Before trips my wife uses a written list of items to pack for our family. Some friends of ours cook brats for dinner every Saturday. As a recruiter, I use a chart to visualize and track my phone, text, and email communications to candidates.

Joseph King Barkley, the president of the MetaPerformance Institute, recently wrote a thought-provoking post on LinkedIn. It relates to how he handles exploratory calls with coaches who are considering joining Foundations, a coaching training program offered by the Institute.

Strong Towns, one of the most popular books on urban revitalization, has grown an entire movement around its principles. All around the country, people have banded into groups called “Conversations” to support the improvement and renewal of their cities.

“The thing’s on fire, and they had to call the fire department.” These are the words that my wife woke me with at 7:30am.

In Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Ideal Team Player, the main character finds himself in a challenge that will require intense focus. For a time, he is able to make this his main priority but then, he is surprised when the busyness of ordinary tasks take him off course for two whole days.

Think of a particular challenge in your life. What if you could change your mindset to create a positive snowball effect in less than an hour? This is exactly what the interventions of Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton do.

When I was driving to Nashville this weekend, I often had a car or truck in front of me. While following them, I was reminded of a practice in cycling called “drafting” or “slipstreaming.”

In the following pairs of statements which is true? 

People stay the same. — People change.

I don’t belong here. — Other people also feel like they don’t belong.

I am unattractive. — If one person, my future spouse, finds me attractive, that is more than enough.

I once read somewhere that one way that you can tell if an animal is monogamous or polygamous is that animals who have just one mate for life release significantly higher levels of oxytocin, the social bonding hormone, during reproduction.

Can your mindset about food impact how your body reacts to it? In a fascinating study, participants were given a milkshake for breakfast and told that it was a high-calorie, indulgent treat. Two weeks later the same participants were given another milkshake and told that it was a low-calorie, healthy drink.

You’re getting old. How did you react to that statement? Does getting old mean something negative or positive to you?

“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.