This Slate story is about how a blind lawyer from the Minneapolis area used GPS technology to hike the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia’s Springer Mountain all the way to Maine.

Mike Hanson tells us he attended the University of St. Thomas School of Law, graduating in 2005. He practices in business and estate planning.

The Slate story says he has been blind almost since birth and is obviously undeterred by big challenges. He’s written a book on his trek, and he is planning another along the Pacific Crest trail.

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Sports Illustrated this week includes one of those, “What if I weren’t a lawyer” stories that may touch on the unrequited dreams of some of our readers. The dreamer in this story is Daron Roberts, who SI says was on a career trajectory to be a senator, a governor or a Supreme Court justice when a Harvard class on sports law opened up his interest in coaching football.

“The first thing he had to do, though, was make one difficult phone call: to his parents,” the story says. After their initial shock, his parents resolved that “Daron would still have a Harvard law degree. He could afford to experiment,” the story says.

Now he is the cornerbacks coach at West Virginia, hoping perhaps to follow in the footsteps of Derek Dooley, the UGA law grad who is now head coach at Tennessee and a handful of other coaches who are members of the bar.

The story is here.

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Susan Cain was a corporate lawyer who found her work didn’t suit her. So she found something that did. She now writes and speaks about the power of introverts. She’s written a book on the subject called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.  And she’s stepped outside her comfort zone to speak and teach on the subject, telling her audiences that introverts and extroverts have a lot to learn from each other.

In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be
an introvert, Cain says. But she argues that introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated. “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas,” Cain says.

Click here for a link to a video of one of Cain’s speeches.

If you think you have the characteristics of both introverts and extroverts – many of us do, apparently – you can take a quiz on Cain’s website.