21: Ian Durias on Asking Powerful Questions & Working with a Coach

Entrepreneurs & Artists with Tiffany Aurora

Ian Durias is a certified coach and a stand-up comedian. He's the founder of Copious Coaching, where he specializes in working with people who are ready to take the next steps after divorce. In this conversation, we talk about what differentiates a powerful question from other questions; how powerful questions open a conversation and encourage new insights; how to ask more powerful questions and help people lean into their own wisdom and insight; why leaders should learn to ask powerful questions of their teams; the way questions play a role in building culture and moving society forward; and much more.

Copious Coaching: https://copiouscoaching.com
Key Moments:

00:40 - Ian Durias Introduction

01:22 - What is a Powerful Question? What is it about certain questions that causes people to lean in and engage more deeply, while other questions shut a conversation down?

03:25 - Ian shares how and why he became a certified coach

04:38 - "Coaching is a space for us to explore the answers that are within people" and to make sure we're solving for the right problem.

05:12 - Several years ago, Ian went through a divorce, worked with a therapist, and found that beyond working with a therapist, he needed "to get off the couch and start doing."

05:40 - Ian now focuses his coaching practice on individuals who have experienced divorce, done some work with a therapist, and are now looking to take the next steps.

06:18 - What question should you ask yourself to decide whether you want to work with a coach?

07:00 - Therapy is understanding your past to have a better present.

08:00 - Ask yourself, "What do you want for yourself?" Then a coach can work with you to break that down and turn it into action steps.

09:00 - Ian discusses why he was drawn to stand-up comedy and how it taught him to understand the vibe of a room, be more vulnerable, take your own pain and bring it to the fore to laugh at it, then use that shared experience as a way to connect with other people.

10:38 - Every year, Ian enters the Portland's Funniest Person contest, where he has made the semi-finals twice.

11:37 - The connection between coaching and comedy is "being in the present with people."

12:35 - Coaching involves asking powerful questions, and you can't ask powerful questions unless you're present.

13:04 - "What is a powerful question?"

13:30 - Often with questions, we try to answer them right away because we're trying to convey our own expertise. A powerful question causes a pause. A powerful question is personal and a result of what a person has already shared. And a powerful questions holds space for the other person to explore.

15:47 - It can feel unfamiliar to hold space for someone to pause and think. We naturally want to fill that silence. But silence is important in coaching and in comedy. In coaching, "silence is people thinking." In comedy, "laughter is the release of tension." If you hold silence after the set-up of a joke, before delivering the punchline, the laughs are bigger.

16:48 - Silence isn't only okay; sometimes it's advantageous.

17:02 - The difference between asking a question FOR another person vs. asking a question that satisfies YOUR curiosity.

18:08 - Sometimes we ask questions for our sake. Coaching is about asking questions for their sake.

18:20 - Coaching is different than mentoring. With mentors, you go to someone because of their expertise and you want to become more like them in some way. Coaches are experts in coaching, not your life. They're experts in asking questions and holding space for you to explore and come to new realizations, because YOU are the expert in your life.

18:55 - As a coach, Ian will ask you questions based on the "cards from your deck."

20:19 - Respect for the other person is inherent in these coaching conversations.

21:17 - Instead of thinking of coaching as a coach standing on the sidelines of a field, yelling at the players, think of coaching as a stagecoach. The coach is the vehicle and you're the driver. The coach is here to help you get where YOU want to go. They're not here to give you advice.

21:54 - Sometimes we do need someone to tell us what to do. That's fine, and absolutely necessary at certain stages or in certain seasons of life. But then there are times when we need to take the reins of our own lives. That's when coaching can become life-changing.

22:41 - Content-rich vs. context-free coaching. Content-rich coaching would be going to someone with a background in sales, where you go to them because you want their expertise. Context-free coaching is about listening deeply, asking questions, delivering concise messages, and holding space.

23:58 - Both types of coaching have value, but most people don't realize how many answers they already have within them, and context-free coaching (which Ian does) is phenomenal for learning to draw out the wisdom and insights you already have.

24:16 - In some workplaces, there is pressure to be seen as an expert. Asking questions before making statements is viewed as weird or even suspicious.

25:08 - We all have areas of expertise and we all have areas where we're struggling, and we need to normalize that. It's okay to not be an expert in everything. No one is. That's why working with a coach and learning how to ask powerful questions yourself can be helpful.

26:14 - In leadership, it can be hard to ask questions because you don't want to look dumb, but your team has a lot of individual expertise (including some you probably don't have), and as a leader, you need to be able to draw that out of them for the good of the team and the good of the organization.

27:54 - There's always a thing about the thing, and then there's a thing behind that thing. Questions draw that out.

28:17 - Answers tend to be narrower than the questions. So if your questions are small, your answers will be even smaller.

28:27 - Asking questions, as a leader, is also holding up the humanity of the people on your team.

29:24 - Some people will volunteer their ideas. Others need to be invited, and maybe invited multiple times. To be truly inclusive and draw out the richness of the people on our teams, we need to ask questions and hold space for people.

32:29 - If you're interested in learning more about how to ask powerful or more engaging questions, consider these resources:

• "A More Beautiful Question" by William Berger
• Find an interviewer that you love (interviewing is different from coaching, but there are similarities) and listen to THEM, not the person being interviewed, to notice how they're being present and shaping their questions
• "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." Go try it - be bad at it! Be bad at asking questions! Let it be awkward. It's worth it, even to do it poorly. Ask one question a day that you wouldn't have normally asked, and see where it takes you.

36:17 - The moving forward of society - forward movement in culture and society - is a result of all these 1:1 conversations we have with each other. Those are the building blocks.

36:45 - It's really hard to be critical of someone once you know their story and understand where they're coming from. And how will you know their story if you don't ask?

37:16 - Genuine curiosity about another person is the antidote to today's culture of animosity and division.

37:31 - The next time you find yourself in conversation with someone who rubs you the wrong way, could you turn that around and get curious and ask a question? (Ask a question that is FOR THEM, not for you.)

38:20 - What does it mean to "lead" or "start from a place of curiosity" in creative endeavors?

39:52 - Leading from curiosity helps you get underneath the impulse, and that helps you get closer to the humanness behind the work. And really great art is a reflection of your own humanity.

40:29 - What's a good way to construct a question to help open a conversation instead of shut it down?

40:57 - "Why" questions put people on the defensive. Start with "What" or "How." Also, make your question open-ended. Reform any question that's closed, meaning it can be answered with a yes or no. For example, instead of "Did you have a good day?" ask, "How was your day?"

41:35 - Built into a [powerful] question is a certain amount of trust to the person you're asking the question of. Leave space - a beat - for response.

42:45 - If you're interested in working with Ian, reach out to him for a free initial consult at https://copiouscoaching.com.

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Also mentioned in this episode:

1. Comedian Alex Falcone
2. Portland's Funniest Person contest
3. "A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas" by William Berger
4. Jefferson Fisher communication techniques to "help people argue less"

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If you enjoyed this episode, you also might enjoy:

• Jessica Henkin on Live Storytelling, Being Emotionally Present, and Listening as an Act of Love
• Elana Fishbein on Improv Performance, Becoming a Better Communicator, and the Importance of Psychological Safety
• Mike Drucker on Stand-Up Comedy, Sharing First Drafts, and Embracing Kindness in Comedy

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This show is hosted by Tiffany Aurora: https://tiffanyaurora.com