What happened? What do I want? What’s useful about this? What can I learn? What’s the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting? What are my choices? What’s best to do now? What’s possible?”

Here are a few powerful questions I regularly turn to during sessions with clients: What does this mean to you? Imagine if you get to that stage that you’re aiming for, what would that look like? What do you need to know to get to this outcome? What are some possible options you can try? What other ways can you explore to achieve that?

ask questions of your conversation partner that begin with “How…?” and “What…?” That is, questions that invite open-ended, constructive answers, rather than “Why…?” questions that demand justifications or “Do you…?” questions with yes/no answers.

Someone once said that everything tastes better with bacon. As a fallen vegetarian, I can attest to that. Equally, every question gets better when you add, “And what else?” Asking, “What’s the real challenge here for you?” Good. Adding, “And what else? What else is a real challenge here for you?” Even better.

when presented with a challenging or boring moment, try deliberately adopting an attitude of curiosity, in which your goal isn’t to achieve any particular outcome, or successfully explain your position, but, as Hobson puts it, “to figure out who this human being is that we’re with.”

Here are some examples of powerful questions to ask someone, that you can modify per your needs:

• What do you really want?

• What about this is important to you?

• What does that look like?

• How do you feel about this?

• What’s next?

• What else is possible?

• What’s right about this?

• What are your concerns?

• What is standing in your way?

• Tell me more

Curiosity: Questions are the answer to improving curiosity. Before you start reading or learning anything, ask yourself motivational questions. Most people ask questions that don’t move them to action.