Quality of Questions

Faisal: A lot of coaching in the beginning as you were starting off. If you don't know anything about the industry, if you don't know anything about the person, a lot of it is very open-ended questions to understand people.

And a lot of it might look like what are you trying to create in your life? Tell me a little bit about your vision. Tell me a little bit about your goals. What makes you happy in life? What do you think when you think of purpose? These kinds of questions are very open-ended. You don't know where it's gonna go, but once you get the answers, then you can start to kind of focus on some areas that you know are pain points for people that they are working through.

Sheri: Yeah. And another aspect of kind of exploration is where a client, what roles and responsibilities and aspects of their life they feel personally responsible for. Two specific examples. Coaching a gentleman who's definitely a high performer. He's transitioning in his life out of one type of career into another, and he's got a lot of concern about finances and so part of my question was like, okay, well how do you see your role or what do you want your role to be?

As head of the household and how does that play into the finances and, and kind of having a conversation around that because as he was talking, I, there was, you know, a few things I could pick up on. I'm like, but I don't want to ma assume that he is fully seeing himself the way that I am interpreting that, or that, you know, some values that I might have about my marriage and my, my household that, you know, would fit and play into his.

So getting more. Really diving into understanding the roles and responsibilities that he ascribes to. And then another example yesterday I was doing some consulting with another coach and she was sharing with me a client and some challenges she's having and I could see that she had a very specific interpretation around how this mother was responding in her family. And so part of my consultation with this other gal was helping her develop questions so that she can then better understand the roles and responsibilities. Of this mother, what are the motivations for the behavior?

And so I think some of the questions around understanding the values and what's important and what the, what one's expectation is, or what client's expectation is in how they function in these different areas can be a really powerful way of kind of uncovering some of the some of, some of their motivators as well as maybe some aspects that aren't serving them, but maybe they don't even realize it. 

Faisal: Yeah. I love that. And it's like a dance between the open-ended questions, and then as you ask more, you find out a little bit more. And then you have, and this is generally how coaching works, is that you ask a lot of open-ended questions to get to understand what they're trying to do.

And that's where kind of disconnections show up like they're saying something, but then you, you can also check-in. So I'll give you an example. So again one of my discovery calls this week. So as I was going into the, one of the things I like to do is, especially the first one, I wanna know more about people's vision.

And first of all, I want to know like, what are they picturing their life to be? Ideally, because all of us have an ideal version of what we want to create, what, who we want to be, what we want to contribute, and how we want to interact with people. So within that, when I'm asking them, I always check-in.

So for example, I was asking 'em like, what is an ideal version of a relationship with your wife? Because I knew that was a challenging area. He talked about he wanted to go and he described all that, that Well, I asked him first from his point of view, how, how do you see that interaction with your wife and that ideal life.

And what he described was that, well, I want to feel loved, I want to feel supported. I wanna feel understood. These are very vague concepts, and then I had to kind of take deeper. I'm like, how would you feel supported? What would be an ideal version, give me an example of that. Well, if she understands that in business I'm doing all this stuff and I'm doing all this stuff for our home, and sometimes I get busy, and so I want some understanding around that.

And so what would she need to say or do for you to get that? And What he said was, well, just an acknowledgment that you're working hard and I get it and sometimes I spend long hours, but I appreciate you actually trying to spend time with us. And so that would do that, and that would help you feel supported, like Yeah. Have you explicitly asked for that? No

Sheri: ding, ding, ding. 

Faisal: Oh, so do you see that there's a problem? 

Sheri: Actually have to ask my spouse for what I want.

Faisal: and it's one of those areas where you know because we've been in this world, this is where your work will matter. Because if you haven't done your work in your relationships, you will not know to catch that.

Yeah. If you're hoping that the other side will know what you want. It won't work. But these are very basic things in communication, so, you know, and, and so when I asked him, I'm like, okay, so do you know that? And well, no. Every, and then his challenge became around, well, I don't know how to express that without her being defensive.

And then we went in a different direction. Like, why do you think she feels defensive? Well, she feels like I don't appreciate her. Mm-hmm. when was the last time you showed appreciation in the way that she wants? She's like, well, I struggle with that part. And then that's where it was interesting.

And, and this is where coaching can become more personal. It takes a turn away from therapy in a sense. And this is maybe my style, but I'm fairly open. I literally shared my screen and I showed a text that I sent to my wife that day. I don't know how that happened. It was that morning coincidentally, I said, and that's an area I struggle with too. 

So I've had to kind of force myself to a couple of times a week I'll send something and it's not like I don't mean it. But I've had these conversations with my wife, I'm like, you know, I think of all these ways that I'm grateful for you, but it's all in my head.

I never say it out loud. So whenever I'm thinking about those things now, I'll just put it down as a note and I'll just send it to her in text. And I literally shared my screen and showed the text, and then I showed her response too. And her response was, she was having a hard time receiving it.

She was like, it was very easy for me to dismiss it, but I really appreciate it. It made my day. So when I shared that I didn't say, well, this is what you should do. I'm like, do you think something like that would support you? And what would that look like in your relationship? He's like, you know, I could do something like that, Okay, how would you remind yourself to do that?

Because you don't have a habit to do that. And then he went to set up a couple of alarms. Once he set that I asked him, we're gonna take a couple of minute break. Can you send a text right now? Something from your heart that you appreciate about her? And he did. After that, he felt amazing. 

Sheri: I have had alarms on my phone for that exact reason, because I also think great thoughts in my brain, but don't always articulate them.

And there was one time my husband was sitting next to me and the alarm came on and it literally said like, send JP a loving text. And he looks at it and he is like, that's what you're doing. I was like, oh, you found me out. You gotta be intentional. 

Faisal: Yeah. And then so we live in this mythical world and this is we've grown up with fairy tales and stories and movies that kind of give the wrong picture of how it actually works in real life. And once you get into a relationship, there's gonna be roses and daisies. You're gonna be a mom there is that period for the first about six months. And after you get out of that and you go to the day-to-day stuff, you forget about all that.

You're gonna be focused on your work. He's gonna be focused on something else and you will not remember. So that's where a lot of weird things come up. So what comes up is our automatic thinking. And a lot of coaches know that, that we all have a program of the normal way or a subconscious way of behaving consistently.

And where do we pick that up in our early environment? It's been modeled for us. Whatever habits have been modeled for us, that's what we do. So I have a hard time with this because I never saw my parents sharing affection ever. Like I didn't even see them hold hands. So for me, my bar was that if I leave her alone, I'm doing pretty good

And she's sitting there, she's like, he doesn't appreciate me. I'm like, I'm doing great in comparison to my parents. 

Sheri: That's hilarious. 

Faisal: That's a pretty low bar. So then how do we change that? Well, we train ourselves to be different. And if you don't have it inside of you, you need an external reminder.

You need intentionality. You need all sorts of habits that take a little bit of time. And as you do these things, you get feedback, you get feedback, and the feedback itself continues. Now, what happens with our clients is that they will say that conceptually they know this, but they don't actually do it.

Yeah, they might do it once in a while, but not consistently enough for it to pick up traction. so this becomes really important when you go into something like this, the client will tell you where they need help. And this is the most freeing thing for me as a coach, that I don't need to know anything before jumping on a call, to be honest, because human beings come with plenty of challenges and problems.

Sheri: I love that. I love that. Just so you know, you can never not, go wrong when you're asking questions. Tell me more. Tell me a little bit more about that. You know, if you're not sure what the next step is, just ask an open-ended question to get more information about whatever it is they just said.

Faisal: Yeah, and like let's take worst-case scenarios as clients share something the quality of how I shared before in the beginning is that they share something and you're completely stumped. You can literally repeat that. This is one of the best tools in coaching that you'll be like, and you talked about interpretation, cuz you'll be interpreting it in a certain way and you don't know which direction to go.

It's like, okay, so this is what I'm hearing when you're sharing this challenge with me, this is what I'm hearing. Is that correct? First of all, you're checking mm-hmm. and you can even share your assumptions. This is, this actually works very well for you because if you can extrapolate kind of not extrapolate, if you can kind of give them an interpretation of what they're doing and what's not working, and you know that, that might be true, because it fits into a pattern first, you'll, you're not assuming you're just saying like, here, here's what I'm thinking, and I could be completely wrong.

What I'm thinking is that, Even though you have the general intention to be there, present with your family, with your wife, to be appreciative, be supportive. Your focus is on your work. So you will keep that intention for a little bit, but then you lose traction and then you get focused there and you lose the habit after a while.

Would you say that's accurate? And they'll say yes, and they'll, you're actually understanding them more as you're saying that. And then from there, you can always like, well, how, how could you improve? And that's just a simple example. But clients know much more about their life than you do. 

Sheri: Absolutely.

Faisal: No matter how much you know about how a specific area, such as how fear works or how vision works, or how goals work. Clients understand their life. They have much more data than you do. So I would always want to go back to them, like, how would this work in your life? I'll give them some perspective, I'll give them some interpretations, and assumptions, but then I check in with them consistently to see where they are.

Sheri: So, listener, as you're hearing these we would love to get feedback on what questions you have found powerful. and if there's anything new or expanded from what you currently do that you're hearing today where you're like, Ooh, that's good. I can use that, or I'm gonna use that on my next client, would love to get feedback.

And of course, this is a topic that could go on forever because there's an endless number of questions that one can use. But we're definitely trying to come up with, and, and share with you a handful of extremely powerful questions that you can have in your back pocket. The more that you use them, the more they're just gonna roll off your tongue.

Especially as a newer coach if you are a newer coach, you might find this to be a big challenge where, again, part of your mental faculties in the session is spent thinking about where you're gonna go, thinking about what the question is, whereas the other part of you is just trying to stay in the moment.

That does get easier, and if you can have like, A list of five to 10 questions that you just know at the back of your hand that are super applicable, that can help free you up a little bit in your kind of with your, your active mind so that you can, you can be more present and you can be with the clients a little bit more than, than kind of in your brain.

Faisal: Yeah. I love that. And, just a couple of things for coaches who are starting new, as you said, I love what you said that in the beginning when starting anything It takes a lot more bandwidth. You're thinking about too many aspects of it, cuz it's not automatic yet.

When I'm in the session, I'm only thinking about the client for the most part because I've already thought through this in a thousand other sessions, and in the beginning, when I was starting, I used to have my framework in front of me. Sometimes I still do with certain topics that I want to go into, and I'll have one or two, or three questions in there.

And I'll still not have too much in there, but just one or two, just as a guiding principle, just in case you kind of feel stumped or something. And that's okay. And you can literally let the client know too that my framework is here so I can guide you in a better way. In case they see your eyes going here and there.

So that's completely okay. The question is how, I think the effort needs to be more towards the client. And your presence towards the client, because if you're focused on the client, if you're present with the client, you will notice a lot of things. You'll notice body language shifts. If it's video, you'll notice tonality shifts, if it's audio and on video, you can notice both of those.

You'll notice pauses, you'll notice emotions. There are so many things in there other than the words that they're saying. And your presence will pick up all that stuff. But if it's not there, then you are focused on trying to figure out what to do then that's gonna hinder it. And in the beginning, it'll be a dance between you two till everybody finds their balance.

And there's this phrase that I heard a while ago said, trust the process. The process of coaching is actually fairly simple. It's a dialog. You're asking questions and they're sharing and you're asking more questions, and there might be perspective-shared tools shared, but it comes out of the conversation itself.

There's actually not much you can prepare ahead. You can have certain topics and you can prepare the like, Hey, we're gonna talk about this theme such as let's say, productivity or your inner child. Or influence or whatever it might be, but you have no idea where the direction will go. And then to me at least, that's very freeing.

Sheri: Absolutely. 

Faisal: And that's why the simplest questions are actually the better questions. Like you said, like, how would you like this to turn out? What else? What are two things you could do to improve this a little bit more? Why do you feel like you're not doing this? What else could you do in this context?

Where else can you apply this thing? These are very simple questions. They don't require a lot of crafting. But those are usually better questions. I mean, I literally read this book, it was called, Crazy Good by Steve Chandler, and he's talking about his coach, which, I think he's a very famous coach Dan or something. Anyway, so he was having a challenge committing to his girlfriend, to ask in marriage, and literally Steve Partisan was Steve Partisan asked him a few questions, what would you like to create?

And it's like, well, I'd love to be able to commit to this person, but I have these, I feel like I don't know her enough. And he just asked a few questions like what's stopping you from committing? Well, I don't, I don't, what else do you wanna know about her? There was like, these are like blocks he was setting for himself.

By the time he was done within the first 15, 20 minutes, he was like, okay, so when would you like to ask her? He's always like, okay, and then now it’s done. He's gonna, this part was really funny in the book, and I was in the plane too and I was laughing like, no, tomorrow. So he was done, he made the commitment and right after that, he's like what else would you like to create? 

Kidding this is a pretty big thing. That's awesome. But it's, it was really simple. Like it wasn't that, oh my God, I have to do all this magic stuff for me to have an impact on the client. Yeah. It's actually fairly simple. We need to look at coaching.

Sheri: Yeah, so focus on powerful questions. Focus on expanding your knowledge and their knowledge of what's going on by asking powerful questions. We'll do all of that. And that's ultimately a significant factor of what brings about change is cuz it brings about people to think about things in a different way.

Yeah. So the power of the question leads to the power of the answer, which leads to the power of the transformation. 

Faisal: Yeah, definitely. And again, it comes back to the coach himself or herself. and just, just a couple of thoughts before we end this, this conversation is that we talked about presence, we talked about the quality of questions but just, and I kind of alluded to this, is that the work that you do on yourself will matter a lot in coaching.

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