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 Wellness Inventory Certification Training, 2006-2017, www.wellpeople.com
Useful Open Questions
(Also see Co-Active Coaching or Quantum Coaching Questions for an excellent list):
 What would you like to get from our conversation today? Your client knows
what he/she needs. Just ask.
 What’s important to you? What really matters now? What do you want?
These are “Master Questions". Exploring the meaning of one’s life very often
puts things in perspective faster than anything else. The power is always in an
inside-out approach. Be aware that very often the answer to these questions will
be an outside-in approach for getting what they want but is not what they actually
want. The mind usually gives us what we don’t want or the means for getting
what we want before we actually get to what it is we really want. Keep exploring
until the client is clear about what they really want. The power is always in an
inside-out approach. (See the document Master Questions in your Training
Library under Required Reading for more information on this process – we’ll
cover it later in the course).
 When you have achieved that, what will it give you? This is another Master
Question that will help the client to drill down to what they really want.
 What about that matters most to you? This is another Master Question that
helps a client drill down into a want to discover and name what it is that they
really want at their core.
 How does … affect your other dimensions of wellness? Using your client’s
Wellness Inventory scores is a very powerful way to help your client break things
down or to reframe something. Coaching is about changing how we see things
from the inside out.
 Which of your strengths can you apply to this problem? Putting focus on the
client’s strengths as major resources in solving their problems is very affirming
and supportive.
 What has worked before? Exploring past successes and employing the same
strategies can be very effective in certain circumstances.
 What exactly happens? What do you notice? The more specific we are in our
awareness, the more we can shift. Let your curiosity be your guide in drilling
down into the specifics, but remember that you are your client’s partner, not their
interrogator.
 What was the thought or feeling that came just before …? Catching those
fleeting thoughts and feelings and giving them a name and a voice often has
transformative results.
 What’s happening in your body? What do you notice in your body when
you say that? You can further explore an experience by inquiring into such
things as color, texture, movement, shape, temperature, etc. These questions,
when used skillfully, can yield rich awareness’s. Any questions that direct your
client into greater sensory awareness can be helpful.
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 Wellness Inventory Certification Training, 2006-2017, www.wellpeople.com
 What purpose does … serve? The awareness that all of our patterns have
served a purpose and that if we can appreciate their service, it is easier to move
on to something that serves us better now. You will be receiving wonderful tools
to explore this more fully as we go through the course.
 Who would you be, if …? Explore all the senses in your client’s vision of a
particular outcome – “what would you feel, what would you see, what would you
hear,” etc. Again, the more specific the awareness is, the more readily the
pattern shifts. In the creation of a desired vision, be sure to help your client to
supercharge the vision with positive emotions.
 What would happen if …? Exploring different scenarios can be very useful.
Helping a client design his/her own experiment can result in powerful learning.
Get specific about what is being tested.
 Tell me about … Be sure to just be quiet after you make your request so the
client can assemble his/her thoughts and feelings. Used judiciously, this can yield
a lot of awareness and be a pivot point in a session
 How do you know …? Unchallenged thoughts and beliefs are usually at the
core of our ineffectual patterns.
 How would you explain that to a fourth grader? Refining something down to
its simplest language can be very useful in peeling away the extraneous story
and getting to the heart of the matter.
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind
of thinking we used when we created them.”
- Albert Einstein