I remember when I decided to become a coach. It was at the beginning of my first coaching workshop, March 31, 2001. We had learned something about what coaches call “Powerful Questions” and there we were, suddenly coaching each other for the first time, one-on-one.
At that time I thought of questions as basically informational – they required an answer. The moment I became a coach was the moment when I realized that the value of a question could be where it sent the person to look for an answer. Let me explain. The response to a question – what is the capital of Madagascar? – usually sends us to our memory or logical mind to “look it up” or “work it out”. One of the great values in coaching comes when we ask a question that sends us to somewhere other than the filing cabinet or analyser department to look for an answer, sends us to a new place, a place where we don’t often think to go. That new place can offer a new perspective – maybe a perspective a lot more valuable than our habitual perspective.
I remember the question I asked the nervous lady sitting in front of me on the morning of that first day of the coaching workshop – “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?” She answered with a bunch of stuff that sounded great – success and accomplishment-oriented… Something in me felt that it was too smooth, almost rehearsed. So then I asked other questions, ending with “No, I don’t mean what SHOULD you do with the rest of your life, I mean what do you really WANT to do with it?” She paused, teared up a little, then began to stammer out words about wanting to help women to flourish in recovery from abusive relationships.
It wasn’t what she said that blew me away… it was the way she transformed emotionally. I was seeing the real person, speaking about something she cared about passionately. I was seeing a person looking into a part of herself she hadn’t brought out into the daylight for a long time, if ever. I was feeling the energy of fierce passionate longing that a human being can have to change the world, and the exultation just at the mere possibility that she might be able to create the change she yearned for, by becoming a life-coach. Powerful Questions had sent this lady looking into a deeper place she longed to develop. The state of aliveness and certainty that resulted from her exploring there was inspiring to see.
I was amazed, she was embarrassed and overjoyed. She thanked me profusely, said our short had changed her life, given her a new path… I was hooked on becoming a coach.
Post by Geoff Crinean, Senior trainer & business coach
Crossposted at Geoff Crinean, Senior trainer & business coach
