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The next question that Stanier talks about in The Coaching Habit is even simpler than the first.

It is the AWE question: And what else?

"With seemingly no effort", he explains, these three little words "create more – more wisdom, more insights, more self awareness, more possibilities out of thin air."

Asking this question a few times, allows the real issues to rise to the surface so that you are working at a level that will make a difference. He suggests that you ask it one more time than you think you need to! The question allows more options to surface which lead to better decisions and solutions.

And What Else? The quickest and easiest way to create new possibilities. Try it.

Stanier in The Coaching Habit writes that "Coaching for development is about turning the focus from the issue to the person dealing with the issue, the person who's managing the fire."
 
Such a useful concept! What this means is that as leaders our job is not to know how to solve all problems. It is not even realistic to be able to solve all problems, is it? The person who is asking the question often is closer to the situation and has more information about the issue than we do.

(As an example, think of your 6th grader who is dealing with a math problem. He has attended the class recently and heard the teacher's instructions. Who knows more about the situation – him or you who has not attended a math class in several decades?)

So our job as a leader may be simply to help people uncover the answer that they already have within themselves.

This process is so much simpler than trying to solve or pretend to know the solution to every problem that others are having. So when you...

Resist the temptation to rescue

 
Salaams and Good Morning !

Here is your daily dose of Wisdom for Living Your Best Self!

Most of us are leaders in one or more spheres of our lives, whether we are parenting our children, managing teams at work or working with colleagues. In a leadership role, we may be approached to provide answers or solutions to various issues or problems. "How should I do this", we may be asked in various different ways.

If you are like most people, you want to help, to solve the problem or provide a solution that will make the other's life or work easier.

Some of us are extra keen to help. We have our solution hats on and are dishing out solutions freely and rampantly.

So eager are we that we may not even stop to consider that:
"Even though we don't really know what the issue is, we're quite sure we've got the answer they need."
 
This gem of a quote is from The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay...

So here are the seven questions that we have been exploring over the last few days. Regularly engaging in these reflections can be extremely beneficial in our spiritual and emotional growth.

Remember that asking the question and letting it simmer is more important than quick answers.

Repeat each question several times and use a journal to reflect on the answers.

1. What's your iki gai?
2. What are your core values?
3. Who matters most?
4. Where does my time go?
5. Which of my relationships are incomplete?
6. How do I keep my relationships complete?
7. What do I really really want?

What do I really really want?

This is a great question to ask ourselves regularly.

So very often we chase something that we think we want, and then when we get it, realise that nope, that was not really our hearts desire. It is as if, as Steven Covey puts it, our ladder of success has been leaning against the wrong wall. Only once we have climbed the ladder we realise, oops, wrong wall!!

Many of us are connecting to our wants and desires these days and getting ready to ask from the King of Kings in these blessed and holy nights of Shabaan.

And this is a really good question to get us aligned with our big picture wants and get us in touch with what we truly want with our heart and soul.

The most effective way to use this question is to ask it several times and keep writing down what comes up. It takes a few moments for the conscious mind to settle and for our deepest longings to come bubbling up to the surface.

The first few (or several) things you will write will likely be immediate...

As we started discussing yesterday, keeping our relationships complete is essential to living a life that matters – if we are not complete with our relationships, it robs our energies from things that we are meant to do. We cannot really focus on bigger things.

Having incomplete relationships really hinders our spiritual growth.

Why? Because we are designed to be in connection – when we are not connected to other human beings on an authentic level, we are not at peace.

Try this for yourself. Think of someone you are not at peace wit, whether you are currently in relationship with this person or not – now reflect on how much (negative) space they occupy in your mind and your heart. It is as if you are energetically connected to them with an invisible cord. Completion is about setting yourself and them free.

Keeping our relationships complete is not difficult. It involves 5 simple steps:

a. Communicating upset and resentment

b. Apologizing

c. Forgiving

d. Expressing...

We all have relationships in our lives which are incomplete. An "Incomplete relationship" is where there is unfinished business, unspoken hurts, resentments or things left unsaid. People whom we have hurt become part of the burden of our psyche, causing us spiritual pain that we often unaware of.

An incomplete relationship does not have to be about negative things. Appreciation or love unexpressed where it is felt also leads to the feeling of incompleteness.

Incomplete relationships weigh heavy upon the psyche. They stop us from spiritual growth and connection.

Completing relationships does NOT mean ending them and it can be done at any time during a relationship.

It is especially important to complete relationships that are ending so that we do not carry emotional baggage into future relationships.

When a relationship is complete, there is a feeling that things are okay between us and that our connection is complete as is and that nothing needs to be done or said in order for each...

The next question that we are exploring in our quest for self awareness and growth is this: Where does my time go?

It is such a cliché to say that we live in a world that is on 24/7 and that we 'don't have time'. We have more labour saving devices than ever before and less (perceived) time than any previous generation.

The truth is that time is the great equalizer. All of us have exactly the same amount every day. How we spend those moments, however, will greatly determine our quality of life now and later.

Also, how we spend our time says a lot about who we are and what we value. We may verbalize some values that we 'should' have but our clock and our calendar tell us the truth about what we value by the actions we take during the moments in our day.

A great way to become more mindful of how we spend our time is to keep a time log. I learnt this concept from time management expert Laura Vanderkam in her book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.

Vanderkam suggests...

The next question on our quest for self discovery is an easy one: who matters most in your life? Which 3-5 relationships are the most important ones to you?

The follow up questions to this one are a little less easy to answer: do these people know that they matter to you? How do they know? What do you do to demonstrate or express how important they are?

How do you nurture these relationships?

The second question we will explore in our quest for self awareness and growth is this: What are my core values?

Values are a part of us. They highlight what we stand for. Values guide our behavior, providing us with a personal code of conduct.

When we honor our personal core values consistently, and live in alignment with them, we experience fulfillment in our lives.

Similarly, if we are not living in integrity with our core values or when we dishonor them, we experience guilt, remorse and anger. (In fact, when we are angry at someone else, it is often because one or more of our core values has been injured – think about this one)

Other ways to ask this question and get in touch with our core values are: What is the most important thing about me as a person? What do I stand for? What are the qualities that I would like to be known for?

It is important to remember that we cannot select values that we would like or believe that we 'should' have. It is a process of discovery and...