SDH 434: Questions to Ask Yourself with Amanda Boleyn

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Today’s podcast episode is all about the questions to ask yourself. This was something that I coached on recently inside Elevate University. The questions we ask ourselves and others can influence not only the answer we receive but based on that answer, influence the quality of our life.

We’re going to dive into...

The power of questions
How to ask high-quality questions
Answers to avoid with almost any and every question
How to be a good listener
How to use questions as a tool in your life and business use the Socratic Method

The power of questions

Questions are really, really powerful. So you want to first become aware of the questions you are asking, not only of other people but more importantly yourself. When you ask yourself questions, pay attention to them whether you ask them out loud or you ask yourself a question in the form of a thought.

This is really important.

When you ask a question, your brain searches for the answer. It immediately starts focusing on finding an answer or a solution to the question that was asked. It becomes stimulated and serotonin is released. Questions trigger a mental reflex known as “Instinctive elaboration”. When a question is posed, it takes over the brain’s thought process, and when your brain is thinking about an answer to a question, it can’t contemplate anything else.

The questions you ask, direct the focus of your thoughts and attention.

The quality of your question determines the quality of your answer and your focus.

If you find yourself asking questions such as “Why am I not further along in my business?”, “Why is no one signing up to work with me?”, “Why is my social media not growing?”; your brain will seek answers to these questions.

These answers are not of benefit to you, they don’t serve you and are not useful to you. To ask the question and to know the answer as to why you’re not further along only keeps your focus on what is currently happening, or has happened in the past, and therefore you keep yourself stuck in the past.

Instead, ask questions that support you in a positive way, that will create an emotion that inspires you to take action. For example, instead of asking “Why is my social media not growing?” you can ask “What are some ways to grow my social media?” Instead of asking “Why am I not further along in my business?” you can ask , “How can I grow my business in the next 30 days?”.

The first question keeps you stuck and exactly where you are. The second question puts your focus on the potential, the future. It also creates a different emotion inside of you and therefore you’re going to take a different action.

The first step is to become aware of the questions and thoughts you’re asking yourself.

Ask high-quality questions

When it comes to high-quality questions, you want to focus on asking questions that open up the conversation and don’t limit you to a yes or no answer.

Keep your questions solution-based rather than expanding the current challenge or problem.
For example, let’s say you’re in the middle of a launch and it is day 5 out of 10 and no one has signed up for your offer. Instead of asking, “Why has no one signed up yet?” which is problem-focused because it only reinforces why someone has not yet signed up, instead you can ask, “What can I do right now to encourage people to sign up for my offer?” which is much more solution-based because it puts the focus on creating a game plan to reach a future goal.

Avoid asking questions that start with “why.” Typically a question that starts with a ‘why’ stays focused on the problem, not the solution:

Why is this happening to me?
Why can’t I lose weight?
Why isn’t my business growing?
Why am I not further along?

Instead, use how and what to when asking your question:

How can I do this better next time?
What would I do differently?
What are the ways I can lose weight?
How can I grow my business using Instagram?

Answers to avoid with almost any and every question…

When asking yourself a question that you may not initially know the answer to, it is easy for your brain to want to respond with an “I don’t know.”

When you ask a question and you say “I don’t know,” your subconscious mind hears that, and because it hears that you won’t be able to discover an answer but I don’t know.

Our tendency to respond with an “I don’t know” may be rooted in fear of making decisions. “I don’t know” is safe. The problem with ‘I don’t know’ is that it isn’t useful for you when you are creating your dream business and life. ‘I don’t know,” will keep you stuck. You’re blocking yourself from potential.

Instead of saying, “I don’t know,” here are a few phrases to use:

“But if I did know, what would it be?
“I’m learning…”
“I’m figuring it out…”

For example, let’s say you’re used to asking “Why does this keep failing?”, as it relates to launches in your business. You’ve now become aware that you’re asking that question so you switch it to, “What can I do differently next launch to make it better?” Your brain immediately defaults to “I don’t know.” Okay, then re-ask the question, “But if I did know, what would that look like?” Pause. Wait for a response. If you’re still not getting an answer, you can then instead of saying, “I don’t know…” say, “I’m learning what works and what doesn’t when it comes to launches...here’s what I know so far…”.

It is a subtle shift but the ‘I am’ (and insert verb), keeps you moving forward and not stuck with a dead-end, “I don’t know.”

Be a Good Listener

Part of asking not only yourself but others questions is also being a great listener. Let’s talk about being a good listener to yourself. Our tendency is that we want an answer immediately, mainly because our brain loves certainty and in a moment when things are chaotic and uncertain, it wants to grab onto anything it can to create that certainty. If you’ve ever put in an offer on a house and you didn’t know if you were going to get it, or a spouse has a potential job change but you won’t know for certain for another 30 days, but once do you know for sure it will trigger a bunch of other things…like needed to find a home in the new city…either sell or get out of your current lease...your brain goes on a massive spinout. Why? Because it wants and loves certainty. But for this exercise, know that sometimes you may ask questions that you don’t get an immediate answer to and it’s important to stay centered, listen, and be open.

How to use questions as a tool in your business with clients and prospects.

Questions are certainly a tool in your toolbelt, whether they’re a tool you use for you personally or a tool you use with your clients. I’ve already shared how using questions in your business personally can help your growth but let’s talk a little bit more about how you can use questions with current and prospective clients.

You can use questions as a coaching tool for your team and clients. Early on in my career of subcontracting, I worked a lot with leaders and managers of teams on how to effectively coach their people. There is a method called, “The Socratic Method,” and it is the form of asking and answer questions to stimulate critical thinking and draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. The idea is simple to ask questions to help the other person uncover and discover an answer on their own, specifically in a coaching situation. Rather than telling your team member what they may have done wrong, instead, you can use a series of questions to help them uncover.

For example, one of the projects I worked on was teaching how to have quality conversations with customers over the phone instead of at AT&T call centers. It was part sales and part conversations. None the less, there was a process we taught them. After they left the training, they went back out to the call center floor. Next, was working with their leaders to help them coach their team during the process. During coaching, we coached them to use the Socratic method (asking intentional questions) to lead their team member to discover what he or she could have done differently, rather than the leader telling that team member outright.

Doing this allows the person on your team to discover the answer on their own which will also help them remember to do it differently next time.

The other way to use the tool of questions during sales calls with prospects is to ask purposeful questions about what they’re trying to accomplish; what does success look like to them, why might they not have achieved their results yet. You can use questioning as a way to pull out answers, not only for yourself but for them to hear their answer as well.

This is helpful because when you move into the recommendation phase of your call, you have solid evidence of what they’ve shared with you so that you can use as to why it would be in their best interest to work with you.

Asking questions is a tool that you can use in your life to create and design whatever life and business you desire. This stuff is sooo powerful.

If you are looking for a community to have your back, coaching, and pieces of training to help you grow as a business owner and to grow your business, you definitely want to check out Elevate University. You can head on over to www.shediditherway.com/elevate to join and get started right away.

Tag us on Instagram (@shediditherway) and share your biggest takeaway from today’s episode.

Until next time, keep doing it your way.

Insights:

“When you ask yourself questions, pay attention to them whether you ask them out loud or you ask yourself a question in the form of a thought.”
“Our tendency to respond with an “I don’t know” may be rooted in fear of making decisions.”
“It is a subtle shift but the ‘I am’ (and insert verb), keeps you moving forward and not stuck with a dead-end, “I don’t know.”
“When it comes to high-quality questions, you want to focus on asking questions that open up the conversation and don’t limit you to a yes or no answer.”