This exercise takes a little more than 5 minutes to move your attention from wanting a strength to noticing that strength to expecting to find that strength in yourself and others. When you focus on how you experience a strength you would like to grow, you discover many different signs that strength exists in you and others. You also shift your focus from wanting to discovering, which builds the optimism that builds success.

In this short podcast, Linda Ferguson shares a favourite place to start a coaching session. Many people arrive with something they want to change. If you find yourself saying "I wish I didn't. . . ." you can turn it around by changing the frame. Instead, just say "I wonder why I . . . " And then really wonder, exploring benefits and relationships and contexts. You'll find that you are on the path to change before you know it.