From the Wisdom Vault...

Seven Powerful Questions to Ask Yourself and Your Clients

I am fresh from a mastermind retreat and brimming with excitement and gratitude. You know how it feels to be energized by your peers and mentors? The rich relationships and collaborative learning are even more valuable when we harvest the gems and use them to transform our mindsets, habits and results.

Reviewing my notes as I jet back home, I notice that what sticks with me most are the powerful questions my colleagues asked me. Have you ever noticed that? The right question can do more to motivate you into playing a bigger game than reading a whole bookshelf of inspirational books or attending several 'how to' seminars. Why is that?

Questions, when phrased and timed well, entice us to go inside and look around the many rooms of our heart-mind. We emerge knowing ourselves better than we did before.


Tried and True Questions

Seven great questions asked at this retreat were:
What do you want?
What's holding you back?
What is it costing you to continue holding back?
How do you want to change your mind's programming on that topic?
What new habits will you put in place to fortify your new mindset?
What is the most meaningful action you could take now?
What new skills or support systems will ensure your success?

Isn't it amazing? These are just simple coaching questions. But even a room full of six and seven figure business owners get continual value out of these kinds of questions. The right question can help anyone zoom past obstacles and into a power zone of action and attraction.


Anatomy of a Powerful Question

All powerful questions:
- Come from a place of genuine curiosity.
- Are direct, simple and usually open-ended.
- Generate creative thinking and surface underlying information.
- Encourage self reflection.

This unattributed quote captures it well: A question is most powerful when neither the asker nor the responder knows the answer, until the question is answered.

Think about it. If we can ask ourselves and our clients questions that bring out fresh information, we've brought about growth and transformation.


Keeping the Inquiry Alive

What makes the right question even more powerful? Keep asking it. One question may only scratch the surface. If you want to coach in the most masterful way, take the question to its deepest conclusion by asking the simple follow up question: And what else?

Look again at each of the questions I brought back from my retreat and imagine the follow up:

What do you want? And what else?
What's holding you back? And what else?
What is it costing you to continue holding back? And what else?
How do you want to change your mind's programming on that topic? And what else?
What new habits will you put in place to fortify your new mindset? And what else?
What is the most meaningful action you could take now? And what else?
What new skills or support systems will ensure your success? And what else?

The best treasures are buried deep. Try these questions on yourself and then use them to support your clients as well.

To your prosperity!

Rhonda Hess
Founder, Prosperous Coach


Copyright © 2007 Bubbling Well Inc.