“Action follows thought,” Grace added. “It’s a basic principle. But I never thought about it in terms of questions. Action follows questions. Seems to me the trick is to just keep ourselves in a Learner frame of mind.”

What’s really going on with me? Am I willing to forgive myself? And how do I want to feel?

With the ‘Judger agenda,’ as he called it, ‘the costs can be tremendous. The future can be only a recycled version of the past. And with the Learner program the power is on. The juice is flowing. You can actually make a new future for yourself.’

Real personal power depends on how good we get at recovering from Judger once it takes over. That’

practices and emotional intelligence, as well as Appreciative Inquiry, Action Learning, and positive psychology.

Thus Ben learns to self-coach,

What happened? What do I want? What’s useful about this? What can I learn? What’s the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting? What are my choices? What’s best to do now? What’s possible?”

‘Either you have your questions, or your questions have you.’

“If it’s true that you’re coming across as a know-it-all,” he continued, “which is the downfall of the Answer Man, you don’t leave much room for anyone else. You’re great at the technical stuff, Ben, but your present job requires much more than that.