The most fundamental and life-changing exercise I’ve done (and I’ve done a lot of “who are you?” exercises) is defining my core values. These are my self-selected guiding principles and represent who I am. They are also my very favorite tool for evaluating literally everything in my life. Allow me to explain: Personal development is personal. Personal finance is personal. The right relationships, careers, hobbies, and more are all personal. Specifically tailored to the person. So how do we define what is important to us? That’s right, Core Values.

I remember going through behavioral interview after interview, and it was always an exhausting process. I noticed a pattern in these interviews. Not only did nearly every question start with “Tell me about a time when…” but it felt like every interviewer was reading from the same script and wanted to hear the same type of story over and over. After a few rounds of feeling like I was coming up with examples from scratch, I decided to systematize. And behold, the Behavioral Interview Matrix was born.

One day I realized that people didn’t actually care about what I did that weekend. Not in a “they don’t actually care” kind of way, but in a “they aren’t asking for a report on your weekend” kind of way. When people ask about your weekend, they actually do care about you and they want to connect with you, and asking about your weekend or other similar questions is actually a way to start a conversation, learn something about you that is interesting, and find a way to connect with you.