“What was more important than doing what you said you would?” When I ask this question of my coaching clients, I’ve often gotten reactions like, “Ouch, that one stings,” or “Man, that one hurts.”

A client recommended a book called The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good For You And How To Get Good At It. It opens with a question: “If you had to sum up how you feel about stress, which statement would be more accurate: A) Stress is harmful, and should be avoided, reduced, and managed or B) Stress is helpful, and should be accepted, utilized, and embraced.”

In job interviews, a very common question is “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” Perhaps it’s because of questions like these that I’ve tended toward the following dichotomy: my strengths are the things that I’m good at, and my weaknesses are things that I’m bad at.

In a course offered by the Human Formation Coalition, I was recently introduced to some useful metaphors for understanding areas of talent. Although they apply specifically to CliftonStrengths, I think they’re useful more generally as well.

In a TED Talk about listening, Julian Treasure says that in the cacophony of modern life, “It’s harder for us to pay attention to the quiet, the subtle, the understated.” He goes on to share five exercises for improving our listening.

In the early 20th century, the steel magnate Charles M. Schwab, was given a piece of advice by a consultant. He told him to write down the six most important tasks for the day, to rank them according to priority, and to work solely on the first one until it was finished.

Imagine I told you, “I have a drawing that uses simple shapes on my paper. Your job is to use open-ended questions to gain clarity about what the image on the paper looks like.” What questions would you ask?

Imagine five eggs in a row in an egg carton. The first space is empty. The next five spaces are full.

I’ve heard that Seneca used to seek out noisy places to write so that he could practice inner stillness regardless of external circumstances. In his book The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin, describes an extraordinary moment in which he found this sort of tranquility.

“And when that happens, what do you give yourself permission to do?” I still find this question powerful, years after my first coach asked it of me.

A client once told me, “My life feels like I’m plugging holes in a leaky ship with pieces of cloth—just creating temporary halfway solutions.” A small personal example of this is how I used to open bags of pig feed.

How do you change your future? A process from The Three Laws of Performance is powerful and simple.

In the beginning of St. Augustine’s Confessions, he states that there are two testimonies that humans “carry around.”

“We’ve become so used to the idea that the only reward for getting better is moving toward higher income and increased responsibilities that we forget that the fruits of pursuing quality can also be harvested in the form of a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Recently, I’ve been listening to the Founders podcast. The host said something that really stuck with me: “Actions express priority.”

Ric Machuga, a community college philosophy professor who profoundly changed my life, had a remarkable concluding question for interviews with anyone who might replace him in his role. He said that after asking all the usual stuff, he would playfully end the interview by saying, “Oh yes, and just for fun, one final question: What would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow?”

Most of my troubles are because I am unwilling to be surprised. When I am frustrated, tired, resentful, or going through any other negative state, I notice that part of me decides that is just how things are going to be.

We recently had just enough snow for the children to play in. As I supervised my son playing with our neighbors, I sipped a warm cup of coffee and thought the following, “There are two ways to stay warm: drinking coffee or playing in the snow.”

In this season of Advent, we are full of joyful expectation as we await the coming of Christ. I imagine that the people who met the infant Jesus were filled with greater gratitude because of how much they waited for his arrival.

“Once you get used to accomplishing a specific type of task at the same time on the same days, the overhead required for their execution plummets.” This is one of the key ideas behind what Cal Newport calls the “autopilot schedule.”