Good questions

# Chapter 217

I have been building some tools for clients to use to find clarity about what they are trying to accomplish. So in this series of questions we want to know what we can learn from the past. What does the past teach us and that we need to know? Usually more than you think. Then the series of questions about the vivid goals you have for the future. If they aren’t vibrant and vivid and shiny, then you won’t be able to see them, because they aren’t here yet. And the last series of questions is about what you are doing in the now, in the present, because that is quite clearly the only time frame you have any control over in reality.

This is what a good consultant or a good mentor does - ask good questions. Asking good question is a serious art form and I am still a novice, even after 59 years of living. Probably because I like talking more than I like asking questions, offering opinions instead of listening, and being the expert rather than the learner. Shame on me! I could be so much further ahead in my own development if someone had asked me good questions along the way. Instead most people just told me what I should be doing and that is a really poor learning path. When a mentor finally starting asking me some great questions when I was in grad school, I blossomed like a thirsty plant getting water!!

Every good question is worth a 1000 words of instruction.