Welcome to the Weekly Reads, where I highlight articles that I found on the web and that are focused on career advice, lifestyle, beauty or anything I think would round-up as useful for the young, modern, working woman. Just get yourself comfortable, pour a cup of coffee – or tea – and enjoy this week’s reads!
What have I been up to this week
I am finally out of the office and it feels so good. I have spent last week in Italy – more exactly in Palermo, in beautiful Sicily – so I took a break from the Weekly Reads while on holiday. The week was filled with eating lots of pizza – the best in Italy some say – drinking Sicilian wine, eating delicious cannoli and sipping on cappuccino. I discovered a couple of great places so I might write a short post on my recommendations soon.
The downside of going on holiday? I spent the first weekend of the holiday finalizing my handover and out of office notes to my colleagues. Due to my dynamic job, going on holidays/coming back from holidays is always a pain. Lesson is, start preparing handovers as early as possible, even two to three weeks in advance.
The Weekly Reads
If somebody offers you money, always ask for more. The lesson learned from the Bad on Paper Podcast. Loved their episode on salary negotiation and their candid talk, sharing absolutely all details and salaries from their careers. I feel like there is still quite some stigma to talking money and such honest conversations are necessary if we want to get ahead of ourselves in terms of salary negotiations and really being confident about money. Please do make sure to listen to this one, it will be at least enriching to listen to sombodey else’s career and salary story!
True leaders play chess. What a strong piece on how to not only acknowledge emotions in the workplace but actually harness their power to become a better manager. Amen to this:
… “average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess.” In checkers, every piece is the same: they’re interchangeable. But winning a game of chess requires you to understand each piece’s strengths and weaknesses, and you can’t effectively play unless you understand why each piece is unique
Coached. I believe the first job shapes so much of your career and the mentality you will apply to it; building up good habits and transferrable skills is crucial in this phase. If you have a new junior member on your team, make sure you dedicate enough time to coaching them on how to navigate the ups and downs of building a career. This article from HBR on how to coach junior employees is a great piece to start with.
How she gets it done. Former Apple employee and current Googler Amanda Danielle Krettek on how she gets it done. I love reading a good piece on a real working woman and how she manages her life.
What I am reading. I grabbed a couple of books from the airport on my way to Palermo and since I wanted something easy to read but did not have too broad of a selection available I ended picking up The Cactus and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I did not know anything about the plot prior to picking up the books and little did I know how similar the books would turn to be.
I finished reading The Cactus during the trip in Italy already and just today I also finished the second one. My thoughts? I am not exactly into this kind of story lines but the ending definitely brings you a warm feeling. I though “The Cactus” was a bit too predictive even sort of basic at times and not subtle enough but that warm fuzzy feeling at the end of the book is kind of worth it. As for “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine”, it is build around the topic of loneliness and how much power a little kindness can have. The book won a few awards and the story is different but definitely touching!
Thank you for reading and hope you are having a wonderful week!
