“If you do not change directions, you may end up where you are headed.

“If you do not change directions, you may end up where you are headed.”

—Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher

Image from Unsplash by Jammie Templeton

As part of my coaching discovery process, I ask prospective clients to answer a number of questions that help them fully examine the potential value of us working together.

These questions help them expand what is working, and impact what is not. For many individuals, the following question provokes considerable interest:

What do you expect to achieve in your professional
and personal life, given your current plans, strategies,
and general direction?

Given time to explore this question fully, most people see the need to change course if they are to fully realize their highest priority goals and not end up where they are currently heading.

EXERCISE:

Consider answering this question for yourself and discussing any insights and potential actions you plan to take with a friend, colleague, mentor, family member, or coach.

Feel free to reply to this post with what value you create.

“Wisdom is often times nearer when we stoop than when we soar.”

“Wisdom is often times nearer when we stoop than when we soar.”

—William Wordsworth, in The Excursion

Image from Unsplash by Mark Pan4ratte

Achieving new levels of professional and career success is almost always a primary reason people seek coaching. They of course wish to soar, create more value for others, and better provide for themselves and their families.

In the course of pursuing these goals, most people see considerable spill over into their personal life priorities, sometimes right within arms reach.

It turns out that wisdom is far nearer than they thought. Reaching out to serve their friends, colleagues, neighbors, and other communities helps them experience greater passion and purpose in their lives.

EXERCISE:

How might you gain far greater wisdom by doing a bit more stooping rather than soaring? What actions can and will you take today?

Questions can be like a lever

“Questions can be like a lever you use to pry open the stuck lid on a paint can.”

—Fran Peavey, late political Author

Image of The Coaching Habit book cover

Image from Amazon.com

Michael Bungay Stainer is a masterful coach whom I greatly admire. I’ve read most of his books and look forward to his daily “Great Work Provocation” blog, which you can explore for yourself at https://boxofcrayons.com/great-work-provocations-series/. His most recent work – The Coaching Habit – includes seven core questions that can help all of us pry open the lids of new possibilities in both our personal and professional worlds. I fully agree that the seven questions provided below will help us all say less, ask more, change the way we lead our lives, and better support those we wish to serve.

  1. The Kickstart Question: What’s on your mind?
  2. The AWE Question: And What Else?
  3. The Focus Question: What’s the real challenge here for you?
  4. The Foundation Question: What do you want?
  5. The Lazy Question: How can I help?
  6. The Strategic Question: If you are saying Yes to this, what are you saying No to?
  7. The Learning Question: What was most useful for you?

EXERCISE:

Please consider applying these questions to build your own coaching habit to open up your relationships and your world and lead a more vibrant and beautiful life.

You can also learn more about Michael’s books and his work at www.boxofcrayons.biz

 

Go where you’re celebrated not where you’re tolerated

“Go where you’re celebrated, not where you’re tolerated.”

—Author Unknown

Image of confetti topped by a sign that says, "Yeah!"

Image from Unsplash by raw pixel

The journey and process of becoming the best version of yourself is one of the primary reasons people seek the support of a coach. If it is good enough for Olympians and professional athletes, why not the rest of us, who also desire gold medal lives?

As we have discovered through our self-awareness and mindfulness efforts over the years of The Quotable Coach blog, our internal environment, including our perceptions and beliefs, has a great deal to do with our success.

At the same time our external environment, including our personal and professional communities, also has a tremendous impact on our views, our efforts, and of course, our success and life satisfaction.

EXERCISE:

What strategies and approaches can you use to shift and improve your communities to environments that celebrate rather than tolerate you and others?

If You are Not Willing to Learn

“If you are not willing to learn no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”

—Zig Ziglar, 20th Century American Motivational Speaker

Image of a man holding a large lightbulb

Image from Unsplash by Riccardo Annandale

The term “Coach-ability” is used frequently in my profession.

Individuals who are coachable have a voracious appetite for their own growth and development, a passion for learning, and of course, an open and receptive disposition.

Perhaps no other mindset or quality is attributed to achieving greater success than having this unstoppable determination to advance oneself and the world at large.

The technical term for trying to coach, teach, or mentor another individual who is close and unwilling to receive assistance, on the other hand, is “nagging.”

Only you and your perceptual filters can seek and find the coaching from others and the world around you. After all, being nagged by those hoping to contribute to you is a real drag.

Please conserve your energies and efforts with others in your communities that see you this way.

EXERCISE:

In what ways can you be far more open and receptive to the contribution of others, and learn all you can from these relationships?

How can you facilitate and engender greater coach-ability and subsequent learning with others in your personal and professional communities?

Do the Best You Can

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

—Maya Angelou, late American poet, author, and civil rights activist

The process of coaching kicks many areas of life into a higher gear, given its experiential and interactive nature. Regardless of whether we are a senior citizen or infants, we all interact with the world, receive feedback, and then determine how to proceed in the future.

Through its emphasis on self-awareness, constructive feedback, and experiential learning, coaching expedites this process. It allows individuals and organizations to know more and do better at a more robust rate.

EXERCISE:

How and where can you do your best in a more intentional learning environment? How would the assistance of a teacher, mentor, or coach help you do and be better every day?

Life is Amazing

“Life is amazing, and the teacher had best prepare himself to be a medium for that amazement.”

—Edward Blishen, 20th Century British author

Image of an eye and eyebrow

Image from Unsplash by Amanda Dalbjorn

Have you heard of Sam Horn? If not, look her up, and strongly consider reading her newsletter and books.

She often shares a concept she calls The Eyebrow Test, which refers to the ideas, concepts, and life events that literally make your eyebrows move upward, demonstrating great interest, or in the case of today’s quote, amazement.

EXERCISE:

How and in what ways can you more fully engage in your own life to experience far more raised eyebrows of amazement?

How can you share such moments or help others in your world experience greater amazement through your potential roles as teacher, mentor, parent, or coach?

The World Must Learn to Work Together

“The world must learn to work together, or finally it will not work at all.”

—Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States

Image of a team

Image from OD4pic

As part of my preliminary discover process, two of the questions I use to determine the potential value of a coaching relationship are:

  1. What is working and going well in your personal and professional life?
  2. What is not working or going as you wish in your personal and professional life?

Based on the answers provided, a customized coaching relationship can be used to support going from good to great, or from not good to substantially better.

Perhaps no single factor impacts these areas more than the ability to create mutually trusting relationships and work toward common objectives.

EXERCISE:

Given the state of the world and specifically your worlds, what efforts and actions can and will you take to work more effectively and successfully with others?

The Art of Teaching

“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”

—Mark van Doren, Poet and Educator

Where in your personal or professional worlds do you play the role of teacher, mentor, or trusted advisor?

How often do you find yourself sharing your experiences, providing your advice, or simply stating solutions?

In such cases, we remove much, if not all, of the work our students could do to inquire and discover their own answers, which tend to be far more valuable and sustainable in the long run.

EXERCISE:

How would adding more of a “Coach Approach” to your teaching efforts help more of the people you support discover their own answers and realize the progress they desire?

Turn Within for Guidance

“Turn Within for Guidance.”

—Author Unknown

Road sign reading "Listen to your inner voice"

Image from RamDass

Coaches use powerful questions and engaging inquiry as a means to help clients gain expanded perspectives and insights into their worlds. The time devoted to these discussions can be transformative.

The key to such interactions is based on the concept that virtually all the answers lie within each of us, if we are willing to do the hard work and look within.

By no means do coaches, mentors, trusted friends, or advisors have a monopoly on such questions or the power to create breakthroughs.

Consider yourself as the coach you take with you wherever you go, to always have the ever-ready guidance you seek.

EXERCISE:

Generate a list of your own powerful and provocative questions in a journal or notebook. Take the time to discover the deep and valuable answers within you.

A book that has become a favorite of mine is A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger. Consider picking up a copy to strengthen your capabilities in this area.