The greatest teachers ask the questions that make us think the most.
Questions open up the doors of our minds.
Everything ever created has its origin in a question.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page (the founders of Google) asked themselves, “How can we make search practical?”
Steve Jobs asked himself, “How can we make computers that everyone can use?”
And Henry Ford asked himself, “How can we make the automobile affordable for the general public?”
As such I’d like to offer you some questions that you may find helpful in building your future.
- What do I really want out of life?
- How can I achieve that?
- Who do I know that could help me?
- Who else could I ask?
- What can I do in return for their help?
- What am I doing that I shouldn’t?
- What am I not doing that I should?
- How can I find the time to do it?
- What person do I need to become to achieve it?
- What would I do after achieving it?
- How do I want to be remembered?
- Am I a good friend?
And there are many more.
The key is to find the areas in which we are lacking and then set about discovering why we aren’t achieving what we want in that area.
Questions force us to create answers.
At first the answers you come up with might not quite be what you are after but keep at it.
I have no doubt that the men above didn’t come up with the answers right away.
But the key is that the question forced them to look at things differently.
If the question is strong enough our mind will sort of go on automatic pilot until it finds an answer.
In the back of our mind even when we’re doing something else our mind is still searching.
In many ways it’s like when we can’t get a song out of our head that we don’t know the title of.
Or a scene from a movie that we just can’t place.
But sooner or later the answer just pops up.
The thing is that most of the time we aren’t asking ourselves the right questions and hence not putting this technique to good use.
Shouldn’t we set our mind to figure out how to get out of debt, how to secure a loan or what kind of product to create?
Instead, too many of us focus on TV shows, gossip and fun.
For years that’s all I ever did.
But four years ago I started to understand this immense power and since that time my life has completely changed.
Why? Because of the questions I started asking myself.
So if you’re looking to make a change, start by changing your questions.
Adrian Shepherd