Enjoy this episode & transcript below where Kimberly Spencer, Master NLP Mindset & Communications Coach and CEO of Communication Queens, discusses 2 NLP techniques for Podcast interviews.

In this episode of the Communication Queens podcast, host Kimberly Spencer, a former screenwriter and master communications coach, delves into the art of questioning. She explores the use of "chunking up" and "chunking down" from neuro-linguistic programming to extract deeper insights from guests or clients. Kimberly discusses the importance of asking thought-provoking questions to uncover new stories and reflections, sharing how this technique enriches conversations in interviews, coaching, and personal interactions. She emphasizes the value of curiosity and effective questioning in facilitating meaningful dialogue and personal breakthroughs.

FYI Transcripts may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting 30-minutes, it can be difficult to catch minor errors. Enjoy!

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Kimberly Spencer (00:00:00) - And there's a concept in NLP in neuro linguistic programming called chunking up and chunking down. And we've talked about it in terms of how you share your story, but in terms of how you get questions extracted. This offers a really simple format for getting broader concepts and also getting specific details, because sometimes when people have been through challenges, they may gloss over specific details. As some of you have heard and some of our coaching sessions on this podcast where people, they're so forward focused, they're so guided by their purpose and their light, and they kind of gloss over those. There's harder, more challenging spots. And so we don't see the whole picture. And thus the impact is not as strong. So to learn how to ask great questions, this is a simple framework that can help provide that. Welcome to the Communication Queens podcast for the visionary leaders, speakers, service providers and podcasters who are looking to stand out sharing their story. I'm your host, Kimberly Spencer, former screenwriter turned master communications coach. On this podcast, I'll be coaching you on how to share your own transformation story so that you increase your visibility, influence, and income on podcast interviews.

Kimberly Spencer (00:01:17) - Let's get your voice heard. Hello, hello and welcome back to the communication Queen podcast. I just received the most glorious feedback and it prompted this podcast episode. I was so excited to share it with you because I was told by a friend of mine, she was listening to my podcast and she's like, Kim, you asked like really good questions and. The art of asking a question. Is not really talked about broken down. I know I tell my kids that you have. God gave you two ears and one mouth. So listen twice as good as you speak. And that's a lot of communication is just being able to listen and artfully ask a question. But I was reflecting on the art of asking questions. And we're not really taught to do that. Like in school, we're taught the what, we're taught what we need to learn, and then we're supposed to learn it like that's it. We're not taught to question it. We're not taught the art of Socratic debate. it was a revolutionary and game changing approach in my homeschooling journey as a homeschool mom to shift from what I thought teaching was, which was, you know, instructing.

Kimberly Spencer (00:02:41) - And I'm going to, you know, teach you your, your ABCs and things to the Acton model, which is is asking questions and being a coach. And I just applied my over eight years of coaching into teaching my kids, and it was a game changer for how I coach and how I parent them. And because it allowed them to start coming up with their own ideas and having new insights of their own, rather than me telling them what their inside should be. And the art of the interview is, when you're in a space and you're listening to what a person is saying and. You bring forth that question that pokes. A little bit of insight, because so often when you're a if you're and this is more on the podcast or end, but if you're going on podcasts as a guest regularly, a lot of times you're asked the same questions like you're always asked, tell me more about yourself. Tell me about where how you got started, that those sort of like beginner questions. And then you're always asked, like, where can we find you? How do we follow up with you? Those are the two basic ones in between that there may be some other audiences of questions around your life, and if you're not yet skilled in the practice of honing your story, having a really strong and solid interviewer be able to prompt you with questions so you get reflective.

Kimberly Spencer (00:04:12) - You get new insights. You share new things on a podcast. That's how your podcast episode as a guest becomes far more valuable to your audience, which thus also adds benefit to the podcaster. One of the reasons why Pod having podcast guests on your podcast. Can sometimes be challenging to have them promote. It is because their audience has typically heard their story. So to give you an example. If I go on to somebody else's podcast and I share about my entrepreneurial journey from the age of 19, starting out in Pilates to support myself as a screenwriter, to then, starting like having my first film produced and then it gets to being, you know, gets produced, it gets distributed, Lionsgate picks it up, it's on Netflix. And I think my like, dream is come true at 24 and I feel like 90% fulfilled. I pivot into being the president of an e-commerce company for two years and then get bought out of that company three weeks before I get married. And then on my honeymoon, I have the brilliant divine download for my coaching company, Crown Yourself, that I have loved and owned and always been a part of and love love my clients since 2014.

Kimberly Spencer (00:05:28) - but it took me a year and a half to actually turn pro and actually generate more than $100 of income from that business. And then when I turned pro, when I found out I was pregnant, the rest is history. Within a few months of turning pro and getting certified in NLP timeline Therapy and hypnosis, I got my first $2,000 client ended up quitting my job, with only a $2,000 client and then said, you know, if I can get one, I can get more than one, and then went off and grew a multi six figure business and then got stuck in the Australia pandemic. Podcast agency is birthed from that. Those pieces, those those beats of my story. My audience knows for the most part, especially if they've been listening to the Crown Yourself podcast since 2019. Like they know those stories, so they don't know the audiences, they don't know the insights, they don't know certain pieces of it. And not because I'm like hiding them, but because maybe I repress them. Maybe I just don't.

Kimberly Spencer (00:06:29) - I'm not used to sharing them. And so if I have a really good question that is given to me by a podcaster on an interview, it pulls something out that's new, that's fresh. One of my favorite things, and this is part of my human Design profile, is A51 projector, is I have this uncanny skill set of sitting down for a coffee with someone, or at a podcast interview and someone's like, I've never shared this with anyone. I mean, you all heard that on the On Laura Oras episode with The Gutsy Podcast, where she talks about how, you know, she's like, I've never shared this. I feel like, sure, this. And she shares about branding no longer really being a part of her journey for her branding business that she's had for 16 years. And she dropped that on the podcast. I had that with The Crown Herself podcast when I was interviewing Doctor Jane Tornatore, and when she admitted on on my podcast for the first time ever that she was, abused as a child.

Kimberly Spencer (00:07:29) - And I had that with my mentor, Theresa Shirai on the Crown Yourself podcast when I interviewed her follow up interview and she dropped the bomb that she was actually leaving Blank Bath, and that was her original episode. That was, has, was, and still is for The Crown herself. Podcasts are top downloaded podcast episode because she went from 0 to 30 million in a blink. She is phenomenal. But. That's part of my human design profile, but I'm not. And so if you're not A51 projector, like, please do not hang your head and think like, oh, I can never ask good questions. You can. It just takes tapping into your intuition. It takes a little bit of research ahead of time. It takes being able to be present and in the moment with the person that you're having a conversation with and pulling something out of them. And there's a concept in NLP, in neuro linguistic programming called chunking up and chunking down. And we've talked about it in terms of how you share your story, but in terms of how you get questions extracted.

Kimberly Spencer (00:08:41) - This offers a really simple format for getting broader concepts and also getting specific details, because sometimes when people have been through challenges. They may gloss over specific details. As some of you have heard, and some of our coaching sessions on this podcast where people they're so forward focus, they're so guided by their purpose and their light, and they kind of gloss over those. There's harder, more challenging spots. And so we don't see the whole picture and thus the impact is not as strong. So. To learn how to ask great questions. This is a simple framework that can help provide that. So if you want to go broader and get more big picture, get your guest, get your even just in a coaching session, get the get the person you're having a conversation with to chunk up so that there is greater agreement and concepts then. Asking questions of what was the intention of that? What was the purpose of that? And then that allows you to play with going up higher, and then you can even junk up even further.

Kimberly Spencer (00:09:48) - So if I were to say something like, or being an interview with myself, let's just say that since you know my story, then if I was in an if I was interviewing myself and I would say, well, what was the intention of starting Pilates when you were 19 years old and doing that to support yourself in screenwriting? Yes. You could say, well, the intention was to support myself as a with my career in screenwriting. And then I would say, well, what what beyond that was the intention of that. Like what really was the greater purpose? Why Pilates? Why would you choose that out of everything? And that would allow me to then go into my story with bulimia, to go into how I never felt comfortable in my skin. And finally I found a form of exercise that I just felt so good about it in my body. And I realized, like I had to teach this. And it also provided me with income that was much higher than minimum wage. It also provide living in California.

Kimberly Spencer (00:10:48) - In Los Angeles, you kind of want that. and then it also provided me with a skill set that was highly monetizable. It also provided me with a job that I would be able to set my own hours. So it allowed, like freelancing as a place instructor, I could set my own hours with the studios that I was choosing to freelance at, and that in and of itself, that so powerful. And so that started the path to to me, being a fully entrepreneur. I went from a gig freelancer worker into having my own Pilates studio when I was pivoted about four years later. So about 22. But that would allow me to go into some more depth and detail about that, the purpose of that. Then we could chunk up even further. Well, what what is the purpose of entrepreneurship? Then. Oh, we then then we get into topics and concepts and, and the abstract beliefs that I have around how entrepreneurship is a spiritual like it's a spiritual journey and how it's part of our natural evolution and how I believe then then that's how we get into like deeper held beliefs of how I believe that most people are born entrepreneurs and is just the systems that we that are currently in place.

Kimberly Spencer (00:12:02) - They kind of oppress the entrepreneurial drives, endeavors, the ways of thinking, the natural curiosity, because we're just taught what to learn and not taught to question. Because the current educational system was created for line and factory workers back in the Victorian era. So I could get into my beliefs around education. I could get into my beliefs around entrepreneurship and spirituality. So there's lots of different places to go that may be different than any other interview that I've ever had. If you continue to ask the question, what was the purpose of that? Like what does entrepreneurship mean to you? What does bodies mean to you? What does you know, being able to ask when you hear certain themes, certain topics, and then asking, what does that mean to you? What is the intention of of being of owning your own business? Like what's the purpose of that? What does that give you? And that allows for a different level of conversation. Then if we chunk down, which is where sometimes if somebody is glossing over the surface, talking in abstract terms, abstract concepts, not really giving tactile stories because abstract is great, it can actually create a beautiful hypnotic pattern of agreement.

Kimberly Spencer (00:13:18) - And we also want to embed specific story so that we actually get clear, vivid pictures instead of just have our listeners floating up in the clouds. So. Bringing the layer down, you could say, well, can you give us an example of something that you struggled with when you first started out as an entrepreneur? So the two questions to chunk down are what is this an example of? Or what is this part of? How specifically? What specifically? Those. Those. Those questions. Of looking at the specifics. Looking at the parts. That's how we get the specific stories. That's how we are able to help our audience create in their mind a full five d sensory picture of what was the specific moment that like. So for example, if I was interviewing myself again, I could ask, well, what was the specific moment that you knew that Pilates was like the thing as to what you wanted to do that would like as well as far as your side job was concerned? As far as your job was concerned, and I would then be able to share the moment I remember it to this day.

Kimberly Spencer (00:14:36) - I was in my childhood bedroom and I was doing I. That was where I had my first Pilates lesson with my friend Eve, and she was teaching me because she was getting her certification was like, oh, would you mind like if I just gave you some free lessons? And I was like, oh no, the celebrities do Pilates. I figure I'll try it too, because I had been an exercise induced asthmatic, couldn't exercise to save my life. I couldn't run down the block to save my life like I was heaving violently. So I remember doing Pilates and it was. It wasn't that moment when I first discovered it, but we'd had a few lessons. And from having those few lessons, I then started to do the exercises on my own and. I was doing what I lovingly called the but series, the Buddhist series, and it's this whole like, delicious side leg series that works your hips, your butt, your outer thighs, and within 30 days, without any dieting, any restrictions, any binging or purging for myself either.

Kimberly Spencer (00:15:45) - Which was a big deal back when I was, 18 years old. I dropped a jean size. I did nothing but Pilates and I dropped a jean size by just doing this but series every day and it was like ten minutes. That was it. And I remember, like, it wasn't just the jeans, it was the feeling of like, oh my God, I could fit in them. Oh my God, I put them on. Oh my God, I didn't have to dye it to to do this. And now suddenly I have this, this moment where I am feeling so good in my body. And I remember that moment and where I stood. And I was like. Oh my God. Like, I felt so good. And it was in that moment that I just knew. I said, I have to teach this to help other women feel this good in their skin. And. That experience. I remember I literally walked out of the door and walked into my parent's bedroom and, a detail about my story that I haven't always shared on podcasts, which is actually interesting since my interview with myself, apparently I was bringing this out was I was a a college dropout.

Kimberly Spencer (00:16:57) - I dropped out of college two weeks before I was supposed to start with two college scholarships, and I had made a deal with my parents that I would get to live in my house, in my childhood home, for the four years of college, while I was pursuing my career in film and Hollywood. And. My parents home was chaotic, so I mean, I knew how to manage that level of chaos. I knew how to be a part of it. I didn't like it, but it was chaotic because my dad was an alcoholic and an addict and a very high functioning alcoholic and an addict because he was running a successful company in Los Angeles. But it was chaotic, and I knew I wanted to move out like I wanted freedom, I wanted my autonomy, and this was my request of my parents to help me get it. And I asked that they take a portion of the savings that they had saved up for me to go to college so that I could use that for Pilates training school. And they were like, why Pilates? And I said the same thing.

Kimberly Spencer (00:17:54) - I said, I've never felt this good in my body. I have to teach it. They dropped my college. It's like college tuition. So you're welcome, parents, that it wasn't hundreds of thousands of dollars on college. It was like a $4,000 certification. Like that was my college. And I went, I got certified, I ended up paying them back. And because I within a year, I was the highest paid, youngest and most fully booked instructor at the studio I was freelancing at. And that was just. It was such a moment of just trust me that I know what is best for me, and it was a moment that I had built so much trust in myself that I felt really confident in making that that ask, and. It worked out pretty well. They were my first investors in my first business, and that was that. I was so happy to make that ask of them. But. That that moment was of standing there in my room, feeling not not necessarily even seeing myself.

Kimberly Spencer (00:18:56) - It was the feeling that I had of accomplishment, of achievement. So do you see how I painted a very clear picture of, like where I was in the specifics of that moment, brought you into the story, shared something that I didn't expect to share, and it was all from the stimulating moment of the question of like, can you tell me more about that moment of like, why Pilates? Like, what was that specific moment like for you? Because that is how you then get. A whole new story extracted. Rather than something that somebody is so used to sharing. And especially if, like I've done now, probably about 250 podcasts, interviews, maybe 300, I'd have to go back and count. But it's a lot, and I've shared a lot of the same stories. Now, I know that the stories that I'm sharing are hitting a different audience, a different time. So I always am present with the story that I'm sharing. I'm always in the moment, but it always helps when you have a podcaster and are sitting across from someone who can ask really delicious questions, and they don't even have to be like the most magical, brilliant coaching ist of coaching questions ever.

Kimberly Spencer (00:20:09) - They can be as simple as can you tell me more about that specific moment? Like, what was that like for you? How did that feel in your body? And then chunking up as well. Of what is that? What does that mean for you? Like what is the intention of doing the things that you were doing? What is the overarching value that you lean into? That that moment really expressed for you? So being able to modulate and from high level to deep and specific, that is the prowess of a master communicator. And I encourage you to practice this not just on podcast interviews or with your coaching clients if you have them, or if you're a coach or with your team. But like practice it with your kids, you will get such rich conversations. We practice it with your spouse. You will get amazing conversations when you just dive into the curiosity that comes from when you listen and get radically curious about someone's experience. And maybe, just maybe, you might help them have a break through the process of realizing something about themselves, of having a moment of reflection where suddenly they see themselves.

Kimberly Spencer (00:21:31) - That moment, that experience in a whole new light. Maybe they get to relive, like I was just literally in my body, like feeling as I was there, that moment of being in my room as a child. Like, as I say, child, I was 19. but that moment of like, oh my God, like, I have to use this as a service, as a tool. Like, that was my first moment when I moved outside of myself and was focused on service, because then Hollywood and in my Hollywood career was always, you know, about me getting to where I wanted to go. But this Pilates that was like, that is my that is my service. That is how I want to serve the world. And it's how I did serve thousands of clients for. And that's how I did serve thousands of clients over 13 years of of teaching and coaching and supporting them in their physical health and in their in their body development and in their mind body connection are delicious like so grateful for those years.

Kimberly Spencer (00:22:37) - And. That is something that when you can get your guests to reflect on moments, to relive an experience that is positive, that that that shines a light in the world, highlighting certain values that you may want to bring out and bring forth into the world. Like, for me, service is a huge one. So. I encourage you to practice the art of chunking up, chunking down, asking to chunk up. What is the intention of? What is the purpose of that? What does that an example of? And then to chunk down. How specifically? What specifically? What was special about that moment for you? What made you decide that specific thing? Literally just used a word specific in the question, and you will get a much more specific full picture. Moment from that person that you're having the conversation with. And you'll also get to a lot richer conversations. And that is the art of communication and questioning. So I hope you love this episode. I know it's a little longer than some of my solo episodes, but I really wanted to dive into this concept and I hope that this just brings you deeper, richer, more full conversations and that you take these into the podcast interviews that you do, that you take these into the conversations that you have in your business and in your life, and that it creates a more rich, wholesome, juicy, delicious, artful life.

Kimberly Spencer (00:24:21) - Remember, because your story does have the power to save one life, so stand out and be heard. Thank you so much for listening. If you love this episode, subscribe! Leave us a review and share it with your friends. For more tips on guest podcasting, storytelling and communication strategies, follow us on social media at Communication Queens Agency and visit us at Communication queens.com. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. And in the meantime.

Kimberly Spencer (00:24:46) - Remember your story has the power to save one life. Let your story and your voice be heard.

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