Weekends are time when things slow down a little. Your weekend shouldn’t be two more regular work days. That’s a sure road to burnout. Take time to refresh yourself. Take time for something different. Take time for some of that reading you can’t find time for during the week.

Here are choice articles on hot leadership topics culled from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms. This week there are articles about your life and career.

From the London School of Economics: Is happiness a consequence or cause of career success?

“New research suggests that happiness precedes and often leads to career success, write Lisa C. Walsh, Julia K. Boehm and Sonja Lyubomirsky.”

From Derek Thompson: Workism Is Making Americans Miserable

“These post-work predictions weren’t entirely wrong. By some counts, Americans work much less than they used to. The average work year has shrunk by more than 200 hours. But those figures don’t tell the whole story. Rich, college-educated people—especially men—work more than they did many decades ago. They are reared from their teenage years to make their passion their career and, if they don’t have a calling, told not to yield until they find one.”

Thanks to Smartbrief on Leadership for pointing me to this story

From Adi Gaskell: 3 Reasons Why Being A Polymath Is Key In The Future Of Work

“Ever since Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, the industrial world has been enthralled with specialization. Workers have been trained from an early age to focus on a fairly narrow range of skills that they will then apply for the remainder of their careers, like compliant cogs in the industrial machine.”

From Laura Morgan Roberts, Emily D. Heaphy, and Brianna Barker Caza: To Become Your Best Self, Study Your Successes

“Going through the full Reflected Best Self Exercise itself provides concentrated, if infrequent, dose of positive feedback. But there are organic ways that you can learn about and activate your best self at work every day as well. We’ve seen this more continual approach help people find new opportunities to develop parts of themselves that get lost in the daily demands of work, notice new ways of crafting their jobs, or take new steps towards longed-for callings. This article highlights five practices for noticing and capitalizing on everyday opportunities for development based on your best self.”

From Art Kleiner: Rethinking Brand You

“Excellence provocateur Tom Peters sharpens the career advice he’s been giving for the past 20 years.”

From Ryan Estis: The Psychology of Managing Your Career

“Career progression can be a painful slog of trial and error, with missteps and frustration at the prospect of never progressing in the direction of your highest career aspiration.”

Book Suggestions

The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life by Shawn Achor

Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Want by Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen , James Allworth , et al.

The Road to Character by David Brooks

Bring Your Brain to Work: Using Cognitive Science to Get a Job, Do it Well, and Advance Your Career by Art Markman

The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study by Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin

Every week I share some recommendations of business books that I think are worth a look. Follow this link to the most recent list.

Every Monday, I do a blog post about business reading and business books. Follow this link to the most recent post. It’s a review of Great Leaders Have No Rules by Kevin Kruse