So my wife and I are expecting the arrival of our second child sometime in the next 7 days. With a little bit of a paternity leave on the horizon, I'm doing my best to go home as close to "inbox zero" as I can every night, and this mentality has made me considerably more efficient with completing my daily to-do list. 

As a result, I've got my weekly newsletter drawn up and ready to go a little earlier than usual and I figured making you wait an extra day for some useful content isn't helping anyone. Here's a special Thursday edition of my "Friday Four."

First things first, here's a look at some content published on my own site this week:

• Fitness Tourism - An Opportunity to Stand on the Shoulders of Giants: If you own a gym or aspire to, you should pack up a suitcase and hit the road for a little bit of "Fitness Tourism." There are invaluable lessons to be learned by setting foot inside of established gyms and this post touches on a few of them. 

• 3 Lessons Nonprofits Can Teach Businesses About Branding: This was my favorite post of the week because it was an entirely new concept to me. Why aren’t more of us looking at the way that operations such as the Red Cross create urgency, inspire viewers, and create community around a cause? Check this one out and start applying concepts quickly so that you can “connect with consumers’ hearts and their wallets.”

• How Under Armour is outsmarting the Olympics' strict advertising rules - and is reaping the rewards of Phelps and USA gymnastics team: There is ALWAYS a trendy discussion taking place on social networking platforms that you can align your business with. This article points out how effectively Under Armour has leveraged it’s affiliation with athletes instead of the Olympic Games to bypass the big spend that comes with being “an official sponsor.” You could be doing the same thing (on a smaller level) with your own brand right this moment with a little bit of creativity.

• SoulCycle Wants You to Join Its Tribe: SoulCycle is a business that is projected to collect $175M in 2016 in just 62 studios. That, my friends, is a business worthy of a spot on your “Fitness Tourism” itinerary. This piece takes you deep into the SoulCycle experience. You may not love this form of exercise, but you’ve got to be impressed by this fast growing operation.

• Why Everyone Should Get Fired at Least Once: I once worked a job where I feared my boss; it was awful. Had I come across this article way back then, I wouldn’t have wasted any time moving on to the next step in my professional development process. While the title of this piece is certainly meant to draw significant clicks, the overarching message is that staying in a toxic employment environment is your choice. If your gut is telling you to move on, do so.