Why “Good Questions Only”?

Welcome to my consultancy and blog, Good Questions Only.

Why coaching and what makes me, of all people, qualified?

I’ve always been someone of deep yet skeptical faith, and so in the tradition of my people, I’ll answer that question with another question.

One of my favorite books in the Jewish canon is Pirkei Avot. And it opens as follows:

משֶׁה קִבֵּל תּוֹרָה מִסִּינַי, וּמְסָרָהּ לִיהוֹשֻׁעַ, וִיהוֹשֻׁעַ לִזְקֵנִים, וּזְקֵנִים לִנְבִיאִים, וּנְבִיאִים מְסָרוּהָ לְאַנְשֵׁי כְנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה

Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly.

Here is one of, if not the, foundational text of Jewish wisdom and God’s name is nowhere to be found! Where is God?!

Perhaps the point is that wisdom is not about new revelations from above. There’s nothing new under the sun and that includes all of the perspectives on people, management, leadership, etc. These insights are found in the works of Peter Drucker, Andy Grove, Shreyas Doshi, Wes Kao, Julie Garner and many others. Heck, you can find articles about the leadership lessons from Harry Potter.

And that’s perfectly okay. Wisdom isn’t about unearthing new insights as much as it is a process of transmission and distillation.

And that’s where questions come in. Questions prompt us to seek out previous ideas. Questions transform others’ experiences into personally relevant takeaways. Questions are the catalyst for wisdom.

It’s the power of questions that inspires my passion for writing and my love of coaching. In whatever blog posts that follow, I promise to lead with a question. The answer may be original or maybe it won’t, but the question will be mine. And as for my coaching, I am sure clients (you!) have some untapped wisdom. You have the answers. All you need is a good question. Let’s chat :)