Articles, books, and sites that I get encouragement from
It is never easy to make a career transition. I have had many rejections from the outside world, along with many doubts coming from a self-critical me. However, reading positive, inspirational articles and books gives me information and support to continue. I will share some of them with you.
Work PAUSE Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career by Lisen Stromberg ( https://www.amazon.com/Work-PAUSE-Thrive-Parenthood-Without/dp/1942952732 )
In this book, the author provides a lot of real life examples about the women who pause their career and re-invent themselves. One fact that strikes me most: it is not easy, but not uncommon. Those who give up too early end up not thriving as they plan to. So, I tell myself not to give up. Oh, I did not buy this book and I borrowed it from our local library.
Books ( https://www.amazon.com/New-American-Dream-Blueprint-Success/dp/1614649928/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1508769208&sr=8-2&keywords=penelope+trunk ) and blog (http://penelopetrunk.com/) by Penelope Trunk
I enjoyed reading her blogs about resume writing, life lessons and so on. She uses simple but articulate words that tells exactly what I want to say, but never been able to say. The sentence that strikes me is from her book the New American Dream: The new American Dream is about having an interesting life, not making a lot of money. I actually like this version of the quote better: The new American Dream is about having an interesting life, not a happy life. Why? I am not having a happy life because I can not pinpoint what is making me happy. But, I am sure having an interesting life, with learning, reading, writing and trying new things almost everyday. I can not ask for more. Oh, I met a lot of people working with BI and SQL Server, some of them are very interesting because they learn and teach, or organize meetings for learners like me. They learn by reading blogs. One person said that he will read 7-9 posts about SQL Server everyday. I will try to do that too.
Two Articles by Benjamin P. Hardy. The first article is about becoming a millionaire ( https://medium.com/the-mission/want-to-become-a-multi-millionaire-then-do-these-14-things-immediately-18065dc492a1 )and second article is about goal setting ( https://journal.thriveglobal.com/if-you-dont-believe-in-setting-goals-it-s-because-you-don-t-know-how-to-do-it-cdddea181aab ). Why only two articles? His titles sound too empty, and that makes I lose interests in reading them. What if I fail to become a millionaire after reading this article? I know I will fail, so I don’t want to read it (to give myself an excuse for not becoming a millionaire, or for not being successful). Why I read it and write it in this blog anyway? Because after I read them, I feel it is more like encouraging people to learn and to read. It lines with my own philosophy and I recommend them. But, too much reading of his site is not helpful because it use words like success, better, etc. I still like the word interesting by Penelope Trunk.
TED talk by Tim Ferris (https://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_smash_fear_learn_anything#t-256385)
I have not read any of his books (even though I borrowed one from library and kept it for 3 weeks) and I did not really a random podcast from him. But, I strongly agree with him that with the right method, we can learn and improve at anything. Before we get to the right methods, don’t give up and continue to search. With all resources on the internet and at our finger tip, we will eventually find the good method that will lead us to our goal. That is why I started this blog, to share my journey and my method of learning. I know it is not a totally new methods, but I am happy to see that my blog might be helpful for your lonely searching journey too.