{"id":30267,"date":"2023-01-19T19:07:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T03:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=30267"},"modified":"2023-01-19T19:12:20","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T03:12:20","slug":"questions-are-powerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/questions-are-powerful\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions Are Powerful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone ever told you there are no stupid questions? Mining for Gold<\/em> may challenge that idea. Tom Camacho claims “There are great questions, OK questions, and terrible questions.” (Camacho, 70)\u00a0\u00a0At least when it comes to coaching.<\/p>\n

The journey that introduced Tom to coaching was raw and inspiring. It involved some real pain and I appreciated his honesty. Tom slowly lost his dream church, which I imagine, involved feelings of shame, grief, and discouragement. This led him to own some shortcomings which seems to be the case in most of our life stories. (Camacho, 50)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Suffering is a great motivator to change. (I know after speaking with several of you at Cape Town, the majority of our NPO’s are aimed at releasing some kind of personal or societal pain point.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ok, back to the book\u2026<\/p>\n

Camacho says, \u201cCoaching leaders don\u2019t just look at our symptoms. They get to the core issues that need a touch from God.\u201d (Camacho, 69-71). \u00a0Effective\u00a0coaches and teachers ask penetrating questions that bypass our facade and even make us a little uncomfortable. \u00a0Asking good, deeper level questions is an art.<\/p>\n

Camacho says, “When you’ve never faced your shadow, it’s like a door you don’t want to open for fear of what you’ll find inside.” (Camacho, 51) Ain’t that the truth. Sorry, my Tennessee accent is shining through. Questions make us think, which may lead us to reevaluate, reframe, or even unlearn foundational beliefs or behaviors.<\/p>\n

A great question our staff has asked from time to time is, “Why are we doing this?” Because we always have? People expect it? Habit? Familiarity? Fear of some sort? We usually realize, once again, that we are channeling time and energy into things that don’t serve us best or have run their course.<\/p>\n

I need these type of questions thrown at my personal and professional life. I’ve been a coach for others and have had others coach me. Most were productive experiences. For example, I drug my feet for months before pursuing my masters, even though I knew it was time. What led to me finally calling the school? ONE coaching session. She simply asked me, “What do you need to do next to get the ball rolling?” Then she scheduled a follow up. That’s all it took, a simple question and a little accountability… it’s almost embarrassing.<\/p>\n

I worked at Anytime Fitness for about four years and the letters A.S.G. have been branded into my brain. \u00a0Accountability. Support. Guidance. These were the three things our clients needed to be successful in their health and these were the things we all needed to be successful in our company.<\/p>\n

Accountability is a fascinating thing that I learned the most about during my time in the fitness world. We had clients who stayed with us for years. However, I noticed that people eventually learned most of the exercises, repetitions, and routines, but needed our presence to remain consistent. There was something about knowing we were waiting on them each week and would follow up with their goals that kept them moving in the right direction. Knowing what to do became less important than the accountability and support they needed to maintain what they already knew<\/i> to do.<\/i><\/p>\n

The word cooperating<\/i> pops up everywhere in this book which signals to me that the author is saying \u201cpay attention here!\u201d. He gives a picture of a seagull soaring effortlessly in the sky that he connects to people who cooperate with their God-given design. (Camacho, 124) I\u2019ve spent countless hours attempting to swim, climb, and jump while all the while covered with feathers. There are times when I am out of tune with myself and even seem oblivious to the fact that certain things are draining me or I am not cooperating<\/i> with my specific design and purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As uncomfortable as it can be, we need someone asking us, \u201cWhere has your time and energy been going lately?\u201d Tom says, “Tying together our design with the way we spend our time is explosive.” (Camacho, 133) This reiterates that good coaches give us permission to do what\u2019s most natural for our temperament, talents, and wiring through penetrating questions.<\/p>\n

Questions are powerful.<\/p>\n

This book does a great job of inspiring and supporting the necessity for a coach to take people to new levels in their personal, spiritual, and professional lives. Even more importantly, he reminds us that good questions are essential to cultivate the gold in ourselves and others.<\/p>\n

Tom Camacho, Mining for Gold: Developing Kingdom Leaders through Coaching<\/i> London: InterVarsity Press, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone ever told you there are no stupid questions? Mining for Gold may challenge that idea. Tom Camacho claims “There are great questions, OK questions, and terrible questions.” (Camacho, 70)\u00a0\u00a0At least when it comes to coaching. The journey that introduced Tom to coaching was raw and inspiring. It involved some real pain and I appreciated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310,1],"tags":[2519,1971,1558,1952],"class_list":["post-30267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","category-uncategorized","tag-camacho-dlgp02","tag-accountability","tag-mining-for-gold","tag-questions","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30287,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30267\/revisions\/30287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}