PPI #54: The Powerful Coaching Questions to Transform Your Life

One of the most powerful things that you can do is ask somebody the right questions to elevate them to a higher level of performance or to get them to think a little bit more deeply about the things that are holding them back. Today, I want to take you through some super powerful coaching questions that you can use whether you're a coach, a leader, or a manager. Hi, my name is Eric Partaker and I help entrepreneurs, leaders, managers, individuals reach higher levels of performance in all that they do, both in their business and in their life, Drawing on my experience from McKinsey and company helping build Skype before we sold it to ebay, as well as several of my own entrepreneurial journeys. So let's dive into some super powerful coaching questions that you can use to help someone elevate their game or break through their barriers. Number one, first thing you can do. I call these set of questions self ratings. They're super powerful, super, super easy, and I use them often in my very first conversation with a potential new coaching client. So let's say, for example, I'm in a discussion with a CEO and I might ask him or her to self rate in three critical areas. I'll typically start with health. And so I'll ask them to rate themselves 1 to 10. If 10 is they're the healthiest person in the world or they're as healthy as the best version of them would be across sleep, nutrition, exercise, the mental clarity that would come from a meditative or a spiritual practice, where would they self rate? If a 10 is, they have absolutely no room for improvement. And a 1 is they can only go up. Where would they rate themselves? Once I get my answer, let's say this person says a seven, then I ask the next key question, which is what's just one thing that if you did more often better or more consistently would raise your score? And then I ask similar questions, self rating on the work front. So first was health front. Now going into the work front, and I'll ask them once again, how would you rate yourself in your role? So with this example with the CEO, if a 10 is you're absolutely perfect as a CEO, there's literally no room for improvement. And a 1 is you can only go up once again, where would you rate? And the person might say, say a six. And once again I'll ask that key next question. What? What's one thing that if you did more often better or more consistently would improve your score? And then I'll end with relationships or the home front and I'll ask once again if a 10 is you're absolutely perfect, you're the world's greatest spouse or greatest parent or there's simply no room for improvement. And a one is you can only go up, where would you rate once again? And they say perhaps a seven and a half. And then that key question again, what's one thing that you could do better more often or more consistently to improve your results? Now what's great about this question is that you're getting them to develop the self awareness of well where do I stand in these key dimensions on the health, work and home front. But you're also getting them to think about well what's the one thing that they know that they could be doing to improve? And once you get that answer from them, you can do a follow on and say, well what's getting in the way of you doing that? Well why aren't you doing that right now? Or what would help you gather some momentum to take whatever that corrective action is that they've just highlighted. The second question I like to ask is about their dreams. The way I phrase this question is simply in three years time, if you were to call me and say that they had been the best three years of your life, professionally and personally, what would you be telling me? And that really gets them thinking, it really gets them thinking multi dimensionally. It gets them thinking not just about work, but also home, also their health. Again those three areas that we had talked about in the previous question. And it gets them dreaming again because somewhere along the way, from childhood to adulthood, we lose that ability to dream. And so I want them to tap into that on the call to get that, that spirit going, that vision for what that better future could be so that I could help them, you know, help them, rally them to that future so that we can co create that potentially with some ideas on that call or at least giving them some ideas to ponder on for the future. The third question that I ask is what are things that you know you should be doing but that you're not? Because we all have this right, we all have things that we know we should be doing that, but for whatever reason we're not. We don't have the willpower to do it. We're afraid we might fail, we're not sure how to progress. We might feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the different tasks that we need to tackle. And so I want to get that on the table too. So what are the things that they know that they should be doing but that they're not? And then this is a great segue to the next question, number four, which is I, which is what I call the ultimate course. So I ask them to think about an area in their life that they're not doing well in, an area in their life that they need to improve. It might have come up through the earlier questions. And I'll give you an example. Let's say that they're not good at being productive. And my question here is, I say to them, well, let's pretend we're going to create the ultimate course on how to not be productive and we're going to sell this course. And if someone were to go through this course and take each of the modules in this program, they would like you learn how to be not very productive. You if they've said that, for example, they're not very productive. And we go through each of these modules and I get them really thinking, well, what's the first thing that you do that you think inhibits your productivity? And they might say in this example, I don't have clear goals. I go, okay, great, so we're going to create a module on not setting clear goals. And then I ask the next what's the next thing that you do that inhibits your productivity? And they might say, I don't prioritize my week. Great. Next thing after that, I don't plan my day properly. Great. Next thing after that, I don't minimize distraction or I'll find myself on social media too often. Fantastic. And I'll just keep going until I've collected all the things that contribute to that area in their life that they would like to improve. And then I run through at the end, okay, so we've created the ultimate course and how to not be productive. So if someone were to buy this course from you, and if they were into in Module 1 to learn how to not set goals, then to not prioritize their week, then to not plan their day properly, then to open themselves up to distraction throughout the day like social media, do you think at the complete, by the completion of that course that they would have achieved their goal of the course of not being productive? And usually there's a bit of a laugh here and the person says, yeah, I think, you know, they would have achieved that. They would not be very productive. Then right after that laugh, I asked the next key question.

And how funny do you think it will be if you're still living your Life this way 10 years from now? And there's usually a pause and then I'll ask, and do you think that not being productive, to what degree do you think that's going to serve you? In the dreams that you just told me about earlier, is it going to help you achieve those dreams? Is it going to hold you back?

And then usually there's a pause before they say, well, no, it's going to really hold me back. And then I end with, so would you like some help in closing that gap? Would you like some help in creating a better system, a better course that would make you more productive? And of course, usually the answer is yes. So that's a very, very powerful frame or set of questions that you can use around creating the ultimate course, which is literally going to teach in someone else the very thing that they say that they're doing that is holding them back in life. Number five. So after you've taken them through that ultimate course and the set of questions within there, number five is I ask them, how are you actively contributing to the conditions that you say you don't want in life? This might build upon earlier things that have come up in the previous question. It might build upon things that came up in earlier questions. But. But it's just another way to think about what are some of the gaps and the barriers that are in the way of them becoming all that they're capable of becoming. And then I end things with two simple questions, number six and number seven. Number six is simply, how can I help? So in a coaching conversation, we're essentially trying to determine, well, where are the gaps in this person's life? Because the whole spirit of a coaching conversation is that they're in one place, but they'd like to be in another place. And we want to help them spiral up into that better future. So I asked that question, well, how can I help after having gone through all those different frames and ways of thinking? Usually that question leads to the potential coaching client listing out, or the person that you're trying to coach on, a team that you're leading or managing. It usually leads to them saying to you, well, I'd like you to help me on A, B, C or XYZ areas. And then I end the whole conversation with, what did you find most useful from today's chat? Because I want them to walk away with at least a singular idea which, if applied immediately, would create positive change in their life. So I hope you've enjoyed that. And if you head over to my website@ericpartaker.com you can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter.