As I shared in today's email, listening and observing is an essential skill if you want to be able to ask great questions.

It’s not the only skill however. It’s one element in a series of skills that are part of what Michael Breen and I refer to as ‘elements of great questioning.’

Great questioning and great questions go hand-in-hand.

The 6 levels of listening and observing, which are just one part of great questioning are:

Level 1: Literal listening

Level 2: Inferential listening

Level 3: Narrative connections listening

Level 4: Empathetic listening

Level 5: State derived non-verbal listening

Level 6: Meta Commentary

Don’t worry if these aren’t familiar to you yet. I’ll be sharing more about these next week.

For now, focus on level 1 – listening literally to what people say.

Listen to what others say, paying attention literally to words they use. Begin to notice the kinds of images they use, references they make and additional elements in their communication that they express literally.

When you learn to listen literally and then inferentially and so forth, you develop much deeper references upon which you can ask great questions.

Breakthrough questions.

We’ll talk some more about this…

Tom

P.S. If you haven’t already seen yesterday’s deep dive example of Tony Robbins asking great questions check it out here.