Category: Questions … Fri

Question Fridays

Where can you travel to learn about yourself?

Posted on by Senia

Friday is question day!

Where can you travel to – to learn more about yourself? Reply here in the comments or on twitter with the hashtag “#Qofday”: see here for example.

Where could you travel to that would actually change, influence, inform, enliven your point of view?
What is a place that would make it easy to be more YOU?

* * * * *
My answer is:

  • Japan again – and the quietness of the Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples
  • Alaska again – and the nature that is so peaceful and so fresh
  • Rome again – with all the gelato. I can discover more of myself in gelato :)
  • Patagonia – for the hiking. My friend Chris has incredible photos from there.
  • Small cities, small streets like Montreux, Switzerland, and other places I have not yet been to in Europe.

The Most Exhausting Thing

Posted on by Senia

This is a question for you.

What do you find to be the most exhausting thing?

  • Working out physically to exhaustion
  • Studying and tiring out mentally to exhaustion
  • Getting into a fight with a friend or colleague to emotional exhaustion

I think it’s the last option – the emotional upheavals – that really tire us and exhaust us. What can we do about this?

Should we ignore heavy emotional items? Should we swim through them? Should we take a lighter attitude toward them?

What works for you?

And which was the most exhausting for you from this short list?

Update (1/29): Are you exhausted because of attribution theory?

QUESTION FRIDAY: Anticipating or Defensive?

Posted on by Senia

If I told you I could teach you two sets of skills – one anticipating and the other defensive – which would you choose first? Which would you be more excited about learning?

I’ll give you concrete examples. I was teaching some great MBA students this past week, and my colleague and I were teaching them both types of skills.

Anticipating:
* How to have a good-communications relationship so that misunderstandings are less likely to happen, and good interactions are more likely to occur?
* How to increase the strength of your immune system by being more aware of the good things going on around you?
* How to use your strengths more to bring you more productivity and enjoyment?

Defensive:
* When something bad happens – like your boss calls you into his office with no warning, and says, “I have a concern,” how do you react and how do you handle yourself?
* When someone seems to lose trust in you, what do you do?
* When everything seems to go wrong, how do you pick yourself back up and put yourself together and keep going?

Which of these sets of questions attract you more?
I’d be very interested!

Thanks,
Senia

What is your September goal?

Posted on by Senia

I was at a talk a few days ago, and the speaker in his last exercise, asked us to speak to a partner about a goal we want to accomplish in the next 30 days.

September is the time we used to return to school as kids. September is when people return from vacations and buckle down again to work. September is a time for new things, including new projects and new habits.

What is your September goal?

How do you like to say goodbye?

Posted on by Senia

I’ve been facilitating a wonderful workshop on Resilience for teachers – so that the teachers can teach their 10-14 year old students. It has been two weeks of intensity, great ideas, strong commitment from the teachers, and a fabulous interaction between the facilitators. Today is the last day.

How do I like to say goodbye? Quickly. With expectation of soon-again-next-time. Smiling. With gratitude. Like a little girl running away from a fun wave on the shore, expecting to be back next summer.

How do you like to say goodbye?

What did you like best about the weekend?

Posted on by Senia

I find that I often ask questions about the upcoming, but because we know that some people prefer to reminisce about the past and some like to plan for the future (see Mimi’s article on savoring and Derrick’s article on time-modalities), I want to be asking more questions about the past as well:

QUESTION: What did you like best about your last weekend?

…and since I enjoy thinking about the future more than about the past:
…And how do you think you may do similar things on July 4th as what you did last weekend?

Please feel free to toss your answer in the comments.