9 Questions ...

"At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want." ~ Lao Tzu

Over the next 9 weekends, we invite you to join us in conversation around a set of 9 Questions for Leadership in Life and Work which we first published in March 2020, shortly after the start of the pandemic.

9Qs is a book of questions ... and resources. We have found the questions helpful and stimulating as we seek to call forward inspired lives and inspired work, for ourselves, and with others. The resources - quotations and readings - have helped us to explore the questions.

In our book, we do not offer any answers to the questions. There are two reasons we don't. First, because we believe that the journeys of answering the questions, should one accept the challenges, are very personal ones, unique to each individual. Second, because we believe that holding and exploring questions is often a more productive stands than rushing to an answer.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~?Rainer Maria Rilke

Our nine questions have emerged from our two lifetimes in working and living, with the contributions of many people along the way. We have found them useful in personal work, but also in work with leaders and organizations. We hold an underlying hypothesis that finding and living with our own personal inspiration is often closely linked with finding and living an inspired path in groups and organizations.

Please be invited to explore both paths, or only one, as you feel called. Each question is accompanied by a few questions that we find shed light on it, and some readings that might foster some deeper inquiry. We do not suggest that either of these listings is remotely exhaustive. They might only open the door to inquiry. We've found them to lead us onwards on the journey, and we hope they do the same for you.

We use these questions in our own work with colleagues, clients and customers, students and professionals, as well as with friends, family and dialogue with partners of all kinds. We hope that they may be useful to others in similar ways, perhaps including those in coaching and mentoring relationships. Feel free to read through or dive in to particular questions that attract you, in any order.

We use these questions often in conversation with young people, and those young at heart, who are looking for renewed inspiration for life, for a sense of direction and inspiration in work pathways, and/or for personal learning and growth.

We call these three strands of inquiry, TriCosain, or three pathways, the words coming from Irish Gaelic.

We look forward to sharing more of our experience with TriCosain and with these questions through additional publications and related media which we will share across the next 9 Weeks, this being Week 0. We invite you to share your experiences and insights with us as well.

"I always took for granted that the best art was political and revolutionary.... It doesn't mean that art has an agenda or a politics to argue: it means the questions being raised were explorations of anarchy, kinds of change, identifying errors, flaws, and vulnerabilities in systems." ~Toni Morrison, quoted by Anne Bogart

We wish you joy and fulfillment -- and much peace -- in your personal journey, wherever it may take you.

Gerald Doyle and Scott Downs

P.S. Looking ahead to Saturday, 11 March 2022, when we will offer an introduction to Q1: How might we discover a sense of inspiration and bring it to life?

P.P.S. In Chicago, Doyle is rekindling his working relationship with the piano while furthering his foundation as a baker and a cook.

Tri Cosain: Weaving inspiration, learning and career

Scott and Gerald are co-founders of?Tri Cosain , a practice which weaves inspiration, learning and career coaching for leadership in life and work; they are the?co-authors of?9 Questions for Leadership in Life and Work , Conversations of Inquiry (a workbook and an invitation to explore), Reflections on Careers (an interactive workbook). All of these publications are freely available for you to download.

Their work embraces equity, inclusion, diversity, accessibility and well-being as foundations for personal leadership.

Gerald Doyle serves on the faculty of?Wolcott College Preparatory High School , provides Ministry Placement Research/Consulting for Career Formation Services at the?Catholic Theological Union , advises several edtech companies including?Upkey ?and?GetSet ?and works as a Higher Education Consultant at?TSI - Transforming Solutions, Inc.

Scott Downs, an Agile and Design Thinking Coach, calls forward great Agile delivery teams, with leaders in every chair.