Thanks For Your Help!
Putting together a personal, public webspace for myself as a content platform has been something I've wanted to do for half a decade now. When I was initially putting this site together, I was met with a number of road bumps which I struggled with (procrastination and indecision certainly being among them). It is thanks to these friends that I was able to trudge forward and keep refining the site to the point where I was eventually satisfied with the product.
In alphabetical order: AK, BN, CT, IS, JH, JT, LD, LW, MT, MW, TC, TP, WY.
Thank you :) wouldn't have been the same without your support!
Digging Deeper
Friday Five: Food For Thought (1)
- Why Explore Space? (Letter, by Ernst Stuhlinger)
- What are some of the best travel locations that most people have never heard of? (Quora responses by many people)
- The Fermi Paradox (article, by Tim Urban)
- The Late, Great Stephen Colbert (article, by Joel Lovell)
- So you're not up at 5am to work? What's wrong with you? Nothing. (post, by Libby Fordham)
Happy Friday!
Canadian Youth Mobility Agreements - Did You Know?
Traveling around the world as a visitor, student, worker, or whatever other circumstance. It's a dream for many of us, isn't it? However, due to national borders, we are often faced with all sorts of challenges imposed by the systems in place for traveling. Similarly, my partner and I have been considering different places where we could do long-term traveling / short-term working, but come up against the wall of visa issues and poorly laid-out information on public resources.
Thankfully, in Canada, we are very fortunate to be a part of a group of countries who have set up an agreement that simplifies this all.
Shitty First Drafts
I (somewhat) recently attended Traction Conf 2016. The second day of this event opened with a fireside chat between Justin Kan of Y Combinator and Kristina Shen of Bessemer Ventures. The conversation was generally interesting and useful, but there was one specific idea that stood out to me the most:
The Shitty First Draft
The idea that one should put something out when it's reached a basically useful state (a.k.a. MVP), become motivated that it's in the public (ish) sphere, and continue to iterate upon this first draft to make progressive improvements.
Characteristics of People Admired
In an effort to develop a playbook of effective patterns, my fiancee and I came up with a list of people that we admire and respect at our current point in life. We wanted to see what they had in common as baseline characteristics and how this manifested in their behaviours. These are mostly people we've worked or volunteered with to have been witness to them “in action”. We did a general assessment of each of their qualities to determine which they had in common and we could strive to develop in ourselves.
Deciding to take a sabbatical
I decided to make some major life changes at the start of 2016. This was due to a number of factors, including health troubles, and something else that I couldn't explain.
A question many posed to me is whether I chose to take a sabbatical because my career wasn't going anywhere. To be honest, this couldn't be further from the truth. At the time, I was with Avanade and on a very solid career track within the company as well the area of industry where I was focused. Life was going great no matter how you looked at it, but something didn't feel right - it was this inexplicable feeling that led me to decide to pursue something else that was not in a career-oriented direction.
After carefully considering what I wanted to do, I chose to term my break as a "sabbatical" because it best aligned with what I was seeking…
On Sabbatical - Month 3
Continuing along... what happens towards the halfway mark of time invested in personal development?
Month 3 (June 2016)
Wedding planning trip to Pemberton, BC to work meet with our photographer, chef.
Attend the Annual Ceremonial Review for 888 Avenger Royal Canadian Air Cadet Squadron, representing the Kiwanis Club of Vancouver in the review party and presenting the award for Top Instructor.
Ongoing things: quality family time, wedding planning activities, dedicated time for the Kiwanis Club of Vancouver, ultimate frisbee league, Weekly Coffee Hour, volunteering with Working Gear, and an unhealthy amount of time on Quora through it all…
Community Highlight - Dress for Success Vancouver
The Kiwanis Club of Vancouver received its charter in 1919 to function primarily in service and goodwill. Since its inception, the Kiwanis Club of Vancouver has raised funds for the handicapped, aged, and needy, and sponsored other civic, cultural and social activities.
Earlier this month, one of our members spoke with Jennifer Halinda, Executive Director of Dress for Success Vancouver, to better understand how they are leading the way to empower women into the workforce in our city.