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Questions and More...
69 Plays2 months ago
In this solo episode of PRIME SPACE, Elias Scultori, MCC, invites coaches to rethink one of coaching’s most essential tools: **questions**. How can we enhance the dimension and range of our coaching questions?
Elias explores how questions shape awareness, expand perspective, and unlock client potential. He introduces a clear, practical distinction between questions that explore the present (“what is”) and those that push clients beyond their current thinking (“what could be”). Together, these two categories create clarity, challenge assumptions, and open the door to possibility and transformation.
The episode is full of practical examples and sample questions that can inspire you to craft even more powerful questions.
Episode Chapters
00:02 – The Power of Questions
Why questions are more than a technique—they’re a gateway to awareness, clarity, and choice.
01:24 – Beyond Open vs. Closed Questions
Exploring the wide landscape of question types and why awareness of them matters.
02:57 – Questions of the Present: “What Is”
How present-focused questions help clients clarify meaning, values, emotions, and reality.
04:11 – Questions That Stretch Beyond
Inviting new perspectives through imagination, intuition, and future-oriented inquiry.
06:11 – The Value—and the Limit—of Staying in the Present
Why clarity alone is powerful, but not always sufficient.
06:45 – Opening the Door to Possibility
Using questions to disrupt current thinking and reveal what else might be possible.
08:05 – Challenging with a Whisper
How the most transformative challenges are often gentle, subtle, and expansive.
Memorable Quotes
“Through the power of curiosity, so much can be unearthed and discovered by the client.”
“The best challenges are often those that come with a whisper.”
“In that moment, my knowledge becomes irrelevant—and the coaching becomes transformative.”
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Prime Space Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Prime Space, a Prime Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori.
Power of Questions in Coaching
00:00:14
Speaker
Coaches, let's talk a bit about questions.
00:00:20
Speaker
What if we could stretch our perspective on what is usually considered to be the coach's primary tool?
Impact of Curiosity in Coaching
00:00:31
Speaker
It's amazing to me that through these simple statements, a skillful coach can support the client to broaden their points of view, bring them to more clarity and resources that they they already had, but they were not aware of them.
00:00:55
Speaker
Through questions, questions, through the power of curiosity, just by opening the door for a little more investigation, so much can be unearthed and discovered by the client.
Open vs Closed Questions
00:01:14
Speaker
And discovery that can empower them to make better choices, decide how they want to take the next step.
00:01:24
Speaker
Of course, the best questions, you learn this in coach training, are open-ended questions. These are the ones we say have mileage and invite the client to express themselves more fully and explore points they hadn't considered before.
00:01:44
Speaker
Closed-ended questions are usually stuck in the minutiae, in the details. And they usually, not always, but they usually are close the possibilities for the client instead of opening them up.
Types of Coaching Questions
00:01:59
Speaker
And you know, besides open-ended and closed-ended questions, there are many different types of questions. If you just Google them, you will find like dozens of different types of questions.
00:02:14
Speaker
Informational questions, clarifying questions, introspective questions, movement questions, reflection questions, action action-oriented questions.
00:02:27
Speaker
All of them, they are extremely valuable and it's good to be aware of them because they support us in broadening our range of tools during our coaching interactions.
Gaining Clarity through Questions
00:02:42
Speaker
However, when you look a little bit closely,
00:02:49
Speaker
many of these questions can actually be grouped into two primary categories. This is what I would love to discuss here.
00:03:01
Speaker
First, there are these questions that support the client. Look at the present. Questions that support the client in understanding what is. What is internal for them, personal?
00:03:15
Speaker
What is also the situation externally? These questions support the client in gaining greater clarity about the situation and also their relationship to it.
00:03:28
Speaker
So, for example, what do you mean when you say optimism? For example, this is a question that will support the client into exploring a specific word that they just said during the coaching conversation.
00:03:44
Speaker
How much do you trust yourself in this situation? What is your definition of success? What is the influence of your values here? What makes this so important to you right now? These are questions that support the client here in the moment. What is truly happening within themselves and with the situation? And supporting them to understand the situation more broadly.
Challenging Clients with Questions
00:04:11
Speaker
However, there are other questions we say support the client to stretch beyond their current thinking. For example, the classic one.
00:04:24
Speaker
Five years from now, where do you want to be? What would the mischievous child within you have to say? How would Yoda handle this conversation?
00:04:39
Speaker
This is how you feel. What is your gut instinct here? So as you can see, these questions support the client into looking at the present situation, not through their eyes, but through a different point of view.
Understanding Present Situations
00:05:02
Speaker
These two main categories of questions, the both the questions of present and the question of beyond, are tremendously important in the coaching process.
00:05:14
Speaker
The present questions are questions that explore here. What is? it gives the client the opportunity to understand more clearly the now, what is here, who they are, what is truly happening, the client's current view, their responses and reaction. It supports them in perhaps identifying the source of the problem or what is the crux of the matter.
00:05:42
Speaker
They clear the space. They broaden the client's view of the present moment. And that is crucial. It is here that the client can assess and understand the situation. And perhaps just by doing that, even from just noticing what is here, it already gives the client the opportunity to make better choices for themselves and to decide what to do next.
00:06:11
Speaker
However, a lot of times coaches stay here only in this exploration of the here and the now. This is the only place of exploration that the coach invites the client into.
Exploring Beyond Current Thinking
00:06:26
Speaker
You can see that this type of question already has the potential to provide tremendous value to the process and to the client. The air becomes clearer, better understanding of the situation and of themselves. Awesome.
00:06:43
Speaker
This is great. But we can go further beyond what could be. What do you imagine?
00:06:56
Speaker
What else is possible? What shift needs to happen? If you could, what would you?
00:07:07
Speaker
These are moments when we offer our clients the gift of possibility.
Multiple Perspectives in Coaching
00:07:16
Speaker
Yes, there is to- today. when we may be overwhelmed, overtaken by this situation.
00:07:26
Speaker
And it is important for us to have a clear assessment of what is. But there is more.
00:07:36
Speaker
There is a lot more. These are the moments when we are sharing with our clients through a question, through the power of a question, of through the power of a simple statement, that their current perspective is only one.
00:07:56
Speaker
And there are possibly an infinite ways to see the now.
00:08:05
Speaker
With these questions, we are disrupting the client's current thinking and we are challenging them.
Effective Challenges in Coaching
00:08:14
Speaker
And I use this word intentionally. We are challenging them to move beyond. I say challenging because oftentimes when we talk about challenging in coaching, there is this edge to the word.
00:08:27
Speaker
I'm going to challenge my client. I need to stretch them. The best challenges are often those that come with a whisper.
00:08:40
Speaker
Who do you want to be?
00:08:43
Speaker
What do you imagine is on the other side?
00:08:50
Speaker
What third option would you like to create?
00:08:57
Speaker
Whoa. Now the sky is the limit. These are the questions that will open the floodgates of possibility where only the client can go.
00:09:12
Speaker
And that's beautiful, right? Because this is the proof that my knowledge all of a sudden becomes completely irrelevant. And then the coaching can truly be transformative.
00:09:26
Speaker
Because the client is at the center.
Present vs Beyond Questions Module
00:09:32
Speaker
At Prime Coaching Academy, in our Level 2 program, we have a whole module that we talk about this distinction between questions that are in the present and questions that stretch beyond. And we talk about paradigm shift.
00:09:48
Speaker
And this possibility, bringing tools to support the coaches, to support the client into going beyond and seeing things through a different
Encouraging Variety in Questioning
00:10:00
Speaker
lens. It's a fascinating process that I hope one day we are going to be able to share that with you.
00:10:06
Speaker
So go ahead. Play with it Play with these types of questions. Pay attention to what is the character of the questions that you are creating.
00:10:21
Speaker
Are you asking questions that are only exploring the moment, the situation? What are questions that are going to open the door for the client to imagine, to envision, to see beyond, to look through different lens?
00:10:38
Speaker
What can you do to stretch the client beyond their current thinking?
Support and Feedback Call to Action
00:10:44
Speaker
And let me know. Let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear from you. Okay? Thank you for listening. And I would love if you could take one little minute and write a review.
00:10:58
Speaker
and press those stars, the five stars there in the podcast so you can help us promoting all of this that we are sharing here at Prime Space.
00:11:10
Speaker
Have a wonderful day and will talk with you next time.