[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: What if the fastest way to get unstuck in your life and your relationships isn’t a better plan, but it’s a better question? In today’s episode, I’m sitting down with the one and only Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, which, by the way, is the bestselling book on coaching this century. It’s celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2026, and this conversation is not just for coaches. To be clear, it’s for anyone who leads, parents, manages, mentors, or just wants better relationships and better results. You’re going to learn the core skill that makes coaching so powerful, staying curious a little longer and rushing to advise a little slower because most of us are, in Michael’s words, advice-giving maniacs. Guilty.

We break down his simple, practical questions like, “What’s on your mind?” to get people to open up and share what they’re struggling with or what they’re worried about; “What’s the real challenge here for you?” to get people to really reflect and dig deeper; and the game-changing question, “And what else? And what else? And what else?” to really dig deeper to the heart of the issue. We’re talking also about accountability, not as somebody cracking the whip, but as designing systems that help you hold yourself accountable so you’re empowered, not dependent, based on what actually motivates you. So, if you want to bring out the best in your kids, your spouse, your team, and, honestly, yourself, this episode will give you a toolkit that you can use immediately starting today. Let’s jump in.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Michael, it is so good to see you, brother.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Nice to see you too. Thanks for having me on the pod. I’ve been saving this pod up. It’s something I’ve been wanting to go on for a couple of years, so I’m so delighted to make it onto the microphone with you right now.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I sent you an open invitation or gave you in-person an open invitation, I think, and finally, you texted me today and said, “Hey, now feels like the time. Can I come on the podcast?”

Michael Bungay Stanier: I want to cash that chip. Yeah, exactly. And I’ve been looking forward to this chat, so here we go.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, here’s what I wanted to talk about today. I mean, you’ve written nine books, but I know the one that you are most known for is The Coaching Habit.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah.

Hal Elrod: I know a lot of my audience. I know we have some coaches for sure in the audience, but that’s really not who I want to speak to today. I mean, if you are a coach, that’s great, but for me personally, I was telling you before we started recording, right, coaching changed my life. When I hired my first coach, I doubled my income. I had a lot of profound results. And I want to unpack what the qualities were that led to that and get your perspective. And to me, and then I became a coach, right? So, I was on both sides of that coin. In fact, let’s start out there first. Let’s start like at basics. For someone that’s listening and going, “What is coaching?” Maybe they’ve never been coached, and they’re thinking, “Is this like a soccer coach or a baseball coach?”

Michael Bungay Stanier: Exactly.

Hal Elrod: So, how would you define coaching, and what it does for people?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Look, it’s a great place to start because coaching has a lot of baggage with it, and it’s like everybody’s kind of heard of it, and lots of people are kind of not quite sure what we’re talking about . And it depends, of course, in context, but coaching can exist in different ways. It can be like life coaching, which is like help people sort out their life and figure out how to have a better life. Sometimes it’s executive coaching, which is kind of working with people in companies. Sometimes it’s sports coaching, and that kind of speaks for itself. There’s ADH coaching, helping people manage that kind of part of their brain and trying to be more effective with a kind of differently wide brain. It shows up in different ways.

What I’m most interested in is how to make being more coach-like something available to everybody. Because coaching formally is great, and it certainly has its place. Your living testament to how useful that’s been. But for me, coaching is this powerful way of bringing out the best in somebody, helping them feel seen and heard and encouraged, and kind of, well, how do you do that? And so, for me, it’s a really core behavior. At the heart of what coaching is or being more coach-like is, can you stay curious a little bit longer, and can you rush to action and advice-giving a little bit more slowly? I’m not trying to turn anybody here who’s not a coach into a coach. But I would love you to stay curious a little bit longer, because most of us are advice-giving maniacs. And it doesn’t do us any good favors, and it doesn’t do the other person you’re trying to help any favors often, as well.

Hal Elrod: Well, what’s interesting about you saying this is I’m actually thinking of how it applies to marriage.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Right.

Hal Elrod: And I don’t know if it’s a male, female, masculine energy, but I know for me personally and pretty much every one of my male friends, when a woman, my wife, my daughter comes and complaining or venting or whatever, I immediately go to coaching in the form of here’s my advice, here’s how you solve the problem.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah, which I would not call coaching. I would call that often, fake coaching, because often you’re like, “Have you thought of? Or did you try? Or have you considered?” which is not actually a question, it’s just advice with a question mark attached on the end of it.

Hal Elrod: Okay. So, just articulate that. Expand on that. So, me, because I’m even probably still confused at this, like, I’m coaching you, I’m telling you what to do, but you just said that would not be coaching because it doesn’t involve curiosity. So, what would the difference be in terms of how you might handle that situation, whether it’s with your spouse or somebody, colleague, et cetera?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Well, look, I think we can almost put aside the thing, am I coaching you or am I not coaching you? I think the bigger question to ask is, “How can I be most helpful to this person in this moment?”

Hal Elrod: Yes. Yes.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And the key realization is more often than you realize, they’re not after your advice or opinion or suggestion or ideas. There is a place for advice, don’t get me wrong. Absolutely. When somebody comes in and says, “Hey, where’s the cinnamon?” you don’t want to start asking them, “How do you feel about the history of spices?” That’s just annoying and weird. When the house is burning down, you don’t want to be going, “How do you feel about smoke?” That’s not the thing to do. But so often it’s just helpful, and you think, “How can I best serve this person? How can I best support this person? How can I help them get what they want?” They’re often not immediately after your advice or their opinion.

They want to be seen, and they want to be heard and want to be encouraged. So, when your wife and daughter come to you, Hal, and they’re like, “Blah!” often, the most powerful thing you can say is, “Man, that sounds hard. Well, that sounds difficult. I can see why that would drive you nuts or make you crazy, or make you angry or happy or sad,” or whatever it might be. And then a really simple question is to say, “How can I be helpful? How can I help? What do you want from me?” Because sometimes they’re like, “Here’s what I want from you. I do not want your stupid ideas because your ideas are always wrong, so please don’t…”

Hal Elrod: That’s more often than not my wife’s response.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah. “So, please don’t mansplain this experience to me. What I want you to say, “That sounds hard,” or, “You’re doing so well coping with this,” or, “I have your back. I’m cheering you on. If there’s anything I can do to help, you just say the word because I’m there for you.” And sometimes I’ll say, I could really do with a good idea or two here. And you’re like, “Brilliant, I’ve got a good idea or two.” And it’s been killing me not to tell you what these good ideas are, but I’m going to give them to you right now.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Now, Michael, are you married? You’re married, aren’t you?

Michael Bungay Stanier: I am, yeah, 32 years.

Hal Elrod: It sounds like you’re the perfect husband because everything you’re saying right now, I’m going, my wife would be nodding along going, “Why can’t you be more like Michael?”

Michael Bungay Stanier: I just need to repeat that out loud to my wife, Marcella, who’s just over there. Hal says I’m the perfect husband, Marcella. Yeah, she’s shaking her head, so apparently not quite the perfect husband, but I have so many flaws, Hal, so many, but I am pretty good at resisting advice giving, and I still get suckered into it as well. There’s sometimes where I’m like I’m trying to be helpful. I want to help because I love Marcella. I’m slightly irritated. It’s driving me a bit nuts that we’re having this conversation again. So, in some ways, I’m like, I’m just trying to wrap this thing up and move it along. So, it’s an ongoing learning experience.

Hal Elrod: You’re human.

Michael Bungay Stanier: I believe so. Yeah. So human.

Hal Elrod: Before you wrote the coaching habit, it was that, like, were you a coach? I don’t know your background. Tell me your background related to coaching.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Sure. So, if you rewind it all the way to where the seed got planted, as a teenager, I found myself listening to my teenage friends work through teenage angst. You know, there’s a lot of teenage angst around.

Hal Elrod: Sure.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And I was just pretty good at listening, but I was also really feeling a sense of, “Is this useful? Is this any good?” Because my friend, Phil, has been rabbiting on for two hours now about how Becky has broken his heart, and I’m kind of listening, and I’m kind of going, “Could we make some progress on this now? How do you do this?” So, I signed up for something in Australia called Youth Line, which is a youth telephone crisis counseling.

Hal Elrod: Oh, wow.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And it was kind of young people like I was at the time, I was 17 or 18, having a hard time thinking of killing themselves, kind of that level of practice. And it’s the first time I really started seeing the power of asking a question and then being quiet and listening and also asking a question and realizing that the first answer they give you is not necessarily the best answer or the real answer. It’s often just their first answer. So, don’t be seduced into thinking you’ve figured it out because you’ve asked one question and they’ve given you one answer.

So, I did that through university. I moved to England, did it there. And then when I started my working career, I started noticing this rise of coaching. Now, I was living in London at the time. The rise of coaching was in California. So, as somebody living in England were like these weird hippie, woo-woo Californians because the British are all cynical and sarcastic. But I was like, “There’s something interesting here.” And I was working as a kind of consultant at the time, and I started saying to my clients, “This is coaching. I’m going to be coaching.” I wasn’t sure what it was. When I moved to Canada in 2001, I did coach training, started a coaching practice. And then to my disbelief, realized this is not what I wanted to do. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like my whole life had been building up to this experience of me being a coach.

But I just didn’t enjoy the process of having 30 clients and managing a roster and having to find new clients and having these ongoing conversations with people. It just didn’t spark me like I thought it would. So, I deconstructed my coaching practice, but I started to teach how to be more coach-like, how to do coaching skills, particularly in organizations, because I could see the power of coaching. I could see it as a really liberating technology that would not only bring out the best in other people but allow you as the manager or the leader to actually work less hard, to carry less weight, to feel less responsible, to kind of manage your side of the table and allow them to manage their side of the table, so act as a kind of empowering force rather than a smothering force.

And I thought the way coaching was being taught in an organization was done really badly because I was kind of just bringing life coaching skills into managers, and I knew that was a different type of relationship. So, The Coaching Habit, which is 10 years old now, it grew out of me spending five or six years teaching the skill to managers and leaders all around the world and kind of refining the insight about what was most useful or most valuable for them.

Hal Elrod: Okay. I want to know, from your perspective, what role accountability plays in coaching? Because for me, that was when I hired my first coach, I was in sales. And having a coach that I talked to every week at that point, that’s like, how many calls are you going to make? When are you going to make them? And it’s like, A, it gave me clarity, but then every time I’d be sitting there, and my nature was to procrastinate or go, “Ah, I’ll just make my calls tomorrow.” And I had done that for five years. But then I was like, “Wait, I can’t not do the thing because I told Jeff, Jeff Sooey, my first coach, I told him that I was going to make 20 calls today, and I’m talking to him on Tuesday.”

So, for me, accountability in and of itself was a game-changer, as well as clarity and strategy and all the other things. But like that, for me, what really stood out. How does that fit in for you?

Michael Bungay Stanier: So, when I think about how I want to show up to the people in my life, so this is people I have a coaching relationship with, perhaps, but just in general, the paradox that I hold is I want to show up with fierce love. So, love being the starting point, which is like, “I want to see the very best of who you are. I want to remember your greatness. I want to remember how awesome you are. I want to be just fully committed to you. Like, I am here, and I can see the mess and the confusion and the flaws and all of that, and I want to fully love you.”

But the fierceness is not my relationship to them. It’s what standard I then hold myself in how I love that person, which means not just being kind, but also saying the hard thing, pushing them a little bit, just holding them to the standard of greatness that you can see in them. And I think accountability and the conversation around accountability can flow from that. Here’s what’s dangerous with accountability. It becomes somebody else holding a whip hand over you.

Hal Elrod: Ah, yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And so, A, it can make the relationship feel a bit dysfunctional, suddenly, a bit kind of like parent-child. I’m standing over you, and I’m making sure you’re doing it. I am holding you accountable. And I think the real power of a coach is to go, “How do I support you holding yourself accountable?”

Hal Elrod: Yes. Love it.

Michael Bungay Stanier: So, that agency stays with the person who’s doing the work because if you’ve got this relationship with Jeff and he’s getting you to do stuff, but it involves kind of force or kind of power, in some ways, that’s not sustainable. But what it sounds like he did was he helped you figure out, “This is what motivates me. I’m a person who keeps my word. I said to Jeff that I’m going to make 20 calls. I don’t break my word. So, I need to make 20 calls,” and it becomes a self-generated form of accountability, even though Jeff seems to be playing a role in that.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. No, I love that distinction, and yeah, you’re right. It kind of started out with him selling me on the value of accountability. But I do remember it was like, ultimately, this is not about me cracking the whip. This is about integrity. So, that was really the lesson he taught was the power of integrity that if you value your integrity at the highest level, if you value your integrity above your excuses, then your word becomes, it’s like your word is your bond, if you say you’re going to do something. And so, his accountability was really just like, “Hey, I’m going to be here so that you can give your word to you and to me. And then I get to check in with you next week on how you held true to your word, you upheld your integrity.”

And so, yeah, that was the cool thing is it was almost like having somebody that when you’re lifting weights, they’re spotting you. They’re helping you a little bit. But eventually, through repetition week after week after week, eventually, they can take their hands off the bar completely because you’ve built your own integrity muscle, if you will.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And I think it’s probably a core insight that got developed in your relationship with him that he just figured out that integrity was a, I’m going to guess, I don’t know you well enough to know this for sure, but I’m just going to guess integrity just feels like a core value for who you are and how you show up in the world.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, totally.

Michael Bungay Stanier: So, it’s understanding what’s there and working with what’s there. And so, one of my favorite conversations around accountability is how do we design for how you’ll be slippery in this moment? Like, how are you going to collude with yourself to not get this done? And we’ve all got different ways, and we’ve all got different stories, and we’ve got ways of kind of like going, “It’s okay. I’m going to eat that tub of ice cream, or not make the calls,” or whatever it might be. And if you’re a coach, you’re like, “How will you get in your own way for doing this? So, what do we need to design so that that is less likely to happen? And how can I support you in doing that?” And you’re like, “I might wimp out of doing these calls because doing cold calls is like never that much fun.”

“So, how do we design around that?” “Well, I’m a man when I give my word, I follow through on my promise.” “So, what do we need to set up here?” “All I need to do is tell you, Jeff, that I’m going to make 20 calls by Friday, and then I am on a bound to make those calls, and I will get them done.” “Brilliant.” We’re working with you, with who you are. We’re giving you agency. We are working with what’s true about how you deliver and how you kind of slip, and you’ve got a better chance of creating an accountability flywheel that might work.

Hal Elrod: So, what are some other examples of things? Let’s say someone says, “I could care less about my integrity. I know myself to be somebody that says I’m going to do something and I don’t do it. So, I have no problem doing that again.”

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah. So, one of my favorite ones is I’m like, “Okay, so do you care about money?” And they’re like, “Yeah, sure. I care about money that most people do.” I’m like, “Okay. What’s a number that would definitely make you do the thing that you want to do, you also don’t want to do?” It’s true at the same time. Now, when you ask that question, what most people do is they give you a number that would be painful to lose, but they’re actually willing to lose it.

Hal Elrod: Aha. Interesting. Yeah, that makes sense.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah. Like, okay, here’s a number that, “God, I’d hate to pay that cash out, but you know, if I had to, I can afford it and the like.” And so, I’m like, “Well, that number won’t do. We’ll have to double it or triple it, or 10X it or something like that.” So, I’m like, “Okay, so how about this as a motivator? You can make the calls, or you don’t have to make the calls, but for every call you miss, you pay me $2,000. So, you’ll write me a check on Friday for somewhere between $2,000 and $40,000 if you didn’t make any of your 20 calls. I don’t mind. I’m happy to take any side check from you. It’s all upside from me. Is that going to motivate you?” And they’re like, “Oh, that would motivate.”

Or a variation on that, Hal, is like, “Okay. So, the first call you miss, you owe me $100. Second call you miss, $200. Third call you miss, $400.” So, there becomes this escalating type of pain. And of course, you can set your own number where you want to start. But there are different ways to say, how do we set up a system where I’m like, “Oh yeah, I’ve got $10,000 on the line here. I don’t want to miss this.” Here’s a story. I had a friend, my friend Karen, she and I had a bet around how long we could maintain a meditation streak.

Hal Elrod: Nice.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Because I know this idea of silence and sitting is often like one of your Miracle Morning steps, right?

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier: The process of being in that moment and being present. And I think it was like a 60-day thing. You have to do a certain amount of minutes per day. And the person who did the least, what was on the table, and this is immediately TMI for some of your listeners, is that the person who lost had to get vajazzled. Now, do you know what I mean by vajazzling?

Hal Elrod: Not exactly.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Exactly. Well, let’s say this, how do I say this in a way that is family friendly? So, it involves shaving a certain part of your body and putting crystals on it.

Hal Elrod: Oh, wow. Okay.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And that part of your body is typically lower half, and that’s probably all the information you need to know. So, you’re in the pubic region. And the person who loses has to go through that process.

Hal Elrod: And who was this, that– who did this arrangement?

Michael Bungay Stanier: This is just a friend of mine. We’re like, neither of us want to go through this experience. Now, luckily, really, we both hit exactly the same number, so neither of us had to pay the price. But it was really motivating. Believe me, I remember, at one stage, lying in bed, it’s like 10:30 that’s like already past my bedtime, and I’m like, I haven’t done my meditation for the day. So, I ran out of bed, sit down, do a 10-minute sit on a cushion going, I’m just doing my time here because I cannot lose this bed.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, and that’s what we do in life. It’s like whatever, the more pain, is it more painful to procrastinate or to do the thing? And if there’s no immediate painful consequence to procrastinating, then that’s why we do it. We’re like, if I procrastinate, I get the immediate relief of not having to do the work. That feels nice. And no one’s really paying attention. Nobody knows. So, there’s really no consequence, except for long-term pain from not following through with the things that are going to get to where you want to go in life.

Michael Bungay Stanier: It’s one of the great questions. This is like, I think, a profound insight, Hal, which is, it’s remarkable how much you can get away with because nobody’s really paying attention. And you kind of, for a while, you think everybody is, and then a certain point, you’re like, nobody. You know that old saying, I used to worry what people thought of me until I realized nobody thought of me. And it’s similar. It’s like I used to worry what people would think of my ability to deliver until I realize nobody was really watching it. So, I could do very little if I wanted to get away with it.

So, then you’ve got to try and find this internal sense of purpose and drive and connection why you’re doing the work because if you’re relying on those external motivators, they will fall away or shift over time. You’ve got to keep connecting back to that kind of internal sense of purpose, which of course is, believe it or not, that’s what the Miracle Morning is all about. You may not have realized that.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. No, that makes sense. Yeah, and what I love about coaching for me is, it’s like you said, it’s when we have nobody to check in with, nobody that’s looking over us, it’s just easy to let ourselves down. And it’s the same principle of getting a personal trainer, right? It’s easy to sign. I mean, how many people sign up for a gym membership and they don’t use it, right? But if you’re paying a personal trainer that’s waiting for you and looking at their clock because you’re meeting them at 7 a.m., then you’re going to go, right? It gives you leverage over your self-imposed limitations and obstacles because you have a support person there.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And then it’s helpful to understand how you get slippery with the systems that you set up. So, there’s some interesting research that says, as soon as you start paying for something, you feel like, in some ways, you have more of a right to cancel because you’re like, hey, it’s the 80 bucks I owed my trainer. I’m happy to just pay the 80 bucks and not show up.

Hal Elrod: Interesting.

Michael Bungay Stanier: So, again, it keeps coming back to how will you be slippery with this? And how do you want to kind of stoke it so that you are like, oh, that, you know what? I’m going to go to this thing after all. So, you may have hired a personal trainer, but you may know, look, I’m callous enough just to go look, I’ll just cancel. And if I have to pay a cancellation fee because it was within 24 hours before the class, whatever, I can afford 80 bucks cancellation fee. But if it’s like, you have to pay the cancellation fee, you have to pay for somebody else’s exercise class, and the next time you see your trainer, you have to do 50 pushups before you start the exercise, maybe that’s, you’re like, yeah, I hate pushups. I’m definitely going to go. So, designed for what’s true for you, not just what’s true in general.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. The Coaching Habit, who is this book for? I know this is the 10-year anniversary. It’s your most popular book. Who is it for?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Look, it’s for people who interact with other people. So, if you’re a monk and you’re in a cave and you’re by yourself, this is less helpful for you. But if you are a leader or a parent or a manager or a teacher or a therapist, any of these moments where you’re like, I have influence but not control over these people in my lives and I’m trying to bring out the best in them, being more coach-like can really be powerful.

And the purpose of the book is to try and unweird coaching for normal people because coaches, they’re already into it. They already get it. They’re like, I’ve drunk the whatever around coaching, but I’m like, if you’re a parent, how do you add curiosity into the way that you parent so that you can better support your kid and have them increase their agency and their confidence and their competence and their self-actualization? How do you play that role? If you’re a teacher, how do you move from just telling people, staff to actually using curiosity to help people learn more deeply? It’s about helping people become smarter and braver by you playing a role of guide and person asking questions rather than telling them what to do.

Hal Elrod: And I love the way you define coaching, which to me is also the definition of parenting, which is bringing out the best in another human being. And that’s what I love about your book is that it is, I mean, and it gives you the questions which you demonstrated earlier when I asked you for the example of when my wife or daughter comes to me venting, complaining, right, and I just dive right into advice and you say, no. Remind me of how you asked it. It was like, what do you…

Michael Bungay Stanier: Well, I’d say, yeah, so that’s one of the seven questions, which is like, how can I help? Or what do you want from me? I call it the…

Hal Elrod: Can you run through the seven right now?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Sure. I’ll do them out of order because sometimes, they’re interesting in how they pair up. So, I’m going to give you the bookends first, the first and the last question, number one and number seven. So, the first question is the focus question. And it kind of builds on what we had already been saying, which is, look, the first thing that somebody brings is almost never the actual challenge. It’s their best guess. It’s their articulation. It’s a thing in their head, but it’s often not a…

Hal Elrod: It’s a symptom.

Michael Bungay Stanier: It’s a symptom. Sometimes it’s actually a solution to an unspoken challenge. So, actually, the first question is the kickstart question. I’m getting confused with all the questions, which is like, how do you start? And I think the most powerful question to start is simply what’s on your mind. Hey, what’s going on? What’s on your mind? What’s up? It invites people to say, let me tell you what’s in my heart. What I’m excited about or worried about or anxious about, or overwhelmed by, it kind of can accelerate into a faster, deeper conversation.

In part, and especially in organizations, managers and leaders don’t have time for long drifty woo-woo conversations. They’re like, I’ve got, I’m already overcommitted. And the kind of core belief of this coaching approach is like you can coach somebody in five minutes or seven minutes, or certainly under 10 minutes. But it requires you getting closer to what the real thing is faster, and what’s on your mind can really help with that.

Hal Elrod: Or what keeps you up at night, right? That can be like another version. Yeah.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah. Or what kept you up last night would be the nuance on that, because it’s like, what’s going on right now? And then the bookend question, the final question you might want to ask at the end of every conversation is the learning question. It’s this inside that people just don’t learn that well from what you tell them, most of what you tell them goes in one ear and out the other ear.

Hal Elrod: Oh, totally.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Most, they don’t even learn from what they do. They learn when they have a moment to reflect back on what just happened. That’s why writing and scribing is such a key part of the Miracle Morning. You’re like, it’s a way of actually figuring some stuff out. So, at the end of a conversation, the question, what was helpful here? What was most useful? What was most valuable? What are you taking away? What do you know now that you didn’t know before? What was the aha moment? So, in summary, what was most useful here for you is a really great way to finish a conversation.

Hal Elrod: That’s great.

Michael Bungay Stanier: So, those are the bookend questions. Then you’ve got a couple of questions that pair really well in terms of trying to figure out what the thing is because here’s the big shift in insight for people, which is often the most useful thing you can do is help people figure out what the challenge is. It’s not to give them the answer because answers are everywhere. Like whatever answer you’ve got, ChatGPT or whatever the AI platform of choice can give it to me better and smarter and faster than you with references. So, what’s the real challenge here for you is the focus question. What’s the real challenge here for you?

Hal Elrod: Getting them to name it, which is so valuable because often…

Michael Bungay Stanier: Taking their best guess at naming it because they probably won’t know it exactly the first time you ask that question. But how that’s built, how that’s constructed, how it matters. So, it’s not, what’s the challenge? It’s what’s the real challenge? So, now, you’re saying, look, there’s stuff going on. It’s complex. What’s the real challenge here? Now, you’re making them think. You love it when you make them think. That’s them getting smarter because they’re trying to figure this out. And it becomes even more powerful when you go, what’s the real challenge here for you? Because now, they’re really going, this is what’s hard about this for me right now. This is not what’s hard about this in general. It’s like, here’s what’s hard for me right now. What’s the real challenge here for you?

But then I would add to that, what I think is probably the best coaching question, Hal. Three words. Really simple. The acronym is A-W-E. So, it’s literally awesome, and what else? Because their first answer is never their only answer. It’s almost never their best answer. So, a script for people listening can be something like this, hey, what’s on your mind? Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you’re like, God, that sounds hard. So, in that, what’s the real challenge here for you? Oh, okay. What else is a challenge here for you? Okay. What else? What else is a challenge here for you? Is there anything else? Okay. So, what’s the real challenge here for you?

Hal Elrod: Going deeper and deeper and deeper.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And in that, which is like a, somewhere between one and three minutes of coaching, you’ve got somewhere really interesting. And I can tell you how powerful this is because I have had that conversation in about 35 languages, none of which I speak. So, when I’ve been teaching this around the world and I’m demonstrating this, I’ll have somebody come up or join the circle or whatever, and they will speak in their native tongue and I’ll speak in English and I’ll go, what’s on your mind? And they’ll say something in Finnish. I’m like, I don’t know what that was, but it sounds like a real thing.

So, I’ll nod my head and I’ll go, great. So, what’s the challenge here? And they will name it. And I’m like, okay, what else? And they’ll say something else in Finnish. And we’ll go through it and I’ll go, so what’s the real challenge here for you? And they’re like, something in Finnish, and then go, that was amazing. That was a fantastic piece of coaching, all to say you don’t need the answer. You don’t need to know the answer. You don’t have to come up with the answer. You don’t need to save this person. If you can help them figure this stuff out, if they can get to the heart of the challenge, most of the time they will actually know what to do with it. They can solve it themselves. The great gift you’re giving them is giving them agency, helping them feel seen and heard and encouraged and helping them get clear about what the real, the hard thing is, what the challenge really is.

Hal Elrod: I love that. And I think we do, at least me, speak for myself, right, which is you ask what’s going on, and then I skip the A-W-E, I skip the end, what else? I just immediately go, ooh, here’s what you should do, right? And as a parent, I mean, that’s actually what I love about this book is for me right now, I have one coaching client, but I have two kids, right, which are required daily coaching. I do twice a month for my coaching client. My kids get me every day.

And what I love about this is, yeah, it’s truly to bring out– your definition of coaching, to bring out the best in someone. It is, to me, the only way to bring out the best in someone is to ask them these questions because if you tell them what you think they should do, by definition, you are not bringing out the best in them. You’re trying to push the best of you onto them, right? So, it’s only through these coaching questions.

Michael Bungay Stanier: And I mean, it’s worth saying, Hal, well, two things, first of all, in the new edition of The Coaching Habit, there’s a 10-year edition coming out, there’s a downloadable chapter about coaching and parenting. So, just it’s like, here’s how you apply this stuff to actually parenting. But the other thing is just to say, because I want people to hear this, there is a place for your advice and your suggestions and opinions. I’m not saying never give anybody an idea ever again in their life.

But even when you’ve got a really astonishingly good idea and it’s probably the best idea, it still might not be the thing to do to give it to them. At least, not right at the start. Here’s how it can sound. You go, all right, so what’s the real challenge here for you? And they’re like, oh, it’s this. And you’re like, God, that feels like the real challenge. And in your head, you’re like, and I know exactly what you should be doing. So, resist that. Resist the advice monster. The advice monster’s loomed up out of the dark and it’s like, I’m going to add some value to this conversation.

Here’s what you can say instead. Look, I’ve got some ideas around how you could deal with that, but I bet you’ve got some ideas too. I’ll tell you mine, but before I do, really curious, what have you already figured out about this?

Hal Elrod: Wow. I love that.

Michael Bungay Stanier: What are your best ideas? Oh, cool. What else could you do? Oh, I love that. What else is there? This is great. What other ideas do you have? I mean, these are terrific. This is really excellent. So, I love all your ideas. Here’s another one idea that I’ll throw into the mix that might be helpful for you. And so you’re still following through on your promise that you’ve got their back, you’re going to give them ideas, you’re going to help them make the choice, but you’re getting them to do the work. You’re giving them agency. You’re seeing that they’re saying, look, I see you as somebody who can figure this out and I will help you get as far as you can and I’ll also help you get to a really good answer around this.

Hal Elrod: I love that, Michael. It’s so brilliant because (a) again, going back to bringing out the best in other people, you’re getting them to bring their ideas to the table. But here’s, to me, what’s maybe most brilliant about it is that when you do finally, when it is finally time for you to share your advice, your ideas, you’re doing so with so much more information.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Exactly.

Hal Elrod: So much more context because you just heard three, four, five ideas from them and now, and which by the way, one of their ideas might have been your idea, right? And if they can be on their own and you can edify it, it’s so much more powerful for them.

Michael Bungay Stanier: You got it. All of those things are true, which is like, I mean, it’s a fair bet that some of the ideas you had, they’ve already had. So, they’re like, yeah, yeah. Obvious, dad. So, when they do all of that, you can go, look, these are great ideas. I particularly like this idea you had. I had a little build on that and I thought you could do that and also this. So, now, you’re really honoring their ability to figure this stuff out.

And also, if you’re in a different context, so like say you’re a manager or a leader, if you are the boss and you go first with the solution, everybody goes, that’s a really good idea, boss. No, I think your idea is definitely the best. No, no. Oh, yeah. I had some ideas, but they’re definitely not as good as your idea, boss. So, there’s a way that, if you’ve got the highest status in the relationship, your idea and your insight can kind of– has a heavier gravity. So, you’re also trying not to suck the oxygen out of the conversation by you just casually throwing out your suggestion and everybody going, oh, you are amazing, Hal. We’ll definitely do what you think we should do.

Hal Elrod: I love that. This is fantastic. So, every parent needs to read The Coaching Habit, every manager, every leader, of course, every coach. Where is the best place for people? I know the 10-year anniversary. When does this come out, Michael?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah, it comes out March the 24th. But 2026, we’re celebrating the year of The Coaching Habit. So, we’ve got a whole year of fun events planned, less to kind of shift copies of the books, more to help people deepen their own knowledge and experience of coaching. So, if people go to MBSWorks.Shop, that’s the way you can sign up for the year of The Coaching Habit. There’s different ways you can get involved, but the easiest way is just a free level, which is like, sign up, we’ll send you some free tools, some free assists, free invitations to bits and pieces. So, yeah, MBSWorks.Shop, and there’s a bunch of ways that people can get the book and more if they’d like that.

Hal Elrod: So, MBSWorks.shop and MBS as in Michael Bungay Stanier Works?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Yeah, MBS Works is all one word. Dot-shop is the suffix. And then my general website is just to confuse things, MBS.Works.

Hal Elrod: Okay. All right, well, I’m going to say go to MBSWorks.Shop to join the year of The Coaching Habit. Get the book. Again, if you are a parent, a leader, a manager, a coach, this is arguably, I mean, it’s the bestselling book of the last decade on coaching, so there’s a reason for that.

Michael Bungay Stanier: That’s great.

Hal Elrod: I mean, you exemplified it in your conversation today, Michael. In fact, as soon as we get offline, I’m going to talk to you about being my coach, I think, so…

Michael Bungay Stanier: That’s great, Hal. Thanks for having me on. It’s been a pleasure.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Any closing? I want to give you one more chance too. Any last final words of inspiration or insights or questions or challenges that you’d leave listeners with?

Michael Bungay Stanier: Well, the one thing I’ve really learned in 10 years and more of talking about this, the way coaching shows up is to often solve a problem, just like you were saying right at the start, which is like, I need to make calls. I’ve hired a coach. They’re going to help me make calls. And coaching definitely can do that. But sometimes coaching works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the problem gets solved, sometimes it doesn’t. The deeper gift of coaching is to help people feel seen and heard and encouraged. So, this ability to show up and stay curious just isn’t about, can we fix the thing? It’s can you be present to the person across the table from you, so they feel that kind of full sense of who they are, so they can be seen by you? Because that’s the more profound gift.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. That’s the gift of one human being, the gift of humanity, right? Sharing our humanity with another person, seeing them, loving them, supporting them, encouraging them, and I get from you, that’s the essence of coaching. So, thank you for all the work that you do, brother, and what you bring to the world. And you’ve changed the lives of countless people and you’ve impacted mind in a meaningful way.

Michael Bungay Stanier: Hal, thank you.

Hal Elrod: All right. I’ll see you next time, buddy.

[END]