What Questions Do Our Coaches Ask Themselves?

Coaches ask their clients questions all the time. But what questions do they ask themselves? How do these questions help them show up the way they want to be? We invited 3 executive coaches, Kelly Beischel, Alex Jack, and Ilene Schaffer, to explore the questions that move them forward.

To view the entire discussion, click here or play the video embedded below.

Senia: What are some questions that you frequently ask yourself?

Ilene: One of my favorite questions is "How do you want to show up?" I always have a choice about how I want to show up, whether I'm making a phone call or bumping into somebody on the street. It doesn't matter whether it's work, personal, or inside my own home. I ask my family that question as well.

Alex: That is actually my second question, after I wake up in the morning and have my gratitude session. I phrase it, "Who do I show up as?" I usually ask it in front of the mirror, looking at myself. That gives me a visual as well as out loud confirmation that I am holding myself accountable for who I’m going to be today.

Kelly: I do that as well. It's very effective, especially if I’m going into a staff meeting. As a professor I dreaded those meetings. The negative side of my brain would be saying, "Oh, blah, blah, blah." Then I'd say, "Kelly, who do you want to be during this meeting?" Then I’d think, "I want to be calm; I want to be content and peaceful." It’s setting an intention before I go in, rather than looking for all the things that might go wrong. Our faculty meetings can be very heated.

Senia: My friend, Margaret Greenberg, taught me to ask, "What if it were easy?" That question helps whenever there’s something I don’t really want to do, a task or working out. "But Senia, what if it were easy?" I don't know if you all do this, but I address myself by name all the time.

Kelly: There's some research that talking to yourself in the third person achieves what Alex suggested with the mirror. It's like giving yourself an affirmation by saying your name.

Alex: If I could jump in, that is one of the thoughts behind the name of my coming web site, (https://iamalexjack.com/). By saying, "I am Alex Jack," I am holding myself accountable because I believe we can't really help someone unless we help ourselves first.

Senia: Let’s get another question from each of you. What question really fits you?

Alex: Especially when I need to motivate myself, I use a part statement, part question. I remember the saying, "Yesterday, you said tomorrow." Then I ask myself, "So how many tomorrows are you going to put in before you get to today?" I usually follow that with, "Really, Alex?"

Ilene: I ask myself, "What lens do I want to look through?" I use it with my clients all the time, because we have a choice of the lens we pick. You can pick the lens, "This never works. This isn't going to happen. I'm not good enough." Or you can pick the lens, "How am I going to make this work? Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up?" I'm very big on thinking about what I have control over and what choices I can make. We have 100% control over to lens we choose.

Kelly: To piggyback on Ilene's question, saying to yourself, "What's the lens?" may mean acknowledging what you’re feeling. If you are sad, be okay with feeling sad. Say to yourself, "I can sit with this.” Pretending that the underlying emotion doesn’t exist isn't useful.

Ilene: When you're done sitting with it, you might ask yourself, "Okay, now that I felt this for a long time, where do I want to go with it?"

Kelly: Sometimes I go back to the Byron Katie question, "Is this the truth? How do you know it's the truth?” Sometimes I will then think, "Maybe it's not." Then I take a different lens and look at it differently. Then I might ask myself, "What if it's possible that I'm okay? What if it's possible that I'm enough? What if it's possible that today happened just as it should?" I might have had some disappointments earlier in the week, so I ask myself, "What if it's possible that's exactly how it was supposed to happen?" That takes off some of the weight of the disappointment.

Ilene: What I hear in Kelly’s questions is trust. Trusting the process, trusting what's been presented, and perhaps asking, “How do I grow through this?”

Senia: Here’s my go-to question. I used to have it on my calendar at 3:00 PM every single day. "What's the bravest thing I could do right now?" Often my bravest thing is to get an important project that I’ve been putting off done. But sometimes it's bigger. Sometimes it's reaching out to someone that I find difficult, figuring out a relationship. 

Kelly: I sometimes think, “What's one tiny turtle step I can take?” That doesn't sound overwhelming. We could all take tiny turtle steps.

Senia: Let’s go even further. Not as a coach, but as a human being, what's a question that you like to ask yourself in the morning?

Kelly: How do I want to feel at the end of the day? Or what will make me sleep best tonight? I often find it’s not what I'm actually working on.

Ilene: I do a visualization before I get out of bed each morning that addresses the question, "How do I want to show up today?” Then I ask myself, "What is the one thing that I want to make sure I do today?" It could be a very tiny turtle step. Thus, the first question is about how I want to be, the second about what I want to do.

Alex: I came across a riddle about five frogs sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left on the log? ...[Dramatic pause for the other coaches to guess the answer]... The answer is five, because the four only decided to jump off, they didn't actually do so. To me that’s important because deciding who I'm going to show up as is only a decision. I now have to go out and make it happen. The next question is, "What is the most valuable thing that I can do to move forward?"

Senia: What questions do you ask yourself when you need to make a decision?

Kelly: I think, no matter what, it's going to be the right one. Otherwise I can get stuck in the decision loop and go nowhere.

Alex: I just tell myself I don’t want to be a squirrel. I tell myself to make a decision either way. Especially if I'm stuck. Make a decision because the highways of life are filled with squirrels who could not decide which direction to run. There’s a 50% chance of failure, a 50% chance of success. Failure is just a chance to start all over again. Either way, you move forward. But sitting still, you’re like a squirrel on a highway that will get hit by a truck. I am not going to be a squirrel.

Senia: I sometimes ask myself, "What will I think when I'm 80 years old?" That helps me take the long perspective.

Ilene: First, I’d ask myself, "How does not deciding serve me?" Because sometimes it does serve you not to decide. Then I’d ask myself, "What's the worst thing that can happen?" Usually the worst thing is not that bad. Then I just take a leap of faith. I trust the universe. As Kelly mentioned, you grow through whatever decision you make. I may tell myself, “It's always a win because you always learn.”

Senia: What is your main take-away for our audience?

Kelly: If I’m procrastinating because of fear, I look at a quotation that I have posted on the wall: "Confidence is built on the shoulders of action." I don't know where it came from. I say it to my clients, and I say it to myself when I don’t want to act. Then I ask myself, “What is that tiny turtle step that will lead to confidence?”

Ilene:  I’ll ask myself, "What's between you and getting where you want to go?" I like visual images, so I might visualize a lake with what I want on the other side. Then I’d ask myself, “What would it be like to dip my toe in the lake? What would it look like to get both feet in?” Eventually that gets me to the other side.

Alex: I remember a quotation that I read many years ago. “If there's no wind, row." Thinking of Ilene’s lake, if you just sit there in the boat when there's no wind, you won’t go anywhere. I figure it's easier for God to course correct me if I’m moving than if I’m just sitting there.

Ilene: We’ve been dealing with so much uncertainty for so long. It would be easy to feel stuck, overwhelmed by unfamiliar territory. It’s as if the wind has died down. Now we have to adapt. We have to innovate. That's Alex’s rowing.

Let’s all figure out how to row in this new world.

 Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

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