A Question Bank You Build From Their Words
Harvest phrases from notes into next session’s one question. Not a 100-question listicle.
A downloaded list of “powerful questions” is how you coach a stranger you invented. This is a process: pull their phrases from notes into one question. Notion can store the phrases. Progress is where they already live. Discovery gave you the first ones. Challenge uses them. The energy rule may say pause the goal — then the bank waits.
How to Harvest
After each session, circle 3–5 nouns and verbs they said. Not your summary. Their words: “almost send,” “the ugly draft,” “my Tuesday.”
Put them in one field on the brief: Language.
Before the next hour, build one question from one phrase.
Phrase: “almost send.” Question: “What does ‘sent’ cost you that ‘almost’ doesn’t?”
That’s the bank. It grows. You only spend one coin per hour.
What Never Goes In
Your certification vocabulary. Anyone else’s metaphor. A question you saw on Instagram. If the phrase isn’t in the last two notes, it isn’t theirs this week.
Examples (shape, not a list to copy)
- “I keep rewriting” → “What would ‘sent ugly’ protect you from?”
- “It’s not the right time” → “What would ‘right time’ look like on a calendar?”
- “I don’t want to be salesy” → “When you say ‘salesy,’ what’s the picture?”
Steal the method. Do not spray these at a client who never said those words.
What Most Coaches Get Wrong
They collect 80 questions and then pick by mood. Mood is how you import a framework.
They also harvest in the session instead of after. Then they miss the hour. Harvest is a two-minute close task.
A Weekly Pass
Sunday reset: open each brief’s Language field. Pick next week’s one question. Write it at the top of the agenda. Delete phrases older than 30 days unless they’re still live.
The bank is a compost pile. Not a museum.
Building the Field
Add a Language property. After each hour, paste 3–5 quoted fragments before you stand up. If you wait until Sunday, you will polish them into your words.
When two phrases compete, pick the one that carried heat — voice change, repeat, laugh. Heat is the coin.
If the bank is empty, you took notes about yourself. Fix the close: their sentence first.
Keep a reject pile: questions you almost asked that used your school’s words. Read it monthly. That’s your leak.
When they repeat a phrase three times in one hour, that’s next week’s coin even if a prettier phrase appeared. Repetition is a vote.
When DIY Isn’t Enough
When phrases are buried in transcripts you’ll never reopen, you will invent questions. A session card that surfaces last week’s nouns is the upgrade. Grow / Scale can hold the field. You still have to ask only one.
Want last week’s nouns on the session card? Let’s talk.