Video Transcript: Asking Questions

Welcome back again Steve Elzinga here. This is the coaching class. And in this session I want  to talk about questions. A lot of coaching is questions. And it's questions because questions,  put the ball in the client's lap. Again, this whole coaching is not you directing not you giving  advice, not you teaching, not you correcting or training or mentoring. It's you trying to help  the client, figure out these things, help the client, train themselves, help the client and  mentor themselves help the client, figure out where he needs help and to go get it. The whole goal is get the client to own the thing. And by the way, what's nice about that is the success  or failure is the clients, it's up to the client, it's not your problem. What your client does or  doesn't do is not your problem. And whether he succeeds or whether he fails is not you, it's  you're helping your client do the best that he can, or she can. And if there's failure, the client  has to own all these things. That's why it's so good to get the client and figure out what  they're going to do what they want to do and how they want to do it. And when it fails, they're going to learn the lesson about what they decided they were going to do. If you tell them  what to do, and it fails, they'll just blame you. And there's a lot of that that goes on in  counseling and mentoring and so on. And then people don't change. They don't ever change  because they're into the blame mode. They blame the circumstances, they blame the people,  they blame the very people that are trying to help help them. So asking questions, is a good  way to put things into the clients lap. This is your responsibility. I'm just asking questions. You  can go one way or another with the answer to these questions. So what I want to do is I want  to, I want to look for before we get into that, according to the book, I found this book called  Jesus is the Question. The Bible Bible records Jesus asking 307 questions. Jesus asked a lot of  questions he asked who do men say that I am? He asked his disciples question. He would ask  the crowd a question. Jesus often put the problem into the laps of the hearers the people  around him. Ask, Don't Tell. So, you know, if you're not asking a lot of questions in a session,  you're probably telling and giving too much advice. Okay, great coaching questions, helping  the client figure out what they want to do. Okay, so the first job of the coach, remember,  there's three things. And the first thing is to help a client figure out what they want to do to  make a decision about what area they want to improve in their life, what area, they want to  go to the next level, what area in their life is causing trouble or problems. And they need to do something about those troubles or problems. So these first questions, and then what I want to do is just give you possible questions in this category. So when you're trying to get your client  to figure out what they what area they want to do something about or should do something  about, these are the possible questions, because there's more than these. But I want to just  give you a list, and you might just jot them all down or printed out. And as you start coaching, you might have this piece of paper there to help guide you when you you know, you go blank  and you can't figure out what to ask. So these are all really good questions to ask. Number  one, you're asking the client again, what area in your life? are you most interested in doing  something different or new? And that's a good question. What area of your life, do you want  to do something different or new? Maybe the client is stuck in a rut. This is a good place to  start. Because whatever the client comes up with is something that he might be excited  about. A lot of times we're not excited about, you know, working on the thing that we failed  over and over on. So we want one new, something new and maybe if your client does that  he'll have some energy than if he succeeds to come to the things that are harder. Where in  your life are you experiencing the most frustration or anger or joy or excitement? Or boredom, or fun or disappointment or encouragement and or hope? So you see that I have negative  ones and positive ones. Where in your life you're experiencing joy and maybe you need to  keep going in that direction or where in Your Life Are you disappointed? Or are you frustrated? Are you angry? What, you know, some kind of emotion? What what's going on in your life? So  you're helping your clients think about those areas of their life, whether it's positive or  negative? Number three, what area in your life? Would you like to see some improvement? So  this isn't a negative thing. It's not where you're experiencing problems, problems, but you  know, you're doing some things, but where would you like to see some improvement, maybe  you've plateaued in your marriage, maybe you've plateaued in your job, or with what you  want to do, or in your friendship circle or in your commitment to church or in what you're  doing for church. So now, think about some area that you'd want to do something about 

where do you want to improve? Number four, where are the pressure points in your life  expectations of others. Things that are happening at work, you have way too many things in  your to do list and you can't get to them and you're letting important things fall off. Or you're  not spending you're spending too much time at work and not enough time with your family.  Or you have this goal of doing something and you never get to where the pressure points in  your life, that if somehow you could do something positive about these things, it would relieve the pressure, and you'd have a better outlook on life. So that's a good question. There were  five, whereas life difficult right now. Can we ask a question like that you have to you have to  be patient with your client to help them think about it. Whereas life difficult? Lot of times  clients will say, I don't know. I don't know where lives are difficult. So you have to be patient.  If you say well, are things difficult? Or there's anything difficult at home? Is there anything  difficult at work? Is there anything anything difficult? Oh, you know, there's something going  on at work. See, a lot of times at first people can't figure out either they have a question. It  takes a while for you know our minds to sift through the all the many things that are going on  in our lives, to figure out, you know what, we want to talk about it. But if you're patient, if you  give the your client time, eventually it will come and sometimes you have to just let silence.  Be silent. Don't Don't think that you always have to save the situation that you in when  there's an awkward silence. Don't think that you have to fill it. Let the client feel that  awkwardness let him fill it. Give him time to think. What do you want more of in your life?  What do you want less? This is just different ways of thinking about life, you're helping the  client analyzes life. What are your pressure points in life? Where is it difficult? What do you  want more your life? What do you want less of number seven? What is your biggest energy  dream? Or your second biggest? is sometimes when you ask what is your biggest anything?  People freak out? Like I don't know, what's the biggest I don't know what the best is. And they can't think of anything. So it's like, Okay, give me your second biggest or give me the top two. Or again, give me something that is draining your energy. Sometimes if you ask someone,  where's life difficult, they have no idea. But if you ask, Where's the energy being drained?  Well, it's being drained at home, or it's being drained. Because right now my marriage is not  working out. Or it's being drained at work, because, you know, we have some relationship  issues going on there. Or my energy is being drained because I'm in, in no man's land. I don't  know what to do. I don't know what to do about my career. I don't know whether to study  more. I don't know whether to change careers. I don't know whether to be a tentmaker in  ministry, I don't know whether to go into full time ministry. And because of that, you know, I  have all these things hanging over my head. Sometimes, when people have a bunch of things hanging over their head, and they're not even doing anything to, to relieve that they're really  not doing anything about all these things that are hanging over their heads. But just the fact  that these things that are hanging over their heads drains the energy out of them, even  though they're not doing anything about it. It's like when we have things on our minds, even  though we're not doing anything about them, it still drains the energy. So you know as other  things like that going on in your life that maybe we can think of things we could do. Right. Can you name five minor annoyances that sap your energy and drag you down? So if they can't  think of a big thing about some little things, and sometimes there's gold in the little things.  Yeah, you know, I find I'm frustrated with my son does this. And then when you explore and  look at it, there might be a whole big thing there. So, so sometimes look at the small things,  sometimes it's too hard to figure out the big things. Number nine, if you wanted to change  some situation you find yourself in, what can you do differently? So that's a good question.  What could you do differently? So when a client is frustrated, maybe as a goal and it didn't go very well, that's a different, what could you do differently? Instead of getting all discouraged  about it? What could you do differently, you know, to marry in our meeting with a married  couple in the you know, they're frustrated with each other, and they keep doing the same old  thing. They have the same goals, and they keep failing at them. Hey, well, what could you do  differently? There's a lot of things that can be done. Number 10. What area of your life has  God been speaking to you the most about in the last six weeks? So again, you bring God into  it. And maybe God has been speaking through prayer, maybe God has been speaking through His Word. Again, the your, the assumption is that your client is walking with God every day, 

that he's reading his Bible, that he's talking to God through prayer, that is supported in a  church environment where people, you know, believe in them, and there's encouragement  there. So that's a legitimate question, how is walking with God helping you? How is God  leading you in this thing? Where do you think God would want you to spend your time  thinking about something to do? Or in your prayer life? Has God been? Have you felt the Spirit nudging you one way or another? Again, we're assuming that the Holy Spirit is in this person,  we're assuming that the Word of God is taking root in this person, and we're just trying to help bring that out? What would you need to change to take your personal life your work or  ministry to a whole new level? So this isn't a problem? This isn't a pressure point. This is just  an opportunity. You know, where in your life? Would you like to go to the next level, in a sport,  or in your work, or in your ministry, and your relationship to God your relationship to your  children relationship to your marriage? See, that's, that's kind of exciting. Like, it's, instead of  being always on the defensive, always looking at problems, things that are weighing us down. It's like, okay, let's be on the offensive. Where do we want to go? What do we want to get to  that next level? Would it be fun to work on something that will take you to the next level?  Number 12. What in your life? Are you most motivated to change? Okay, maybe it's the pain  in your life that's going on, and you just want that pain stop. So you're motivated, or you like  there's this opportunity in front of you. And and, you know, if you could make some progress  in this direction, it would give you a lot of energy. Where are you motivated to change  whether it's painful? Or maybe it's an opportunity? That was their team? What is the most  important thing we could talk about today in order to move you toward your goal? Very  simple. I'm not, I'm not trying to direct you. I'm not no, I'm trying to I'm not trying to lead you. I'll just want to ask you. What do you think? What's the most important thing we could talk  about today? So instead of me suggesting what we talked about, I'm putting it on the client?  What would be important for you to talk about? So that word important just makes your client  stop a minute and go? Okay, yeah, what is he has to start prioritizing is to start learning. You  know, there's a lot of things in my life, but what's the most important sometimes people just  have to be asked them. Henry Reyenga and I used to ask people wherever we went in, what's  your spiritual dream? And people often you know, are taken aback by that, but but if you let  them wrestle with it, most people succeed at saying something and they end up saying  what's important to them? So again, you're just helping them figure out what's important.  Okay, so so all these questions that we dealt with so far has dealt with the decision to you  know, what is the area of my life that I want to have some goals some action step towards?  And then once I've decided you don't want to do something in my marriage, I want to do  something in my work. I want to do something about my education. This area I want to do Do  something about what's the goal? And what's the plan to reach the goal. Okay, so that's the  second part, help the client figure out how to do what they want to do the plan. So here's  some questions, just generic questions that you can use to help your client figure out the plan of action to reach their desired goals. Number one, what step do you want to start with this  week in order to try and reach your goals? Very simple. Instead of coming up with a whole  huge plan, and what steps do you want to start with to reach your goal? Number two, what  steps would you be most excited about starting with in order to reach your goal? So if I can  get the client to do something that he's excited about? He's more likely to actually do it.  Number three, what could you do this week, that would really get you going in terms of  making some of the changes, changes you want to your life, to your work, your marriage, or  your family? Number four, what is the one thing that you could do this week that would help  you become positive about the changes? You want to see? Okay, maybe your client is here.  First of all, a lot of negative things have happened. That's why he wants to coach but then he  has been trying some of the things your your coaching introducing hasn't gone the way he  planned? How do you get them on a positive stretch here? What could you do? You know, they can put you on this positive road. Number five, if you were to break down your goal into  many, it's many steps that it would take to achieve it. What would they need? Okay, so you  have a goal of having a better marriage. But okay, what what's the action step? What are you  actually going to do? And and how does that break now? Shall we figure out what the steps  are? Will be step one, what would be step two? What would be step three? How are you going 

to make your desire a reality? Where are you going to start? A lot of times just getting started  is the hardest part. Where would you like to start? What would you like to do? This week? I  don't mean, this whole year, I don't mean, over the your whole lifetime, I'm just talking about  this week. Okay, finally help client to do what they plan to do. That's for management, and  they make a decision and they can plan, and then you help manage them to successfully do  the plan that they wanted to do. So here's some questions. Number one, you said you were  going to do this step before our next meeting. How did it go? What did you like? What did you  not like? What did you learn? What would you like to do next? See, they're all good questions  that will help you help your client, keep going down the trail, following through the plan, and  adapting it as it goes. Number two, if the client failed to try the steps, they said they were  going to do so here's some questions if, you know, Hey, how did they go? And they say, well,  we didn't get to it. There was obstacles, there was problems, I was busy. Here's some  questions you could ask, what obstacles were in the way of doing the step you intended to  do? Is there anything you can do to remove those obstacles? Do you want to try again? Do  you want to start with a different step in your plan? Do you want to make a new plan? Again,  you know, the, the client had some trouble didn't go the way they wanted. That's not a  problem. We can try it again. We can adapt it, we can change it. We can scrap the whole thing and start with something else. What do you want to do? General Questions? Could you say  more about that? That's, these are good questions just to have in no matter what the  discussion is. Can you say more about that? And this is, by the way, a question you can  practice with everyone. Everyone that you meet, someone's telling you about something. Just  try it today. Could you tell me more about that? See how it goes? You will find I think that  people are eager to tell you more about it. Because most times when we talk people are not  that interested. People want to talk. They don't want to listen, let me tell you my story. So let  me tell you my story. No, let me tell you my story. See who's listening. One of the greatest  gifts you can give someone is to listen. So when you say could you tell me more about that?  What you're saying is I'm listening and I want to keep listening. That's very encouraging to  the other person. Number two, it sounds like this is really important to you. Why do you think  that is? Your client is telling you something, an area in his life he wants to change or part of  his plan what happened this past week? And it seems to be you know, he seems to be  motivated by it or he's animated. He's excited, his voice is up, he's using his hands. So  observe that and make note of that, Hey, I see that this is really important to you. Can you tell me why that is? I want to understand you again. Okay. Number three? What did you do? That  would really motivate you to make the changes you want to make? This is a good question.  Because a lot of a lot of change, a lot of progress really comes down to motivation, and not  not your motivation, but your clients motivation, and not you doing things to motivate your  client. But you, you know, like stirring the fire within the person, okay, you don't light the fire? You, you use, you help the client, you know, light his own fire, the fire is there, and you're  helping the client find it? What could you do that would really motivate you to make the  changes that you want to make? Okay. Where are you most motivated? Let's start with that.  Because you're more likely to follow through. If questions, if you could change something  about your life? What would it mean? If you could change something about your marriage?  What would it be? If you could change something about your career? What would it be if you  could change something about your walk with God? What would it mean? All of a sudden, the  person see, the thinking it might be negative might be positive. But either way, there's  thinking forward rather than wallowing in the past. So a lot of counseling is wallowing in the  past. Let's think about what happened in your childhood. Let's try to understand I'm not  saying those things are bad things. But sometimes we need to go forward. If you could  change something about your life, what would it be? Now, it might be hard, it might be  difficult, it might be impossible, but at least you know what direction you want to go. If you  were to pursue this goal, where would you do it? Who would you get help from? How would  you proceed? So what where, when, why? How questions are always helpful. Number three, if  time and money were not an object. See a lot a lot of times a client will disqualify him or  herself from, from any changes. I am who I am, because that's who I am. Okay, and they'd be  looking, they wish they can be this, they wish they could do that. wish they could have a 

better marriage. wish they could have a role in ministry, but they decided, well, that's not  possible. In every time I try, I get shot down. I try to volunteer at my church and my pastor,  my elders won't let me. So you've had that experience. I tried to be a better parent, father  and a backfires on me. Okay, so then people stop, they give up? I am who I am. No, if  someone money were not an object, if there weren't these problems in your life, what would  you like it to be? What kind of ministry? You know, if if your pastor wasn't there object  objecting? What if he said, Great, let's do this, what would you want to do? So you get a  client, sort of, you can battle all your obstacles all the time and then get defeated. Or  sometimes you can just go around them. You know, I'm not gonna worry about what my  pastor thinks right now. I'm gonna trust that God's gonna work it out. How can I become more prepared for the ministry that I think God is calling me towards? Number four, if you knew you couldn't fail? So the same kind of a question, if you knew you couldn't fail? What would you  what would you attempt? What would you attempt in your minister if you knew you couldn't  fail? See, it's our fear of failure that often keeps us from doing things keeps us from trying  keeps us from changing. So you can relieve that from your client with an if question. If you  knew you couldn't fail, then what would you do in your marriage? Then what would you do in  your ministry? Then what would you do as you pursue your training here at Christian Leaders  Institute? If you wanted to share when, what could you do this week? Sometimes that's all a  client needs is just a win, you know, a sense of succeeding, that they have all these huge  goals and goals that take forever To achieve. And so there's the sense of failure or a sense of  never making progress. So now again, you could give it to them. Hey, this week, why don't we take your goal and make it something less so you can achieve it? No, remember, you're not  the one directing this the client is. So you get him to figure out that if you wanted to sure win, in terms of this goal that you have, what would it be? What would it be this week? What could  you do to give yourself a sure win. And then the client figures out how to take this hard goal,  and at least take a slice of it and make it possible that he can achieve it, which then can be  like a snowball, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Because you succeed here,  you take the energy of that success, you apply it to the next thing, and you apply it to the  next thing, and soon you can attack these larger issues. If you could see your future, what  would it look like? Again, it's it's, instead of looking at just the problems they've experienced  in your past, is helping your client look to the future. If you could see that future, if you could  have something to say about what that future look like, what would it be, a all of a sudden  you have a client, thinking positively about the future. And you know what that is? That's  hope. Hope. That's what the gospel is all about. The gospel is about hope. That's what faith is. Faith is holding on to something that you can't see. It's trusting something, it's assuming  something that isn't there yet. And that's really what, that's what you're doing as a coach,  you're helping your client live by faith, it's really the heart of the gospel. So don't forget that  when you're with your client, most of what you're doing is asking questions. I've given you a  bunch of them. They're all they're sort of general questions. But whenever you figure out a  good question, write it down. Have a little book where you keep all the questions. In go over  them, go over them so that they're in the back of your mind, so that they're always ready to  go. In fact, when you are finished with this session, find someone in your house, ask five  questions. Just see what it does to that other person. See, the encouragement that you give  to someone in your own household or in your own community. Just step outside and ask five  questions and see what it does. And we'll see you again next time.