomplishment.

Don’t complicate matters unnecessarily and lose sight of the nuts and bolts.

Don’t forego an activity because there is a chance you won’t be the best.

Set the bar high, but keep your feet on the ground.

Do the work.

I finished reading The Stranger this week, which has me thinking about Albert Camus. The author of many novels, essays and letters, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 and is remembered by many as one of the finest writers – and thinkers – of his generation. That his philosophy often informed his prose served only to make his stories even better. However, it is to his notes and letters that I thought we could turn today in search of inspiration.

Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness. If they are happy by surprise, they find themselves disabled, unhappy to be deprived of their unhappiness. (via)

Happiness has a tendency to be fleeting and can sometimes appear when we least expect it. Have you ever set out to achieve one goal but accidentally achieved a different, sometimes cooler result? The natural reaction for many in this situation is to deflect credit for this achievement. Some may even be annoyed by the accidental nature of the success. However, the final result would not have been attained had you not been out there giving things a go in the first place.

Take your happiness where you can get it.

You cannot create experience, you must undergo it. (via)

Once again, you have to be in it to win it. You could read about the Grand Canyon and look at pictures and watch videos and listen to your friends gush about their experiences there. Or, you could go there yourself and watch the sun set slowly over the lip of the canyon until you are alone in a silent darkness found in few other places. One option is undergoing experience, and I don’t think I have to tell you which one.

Get out there and live the life you want to live.

I don’t make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

This quote is taken from a letter Camus wrote to Louis Germain upon receiving the Nobel Prize. Germain was Camus’ teacher and a father figure who offered invaluable encouragement in Camus’ formative years. It is a testament to the power of that encouragement that the only worth Camus could assign to such a prestigious honor is that it gave him an opportunity to show gratitude to Germain.

As we go through life, it is important to stay humble and remember those who helped us attain our grandest goals – to “embrace [them] with all [your] heart”. If we are fortunate, we may get the opportunity to show our gratitude – as Camus has done – through our work and by encouraging those who follow us.