Great Leaders Are Great Coaches — Part 3: Curious Coaching
The caliber of your conversations always reflects the caliber of your questions. And I've seen this play out in coaching over and over and over again. That, man, if you want great coaching conversations, the best way that you can contribute to that outcome is preparing great coaching questions. If we ask bad questions, we get bad answers. Here's the principle we're gonna base today's entire lesson on.
Alex Judd:Good leaders give answers to people. Great leaders extract answers from people. I'm talking to you now about the value of curious coaching because we're in this series on great leaders or great coaches. And within that, we're kind of formulating it around this idea that as a leader, you get to wear many hats. Right?
Alex Judd:You wear the hat of vision caster, manager, teacher, mediator, CEO, facilitator, friend, but so often, one of the most impactful hats that you, can wear is the hat of coach. And what I want you to know is that if you are going to be a great leader, you want to be able to be a great coach. And one of the things that we really need to recognize within the skill and and role of coach is that the greatest transformation often doesn't come from vision conversations. Rather, it comes from coaching conversations. It it comes whenever you're able to sit kneecap to kneecap with people and help them develop on something that they're looking to grow in over a sustained period of time.
Alex Judd:And within that, one of the things that we need to recognize is that there's five qualities of effective coaching. This is what we've been walking through in this podcast series, and what we're gonna talk about today is the second quality. But here's the five qualities. It's relational, curious, assertive, directional, and principle based. And what we're diving into today is the value and power of you being curious as a leader and as a coach.
Alex Judd:And so what I want us to remember before we get into the kinda outline of the episode today is that any of these skills, qualities, tools, tactics, this this in particular is gonna be a very practical episode. There can be a multitude of motives for why we use them. And, you know, you can listen to this and be like, well, that just sounds manipulative. You're just trying to find ways to get people to do what you want them to do, and and that's all you're using these tactics for. And what I would tell you is that, like, all the tactics I'm about to give you, you can absolutely use them in that way just to be manipulative, just to work for yourself.
Alex Judd:But there's a difference between motivational and manipulative, and and our goal is to be motivational leaders. Our our goal is to be impact driven leaders. And so what does our motive need to be? Well, we need to be leveraging all of these qualities, curiosity at the at the forefront in the best interest of the people that we are working with. We need to remember that, man, the reason why I'm looking to grow in each of these five qualities and deploy them in coaching conversations is in the best interest of other people.
Alex Judd:And once you start to adopt that motive, well, that's gonna affect the way that you deploy these tactics. People will see that motive from a mile away. And what's so cool is this becomes like this never ending journey where you start to unlock greater and greater levels of ability in terms of being able to invest in, develop, and pour into other people. That's why I'm so passionate about this context because I've seen over and over again people take this stuff, legitimately develop and improve on this, and then use it to serve other people. And so here's the principle that we're focusing everything around on today.
Alex Judd:Good coaches give answers to people. Great coaches extract answers from people. And what this is really rooted in is that so often, one of the greatest things that we can do for the people that we work with, the people that we're mentoring, the people that we wanna develop and coach, one of the best things we can do is give people the opportunity to verbally process something with people that they trust. And, man, how do we do that? Well, we can do that by being incredibly curious.
Alex Judd:I am constantly blown away over and over and over again about... At how sometimes the best thing that I can do as a coach to help someone develop is just give them an opportunity to talk. Because one of the things that I constantly learn and I'm reminded of is people a lot of times have the answers within them. People have the solution or the strategy within them. People have kind of ideas and motivation and excitement within them.
Alex Judd:They don't need me to give that to them a lot of times. The biggest thing I can do is rather provide them... Help them identify clarity or help them remove conflict. And if it's just me talking at them, that actually is a very ineffective strategy for helping them clarify what they need, want, or or can do, and it's also not a very effective strategy for helping them work through conflict. Conversely, if I actually deploy curious questions, if I listen with curiosity, if I actually care about where they're coming from and what their perspective is, oh my gosh.
Alex Judd:It's amazing how much of a difference it can make, and you can start to see a person connect dots in their head. And sort of my favorite parts of what we get to do is you start to peep... See people, step into who they were created to be, not because of something external that you gave them, but rather something internal that they realized themselves. One of the things that we gotta remember is, man, you don't get to the gold without digging through a lot of dirt. Right?
Alex Judd:And so a lot of times, the reason why we don't deploy curiosity is because we don't have patience, And we just think we need to get straight to the point. And in reality, sometimes, man, it's good to help people verbally process, not so you get to the point, but so they get to the point. And so in this episode, we're gonna get really practical. With regard to curiosity, we're gonna talk about the tone you use. We're gonna talk about the questions you ask, and we're gonna talk about the way that you listen.
Alex Judd:Again, the tone you use, the questions you ask, and the way that you listen. Let's start with the tone you use. What I want you to understand is that your tone and the way you talk to people can be the difference between an interaction and a conversation. I had to learn this a long time ago is I I realized, man, I have a tendency to talk at people. And what that means is I would almost, like, present to people, and I would be a little bit overly assertive.
Alex Judd:I I would make statements that were pretty directive. And as a result, I wasn't inviting response. Right? I was kind of basically issuing commands, and commands are very different than curiosity. So the thing that we have to understand here at the start is that there's a difference between talking with people and talking at people.
Alex Judd:And as leaders, specifically as coaches, we need to recognize that the greatest development comes not whenever it's a one way flow of communication, rather that the greatest development in a coaching conversation occurs whenever we're talking with the people that we're working with. And so what that looks like is we wanna make sure our tone is inviting people to respond. Because what does a curious tone do? A a curious tone conveys a serious interest. It conveys humility.
Alex Judd:It conveys a desire to learn more. Number one, a serious interest. Man, when we adopt a curious tone, when when we just literally say, like, oh, man. That's so interesting. Right?
Alex Judd:When we actually show that we're seriously interested in what someone's talking about, what's fascinating is they will actually talk more because they think that what they're saying is valued because it is valued. The the next thing that a curious tone does is it conveys humility. If you speak overdirectively or over assertively or through the context of demands, people say, well, they don't need to hear anything from me because they already have all the answers. And then if you also kinda convey a desire to constantly be learning more, what you're doing is you're... Again, you're inviting people to speak.
Alex Judd:Now here's what's really interesting is I've known this to be true, and I I noticed this first in myself, but I've observed it in other people. When leaders get really anxious, right, which means they're engaging in uncertainty, they they don't feel good about the situation that they're in, They they don't like the awkward pauses or silence in the room. Here's what's so interesting. When leaders get the most anxious, they actually get the most assertive, and that is the exact opposite of what's actually helpful. It's been so wild for me to watch a mentor and friend of mine.
Alex Judd:His name is Jim, and he'll just be in a room with people, and the room will be kinda like charged because there's something going on that's like a big question that needs to be answered or a problem that needs to be solved. And and this guy just has this incredible capacity to not get anxious and therefore assertive. He feels no pressure to have the answers himself. He just kinda lays... Sits back and just says, what do y'all think we should do about this, or what do y'all think is causing this?
Alex Judd:Instead of getting assertive and feeling the pressure on himself or responsibility on himself to have all the answers, he rather is willing to say, like, I don't know what's going on here. Let's get the wisdom of the group, and let's help people speak up. In reality, when we get most anxious, that's when it would be wise to get more curious. I love, in Anchorman. Have you seen the movie Anchorman?
Alex Judd:It's the story of Ron Burgundy. Right? And I'll I'll never forget that Ron Burgundy can't operate without his teleprompter. Right? And he gets to the end of his closing.
Alex Judd:He says, you stay classy, San Diego. I'm Ron Burgundy. Right? And there's... And then he says, who put a question mark in the teleprompter?
Alex Judd:Right? This is what we're talking about, though. Sometimes we phrase things as commands that should actually be questions, and the tone that we use can actually be leveraged to invite people to respond. The other thing that we need to understand is you don't always need an original question to engage in curiosity. We'll talk about this more later on in this series, but, I'm sure many of you have read the book Never Split the Difference.
Alex Judd:In Never Split the Difference, he talks about mirroring. And what mirroring is is it's basically just repeating the last three to four words of what someone said in a curious tone. And so I'll never forget. I had a conversation with an Uber driver once, and I I actually wasn't wanting to talk that much, but I felt like, okay. This guy clearly wants to talk.
Alex Judd:And so in my twenty minute ride from Nashville Airport home, I... I'm just gonna use this tactic called mirroring. Right? And and I said something like, so are you from Nashville originally? And he said, no.
Alex Judd:Not from Nashville originally, but I had to get away from where I was. I said, had to get away? He said, yeah. I was in Indiana, there was just stuff that was really messed up there. Really messed up?
Alex Judd:Oh, yeah. It was just family stuff. You know? Family stuff? Oh, yeah.
Alex Judd:You know, my family was part of a cult and had been for multiple generations, and I had to get out of that. Had to get out of that? Yeah, man. I mean, I had three kids at the time, and it was just like our... All of our freedom was restricted.
Alex Judd:It was incredibly toxic. And so, man, we just had to get away. Get away? Yeah. We we actually snuck out one night, and and, and we never saw them again.
Alex Judd:Snuck out? Yeah. It was just kind of a line in the sand moment for me, and what's crazy is there's been incredible freedom since and just, like, I I see my kids growing up better. I've moved forward myself and experienced great deal of healing, and we together as a family have kinda moved forward and been able to separate from the past. Now the conversation include...
Alex Judd:Like, it, like, continued. But what's crazy is, like, everything I just gave you, like, there's two things that are wild to me. Like, my mind was blown because he went from the question, are you from Nashville to talking to me about the cult that he escaped with his family and the healing journey that they've been on since then. And that happened in, like, under ten minutes. I'm not kidding you right now.
Alex Judd:And and here's what's even more crazy. In that entire interaction, I don't know if you saw it. In that entire interaction, I asked one original question, and it was, are you from Nashville? Everything else I was doing was just literally mirroring back the exact words that he was saying to me. This is what we have to understand.
Alex Judd:People so desperately want to be heard. And and the other thing is people are so absurdly interesting. And if we just engage in curiosity, not always having an original question, but being willing to mirror, being willing to participate, being willing to listen and then show them that we're listening, you will be you will be... I I promise you this. I could give you 10 stories about this.
Alex Judd:You will be blown away at what people will tell you. So that's our action is speak in such a way that invites others to respond. Now one note that I wanna make, right here is that part of being a great coach is having wisdom, and part of having wisdom is knowing when to use which quality. So one of the things that I want you to understand is that the next quality that we're gonna talk about is assertive. Right?
Alex Judd:And and assertive is actually kinda stands in opposition of curiosity sometimes. And what I can't tell you is exactly the moments when you're gonna need to be curious or exactly the moments of when you're gonna need to be assertive. What I can challenge you on is, man, grow in wisdom. Grow in understanding what works. Grow in understanding the way people respond and and and reading people's body language and understanding the moment that you're in and what's required from you as a leader.
Alex Judd:Because if you adopt that level of wisdom, then part of wisdom is knowing which quality to deploy in which moment. But But that's one of the things that I love about everything that we're talking about right now is when we talk about the quality of curiosity, I just gave you an example of literally every interaction you have, whether it's with the Uber driver or the cashier or your spouse or with your kids or with the stranger or with your neighbor. Like, literally, interaction is an opportunity to practice. And the more you practice this, the more you focus on mirroring or asking great questions or listening really, really well or using a curious tone. What's crazy is the more you practice, the more you will sometimes consciously, but oftentimes sub consciously learn here's what works and what doesn't.
Alex Judd:It just requires the intentionality of saying, I'm gonna practice being more curious. Okay. So we talked about the tone you use. Now let's talk about the questions you ask. Here's what I know to be true.
Alex Judd:The caliber of your conversations always reflects the caliber of your questions. And I've seen this play out in coaching over and over and over again. That, man, if you want great coaching conversations, the best way that you can contribute to that outcome is preparing great coaching questions. And one of the things that I know to be true is that if we ask bad questions, we get bad answers. Conversely, if we ask good, specific, meaningful, pointed, open ended, wise questions, what's crazy is that that will elicit really, really great answers that create and generate great conversation.
Alex Judd:Well, why do we avoid this, though? I think we all know the value and power of asking great questions. So why don't we why don't we do it very often? The first thing I would say is it's difficult, and it can be abnormal. Right?
Alex Judd:I I think if we haven't done it ever, like... And we haven't become practiced at asking questions, we we, we feel clunky whenever we're doing it. I I love that Carl Jung line, though, where he says, whoever wants to become a master must first be willing to look like a fool. If you're someone that you just realize, man, I don't ask many questions right now, that's okay. Just start.
Alex Judd:Just start asking questions. And what's so cool is if you kinda know that you're going to meet with someone or you know that you're gonna have a meeting with a team member or you're gonna get in an Uber car with someone, I mean, you can think ahead of time just what are five questions that I wanna ask. And what's crazy is if you plan the five and really listen, you will hear stuff that is so radically interesting, you almost won't be able to help think of follow-up questions. But the reason why we avoid it so often is because it's difficult if you haven't done it before, and it feels abnormal. But here's what we gotta remember is I think in the totality of the gospels, it's documented that Jesus asked something like a 147 questions.
Alex Judd:Holy cow. What an incredible model to follow. And and the thing that we need to understand about Jesus that we'll talk more about here in just a second is, you know, I don't know if you're like me, but I believe that Jesus is God. Right? And so is Jesus asking those questions because he didn't have any of the answers?
Alex Judd:Absolutely not. He probably had better, deeper, more profound answers than every single person he talked to. The point wasn't about him having the answers. The the point was about them getting to the bottom of things. So he asked great questions.
Alex Judd:Right? And so what can we take from that? This is something that we can practice. This is something that we can ingrain into our daily rhythm. Here's another reason why we avoid asking questions, especially as leaders.
Alex Judd:The gap oftentimes is not information. The gap more often than not is implementation. A lot of times within them, they know what to do or at least they know what they can try. And because the gap isn't information, it's implementation, why don't they often implement? Well, the reason why they don't often implement is because they don't have the confidence to implement.
Alex Judd:There are other reasons, but I will tell you in development conversations over and over and over again, especially if someone is on a journey where they're doing new things to get new results, a lot of times when they stall out, it's because they lack the confidence. And think about this for a second. If someone's coming to you because they lack confidence and they ask you, you know, what they should do or they're trying to get your help on the solution and you just give them an answer right away, well, then you actually hamstring them from getting the very thing that they need because they leave that conversation saying, man, they've got this. Like, I'm gonna come and ask you a question, and you give me the answer. So I leave not feeling more confident than myself.
Alex Judd:I leave feeling more like, man, I'm inadequate, but thank goodness this superhero has the answer. And so here's your goal. Here's what you want as a coach is when someone comes to you with a question, you don't want them leaving that conversation thinking, man, they can do this. They are really impressive. You want them leaving that conversation saying, man, I can do this.
Alex Judd:And the way that you do that is not by giving them all the answers. Rather, you do that by asking great questions. But the belief behind all this is just that the gap is not information. More often than not, the gap is confidence, and the way that you elicit confidence out of others is by engaging in curiosity. The final reason why I think we don't ask great questions is we assume we understand.
Alex Judd:Again, we assume we understand. I wanna talk to you a little bit about this, and then I'm gonna give you some questions that can be really helpful to ask in coaching conversations. Whenever I started this business, I started doing, one on one coaching and team trainings. And one on one coaching would occur virtually, and then I would go in person and do some team trainings. That was wild.
Alex Judd:I would spend all this time on, virtual calls with people that I was coaching, and I would start to kinda build this mental picture of what their office space looked like, the way their team was structured, the way their team members' personalities were based on what they had said to me. And I started to develop this picture of this, and I assumed, man, I get what their world is like. And I would be coaching them and being like, I understand what their whole world is like, and and I've got this. Like, I I totally understand. And that would kinda be my incredibly arrogant but realistic viewpoint that I had.
Alex Judd:And then what was crazy is I had a handful of those customers that I had been having conversations with for months bring me out to their location to do a team training. And I would show up to the team training, and what I observed and what I witnessed whenever I met their team, whenever I walked around their office, whenever I had seen the work that they were doing and all of that, I realized, oh my gosh. All of my assumptions were totally wrong. Like, I was incredibly misinformed because I assumed I understood. Here's what I would tell you as a coach.
Alex Judd:You do not understand. Just adopt that belief. I have to constantly tell myself, I do not understand. I do not understand what they're going through. I do not understand, like, what what people's personalities are like.
Alex Judd:Because what... What's helpful about that is when I assume I don't understand, I start asking great curious questions, and I start to fill those blanks in with real information instead of with assumptions. Your assumptions are gonna kill your ability to develop people because oftentimes, those assumptions will operate counter to their actual reality. And eventually, those two are gonna collide, and they're gonna realize you don't actually get what's going on here. For someone to act on the advice or developments that you walk them through, they need to have one specific belief in their mind and in their heart.
Alex Judd:That belief needs to be, man, they get me. And if you just assume you understand their whole world and you don't ask great questions, if you don't picture their world as a blank canvas that you're systematically trying to piece in, they will never believe that you get them. And as a result, they will never take consistent sustained action on any advice that you give them or any coaching you offer them. Do not assume that you understand. So now let's talk about really practical questions.
Alex Judd:When I'm thinking about coaching conversations, I really think about leadership conversations, and and leadership is helping people go from here to there. And so I like to structure kind of the way I think about questions around that kinda here to there framework. I wanna know where someone's been. Maybe it's holistically. Maybe it's a specific area.
Alex Judd:Tell me about the past. I wanna know where they are. Max Dupree says one of the highest responsibilities of a of a leader is this, define reality. Where are things today? I wanna know where they're going, what's their vision, their goals, their dreams, and I wanna know what's the plan that they're already executing on.
Alex Judd:And so, I... I'm gonna just walk you through a few questions for each of these categories that can be incredibly helpful. So if I wanna know where they've been, I I wanna ask context questions. I wanna say, man, tell me about what led up to the moment we're in today. Tell me the story about how we got here.
Alex Judd:How do you feel about what's going on right now compared to what you've been through? Talk to me about the biggest decisions that you made to get you to where you are right now. Next, I wanna ask truth and source questions to understand the current state of things. This is reality based questions. I love asking the question, what are the facts of where we are right now?
Alex Judd:Don't give me your opinions. Don't give me your observations. Give me the facts. I love asking, is that true? What makes you say that?
Alex Judd:What are you assuming? And then with regard to source, I wanna try to get to the bottom of what's actually causing the reality that we currently experience. So I would ask, what's at the center of all this? Or what's the number one thing right now that if you truly solved it, it would diminish or eliminate all the other issues that you're experiencing right now? Or a lot of times, you can get to the source just by asking why.
Alex Judd:And then as we talk about the future, I wanna ask vision questions. Man, what would a home run be in this month, in this quarter, in this year? What does winning look like? Describe to me the finish line that you're trying to reach for your team or for yourself. Right?
Alex Judd:What's the best possible outcome of what you're trying to strive for? And then finally, I wanna talk about the blockers and the plan. So blockers are really undermining the the the conflict that exists, which is what are you afraid of? What's standing in the way? What are the threats that you're facing right now?
Alex Judd:What's the worst thing that could happen? And then the plan is we start to get directional, and we're gonna talk about this more in one of the subsequent coaching qualities. But what's gonna have to be true for you to get to from where you are to where you wanna go? What's the next right thing to do? What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
Alex Judd:What are the potential pitfalls to the plan that we're talking about right now? So here's kinda if we were to sum up all of this. I know I gave you a bunch of examples of questions, but what we're really talking about is we have questions that are focused on understanding people's past. We have questions that are focused on understanding people's future destination. We have questions focused on understanding where people are right now, and then we have questions focused on the blockers and the plan.
Alex Judd:And what we have to do is we have to make sure we're not assuming we just get this stuff. Every person is unique, and we cannot copy and paste or project our answers to these questions to someone else. If we start to ask them these questions, we're gonna get so much information. That information is gonna help us serve them. The other thing that information is going to do is it's gonna help them feel heard, seen, and understood, which is gonna give them a higher propensity for actually taking action.
Alex Judd:So we talked about the tone you use. We talked about the questions you ask. And then finally, let's talk about the way that you listen. I'll never forget, it was early on in the business that I was sitting down with a a mentor and friend of mine, an older guy that's been wildly successful in business, really, really effective at what he does, and just someone that's incredibly wise. And I was sitting down with him, and I...
Alex Judd:And he was letting me verbally process. He was asking a bunch of great curious questions. And and, specifically, I was talking to him about the future and maybe talking about some of the blockers. And I'll never forget. I I said, man, I'm just so terrified that we're gonna build something to such a degree that we can't sustain the success we experience.
Alex Judd:I said, I'm terrified of that. And he he literally interrupted me. He said, Alex, I'm gonna stop you right there. And I said, okay. He said, I wanna ask you a question.
Alex Judd:He said... This is a pretty absurd illustration. He said, if someone walked into this restaurant where we're having lunch right now and they had an AK 47 and they started shooting up the place, what word would you use to describe how you feel? And I I was kinda dumbfounded at the question because it felt like it came out of left field. But then he just continued on.
Alex Judd:He said, because you already use the word terrified. And once you use the word terrified, you really don't have much further that you can go. And so with regard to scaling your business and the structure with your business, I would much rather you use language like hesitant rather than terrified because your language doesn't create the reality you experience, but it does influence your experience of reality. Here's the principle. A passive coach hears context.
Alex Judd:An active coach listens to language. Are you listening to the words people are using? Because the words people are using are shaping the way that they perceive reality, and their perception of reality can sometimes be almost indistinguishable from the reality they actually experience. And so what you don't wanna do is just listen to the what of what people are saying. You wanna listen to how they are saying it and specifically the language they're using to say it.
Alex Judd:And so there's a few things I want you to listen for. Number one, we already talked about is language. Right? The language people use is the best tool that they have to convey the reality of their internal and emotional state. And so if you're listening to their language, I would encourage you, call attention to the language that they're using and say, I noticed you said it this way.
Alex Judd:Why did you say it this way? That's part of being curious. I also want you to listen for any emotional laden language. One of the things that you learn very early on in coaching is, man, the emotion is where the power is. And what I mean by that is emotion is often what drives us to act, but emotion is also what keeps us from acting.
Alex Judd:The conflict that we experience with regard to stepping into who we were created to be and the actions that we need to be taking and the implementation that we need to be engaging in is almost always emotional. And so when people use emotional language, I'm afraid, I'm nervous, I'm stressed, I'm I'm worried, I'm concerned, I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed. Anytime they use that emotional language, do not skip past that. Zero in on that language and say, tell me more about about annoyed. Right?
Alex Judd:What makes you annoyed? And what's wild, there... I mean, there's a little bit... Literally been neuroscience done on this. You can read about it more in the book Never Split the Difference, but what they've found is that, man, to the degree that you can help someone verbally process an emotion, you will help that person.
Alex Judd:If they can label the emotion, that emotion will loosen its grip on their brain, and they'll be able to process a situation that can be incredibly stressful more logically just because they're no longer operating through the lens of that emotion. And so that's called labeling, and what you wanna do is ask great questions that helps them label their own emotion. You also wanna be listening for exaggeration. We always. We just never.
Alex Judd:We just can't. Right? Anytime they say we just never do anything in a way that's organized, then you gotta say, is that true? Is that actually true? Because people will make decisions and take actions out of their exaggerations.
Alex Judd:And if they truly are exaggerating, it's incredibly unhelpful and unproductive for their business. Next, you wanna listen to untruth. Rather than someone saying something is impossible that's not actually impossible, I would rather them say it's rare. So sometimes people say it's just impossible to get these people to show up on time. And I...
Alex Judd:You know, it it might be something really, like, kinda flippant like that, and I will stop them and say, impossible or rare or hard or difficult. Right? And then they'll say, well, it's obviously not impossible. It's just difficult. Okay.
Alex Judd:We can work with difficult. We can't do anything with impossible. So as a coach, one of the things that you have to be really curious about is, is there anything that this person is saying that is not actually aligned with what's true? And then be willing to ask, like, is that actually true? And then finally, I want you to listen for hidden truth.
Alex Judd:Oftentimes, people will give you kind of the sweeping narrative of a situation of what's going on, and what you wanna do is get them to talk about the particularities. There's a multitude of reasons why this is helpful, but one that I found to be really, really insightful is this, shame lives in the details. And oftentimes, one of the driving things that keeps people from moving forward is shame. And to the degree that people don't talk about the details of the situation because they're ashamed of them, that actually reinforces. Because what shame tells us is if this person actually knew what was actually going on in my head or in my business or in my life or in my marriage, if this person actually knew, they they wouldn't care about me as much as they are right now, or they wouldn't be investing this time with me, or they wouldn't be able to help me.
Alex Judd:Right? But what's so powerful is that if a person actually names the particularities, names the details, and then you as a leader expose grace and truth to that hidden truth, right, and and they realize, man, I can talk about the nastiest, darkest, most challenging realities. And in response to that, this person doesn't abandon me. They don't leave me. They actually serve me and love me, and they show me grace.
Alex Judd:Man, that's so powerful. And so as a coach, it's always so good and so helpful within reason and within wisdom to dig for the particularities because Shane lives in the details. But, man, when we expose that delight and then serve people really well on the backside of that, it's incredibly powerful. So so in this whole series, we've been talking about the five coaching qualities, relational, curious, asserted, directional, and principle based. We just walked through our session on curious, and we talked about the caliber of your conversations reflects the caliber of your questions.
Alex Judd:And so what I want you to leave here focusing on is, man, I'm gonna focus on the tone that I use, number one. I'm gonna focus on the questions that I ask, number two. And then number three, I'm gonna focus on the way that I listen. And in doing so, by being incredibly curious, number one, you're gonna have opportunities to practice, but number two, you're gonna be able to serve people exceptionally well. It's gonna be so powerful.
Alex Judd:I wanna encourage you to subscribe to the podcast so that you keep getting these episodes because this is part of a a series that we are doing on great leaders or great coaches. I think it's gonna be incredibly powerful for your leadership and for your development. Let's go. Well, there you have it. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode.
Alex Judd:If you want any of the information or resources that we mentioned, that's all in the show notes. Hey, before you go, could I ask you for one quick favor? Could you subscribe, rate, and review this podcast episode? Your feedback is what helps our team engage in a sequence of never ending improvement. We wanna amplify what's valuable to you and obviously reduce or even remove the things that aren't.
Alex Judd:Also, you leaving a positive review is what helps us connect with, build trust with, and serve other leaders around the country. So thanks in advance for helping us out on that front. Are you a leader that wants to grow your business in a healthy way, serve people exceptionally well, and glorify God in the process? Go to pathforgrowth.com to get more information about our community of impact driven leaders and schedule a call with our team. Hey, thank you so much to the Path for Growth team, Kyle Cummings and the crew at Podcircle, and the remarkable leaders that are actively engaged in the Path for Growth community.
Alex Judd:Y'all are the people that make this podcast possible. Y'all know this. We're rooting for you. We're praying for you. We wanna see you win.
Alex Judd:Remember, my strength is not for me. Your strength is not for you. Our strength is for service. Let's go. Let's go.
Alex Judd:Let's go.
