#78 - Inquiring Minds Want to Know - Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers - "Do You Know Who S.H.E. I.S.?" Series

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." – Marie Curie
In this episode, we dive deep into the power of curiosity & how asking the right questions can transform your journey of self-discovery. As part of our Do You Know Who She Is? series, we're exploring the letter “I”—for inquiry. We uncover how living a life of curiosity can help you break free from limiting beliefs & create a life that is unapologetically you. I share my personal stories, including the lessons learned from one of my toughest professional setbacks & offer tools that can help you shape a more authentic, purpose-driven life. If you're ready to challenge your old ways of thinking & embrace a mindset that leads to growth, this episode is for you!
Asking better questions leadS to better answers—& ultimately, a better life. Plus, I’ve got five empowering questions for you to reflect on to make this more real. Trust me, you don’t want to miss this one. Get ready to put on your work boots, sister, because we're about to dig deep & find the gifts in life's challenges. Let’s get curious together!
[1:55] - Embracing curiosity as the key to self-discovery and growth.
[5:12] - The power of asking better questions.
[9:30] - How a major professional setback became a turning point in my journey.
[15:20] - Transforming painful experiences into growth through inquiry.
[22:45] - Five empowering questions to deepen your self-reflection & build resilience.
[27:10] - Why curiosity can redefine your identity & help you live a more authentic life.
[31:50] - An invitation to our Girl Out of Order Facebook community & the October challenge.

• Join the Girl Out of Order Facebook community & participate in our October challenge for a chance to win a free virtual ticket to Loren Lahav's Own Your Worth experience in March 2025.
• Explore Byron Katie's The Work for more insights on living a life of active inquiry: https://thework.com

If this episode sparked something in you, please take a moment to rate, follow, and review Girl Out of Order. Share it on social media, and don’t forget to reach out in my DMs with your thoughts or any ideas for future episodes.
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Transcript

Christine Gale (00:02)
Hey there, sister. Welcome back to Girl Out of Order. I am so glad you are here today. Sometimes doing these podcasts, just want to die through and hug you, the listener. And so I get really bubbly when I start my podcast because I'm picturing you listening. I'm picturing you giving me the gift of your beautiful time so that we can talk about ways to live unapologetically, ways to create lives that

are compelling, that are juicy, that get us out of bed in the morning. And so I am just gonna start today by giving you the biggest hug. I wish I could meet all of you in person and sit down and hear your stories and learn more about you because we're on this journey together. I created Girl Out of Order because I needed Girl Out of Order. I needed a place where I could share

stories and share what I was learning and share what I was struggling with so that we could together build lives that are just next level, build lives that are purpose driven, that are focused, that are fun. And so I'm just feeling super tender towards you, the listener today. I don't know where you are when you turn this on. I don't know how you're feeling, but I will tell you that I am holding space for all of it.

because I gotta tell you over this last week, I've probably felt a whole wide range of emotions and I would imagine you're in there because let's be real, life is challenging and life is exciting. And so it's okay to hold both. Super random way of beginning this because I gotta tell you, I just feel so much compassion for this community and so much love.

for female human beings and all that we hold, all that we handle, all that we work through and all that we have the potential to create together. And so that is the perfect segue to the next installment in the Do You Know Who She Is? series. If you've been in this series for the last four episodes, you know that we're on just a little bit

different of a journey about identity and giving you some tools that will anchor in principles that will help you as you navigate this journey of creating and living out your most authentic identity. We started with she, and now we're picking up on is, so do you know who she is? We talked about self-acceptance.

We talked about becoming your own hero and how important that is as you create this purpose-driven life. And then we talked in the last episode about your essence, getting to the bottom of those three to five core values that are the compass that will help you navigate whatever life throws your way. And so today we are starting on the word is, we are diving into I.

And I love, I love I, I love this letter because this is probably one of the biggest tools that has transformed me as I've gone through my personal development journey and really stepped into my truest self. And the I stands for inquiry. I have come to understand as I've navigated

several different experiences in the last five years or so that living a life of curiosity is the key to understanding yourself better and sister growing into your full potential. Get curious. Ask questions. Our Empowered for this episode comes from the brilliant Marie Curie.

where she says the important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. So, what does that have to do with identity? Everything. It has everything to do with identity. But before we dive into this message, I wanna put out another invitation for you to join our Girl Out of Order Facebook community.

We have an October challenge going on that is actually coming into the fit towards the finish line. And I don't want you to miss out. More importantly, I just want you a part of this community so you can contribute and you can learn and grow from the connection with other incredible girls out of order. So hop on over to Facebook and join our Facebook community. Get caught up in the challenge. And if you do, if you finish that challenge, you will win a free

virtual ticket to Lauren LeHavre's Own Your Worth experience in March of 2025. You do not want to miss this opportunity. It is such a simple challenge for you to do to win such an incredible gift. And I would, I'm be so excited to give that gift to you. And then please share our podcast wherever you listen on whatever platform, please leave us a review and share it on your social medias. If something in particular touches you,

show up on there and let me know. Hit me up in my DMs. I'm always looking for feedback, ideas, and what you want to hear, what you think will help you the most. So let's dive back into curiosity. Why is curiosity so important? Why is living a life of inquiry so important in your identity journey? Girl, this is where you put your work boots on.

This is about questioning beliefs that have shaped your identity and your actions. So what do I mean by putting your work boots on? This is when you have to take responsibility for actively engaging with your life. If you wanna develop a purpose-driven, fulfilling life, you gotta stay curious. You gotta look at a situation and ask better questions.

Tony Robbins always says that the quality of our lives is often determined by the quality of our questions. And so if you're not one of them, and I hope that you're not, but if you are, we're gonna invite you to have a different way of approaching life. But you might be one of those people, but if you don't, you know them, who ask crappy questions and they have crappy quality of life. Like, why does this always happen to me? What's wrong with me? Why is she like that?

You know, why does life have to suck? I could go on and on with all those, but I don't want to give any more energy to crappy questions. So many of us are sleepwalking through life, allowing people and circumstances to consume us, knock us off our axis. Or sometimes it feels like they break us. Maybe not the people, but the situations.

how it makes us feel.

We ask questions that don't lead us to empowering answers. The reason that I chose inquiry as part of this model is because inquiry, important.

Inquiry is the power of curiosity to explore, question, and take control of defining who we are. You say that again for emphasis. Inquiry is the power of curiosity to explore, to question, and take control of defining who we are. We get to define our identity, sister. Nobody else, nothing else gets to tell us

tell you who you are. And if you approach life with curiosity and you ask better questions, you're going to live a life that is so much more elevated than anything you've ever experienced. If we are not living lives with intention, life has a way of numbing us out. So many women are on autopilot just accepting our disempowering beliefs, accepting our poor habits and accepting

Crappy circumstance they keep using that word but crappy circumstances as if they're carved in stone They are not that's the good news. I got good news The good news is you can actually change your beliefs change your understanding of things change your habits change your circumstances simply by asking better questions the truth is

The beliefs and the narratives that we hold so tightly to, they shape our identity. And when we start questioning them, we actually open the door for growth and transformation. When I wrote my manifesto in Unleash Your Power Within, I used this phrase and it really points to how I've come to start living a life of inquiry and curiosity. I call it dancing with life's complete.

complexities. Life is either a dance or it's a funeral dirge. Which one would you prefer? I prefer a dance. Circumstances shift, relationships fade, businesses fail, your health may falter, but when you develop a lifelong habit of asking better questions, everything changes. So think about what amazing news that is. If you have the power to ask questions that fuel you,

And that's within your power. No one can take that away. Why would you not want to use that tool to create a better, more fulfilling, more empowering identity for yourself?

How we, the questions that we ask really determine how we experience circumstances. In 2016, I was overzealous in my advocacy for a client before the appellate court. I offended them so badly that they held me in direct criminal contempt. It was my greatest professional failure and it was literally broadcast as the court took the extraordinary step.

of releasing the audio of my hearing. Even saying it out loud, I get a little lump in my throat. It could have broke me. It really could have broke me. It could have made me want to quit. And I'm not saying I didn't have hard days. I'm not saying I didn't feel like things were unjust, but I got to the point where I needed to ask a better question. And so I asked the question, what can I learn from this?

Sage Robbins often says, what is the gift in this? I wasn't at the point where I wanted to call it a gift. But I have to say, just recently I saw the justice that wrote the opinion holding me in contempt. I saw her at a bar function and I didn't approach her because it wasn't really appropriate, but my soul approached her. And what do I mean by that? I mean, I looked at her and in the past where I would have reviled her, I really felt very grateful for her.

I felt so grateful that she did what she did because I learned so much and I became so much better, stronger, wiser, more aligned with my values. Like we talked about in the last episode, I became more aligned with my essence because I realized I wasn't acting in my integrity. And so I asked a better question. And then I looked at that circumstance with so much more appreciation. This changes you as a

person. When you develop the habit of inquiry, you stop accepting things that face value. don't let circumstances or words that people say define you as a person. I recently had a client say some really terrible things to me and they were personal and they were wounding and in the past

You know what I would have done? I would have taken that into my soul and I would have made it part of what I believe about myself. And I didn't do that because I asked myself, is it true? Is it really true? Can I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what she said about me is true? How does it make me feel when I believe those things are true? And who would I be? How would I feel if I chose not to believe what I can't even be sure is true? It changed.

Everything. It changed everything. And that's from Byron Katie. And it's literally called The Work. And it's about living a life of active inquiry. I will put the link to Byron Katie's materials in our show notes. But here's what I you to really understand before I leave you with an invitation. When you begin to dig deeper, uncovering truths about yourself that you may have buried or ignored

for too long, you really start to change and you uncover those things by getting curious, staying curious, being, you know, a person of inquiry can help you identify those limiting beliefs that keep you stuck or feeling unworthy. When something happens or a belief bubbles up, like for example, with that client said something about me, it really hit on a rock.

poor wound of mine, a belief I've really struggled with about myself. And because I'm actively living a life of curiosity, I was able to say, hey, is there something in that comment I can learn? Is there a gift in there that I don't wanna miss? Even if I don't take that as true about who I am. Do you see the difference?

Isn't that amazing? Well, you can get a gift from something that feels terrible. You can actually get a gift from it without allowing it to define you when there's parts of it that you know aren't true and you can let them go. When you're willing to question beliefs, when you're willing to question circumstances, when you're willing to question comments that are made, you create space for new beliefs.

beliefs that support the person you are becoming because you are creating her. You gain clarity about what truly matters to you and you begin to shape sisters an identity that reflects your deepest values and desires. And then you get to start taking actions from that place of knowing who you are. So here's my invitation for this particular part of our model.

I've got five empowering questions that I want you to start asking. And I'm gonna be that journal Nazi. Please get out your journal. Please put pen to paper and share it in our Facebook community or share it on your socials. The answers to these questions in a, just take a circumstance that happens. One, ask what is the gift in this?

to how would the most authentic version of me handle this situation? What is this challenge teaching me about myself?

for what do I need to let go of right now to feel more aligned with my true self? And the last question I'm inviting you to ask over this next week is what is the one thing I can do to nurture myself and care for myself in this moment? When I received those unkind words from a client recently, I nurtured myself by reaching out to a friend and

and explaining what happened and frankly just asking her to remind me of who I am because we need that sometimes when we forget.

So this is a very simple, straightforward part of this model. Live a life of curiosity. Live a life of inquiry. Actively engage in your identity creation. It is just your life you're creating, right? It's just your identity that you're molding, shaping, and transforming. If you can ask better questions and you can live a more compelling life, why wouldn't you want to do that?

Inquiry leads to insight, sisters, and insight leads to transformation. Stay curious. Never stop exploring not only your own depths, but the depths of your experiences so you can make sure you get the gifts and let the rest of it fall away. We're in this together and you are doing amazing. Tune in next time for our last part.

of the Do You Know Who She Is series. And that is the last S, but I'm keeping it secret. No, S isn't for secret, but I'm keeping it secret. And I will see you next time on The Girl Out of Order.