The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘asking the right questions’

When I saw this book a couple of years ago, I bought it because I know how important it is to ask the right questions to get the answers that you are looking for. I was in a rush so I grabbed the book without reading the back to see what it was about. Because I was in such a rush, I didn’t notice the subtitle, all I saw was THE RIGHT QUESTIONS. I think that the book should be titled “How to Make the Right Choices.” Even though the book wasn’t what I expected, I still enjoyed it.

What Are The Ten Questions?

1. Will this choice propel me toward an inspiring future or will it keep me stuck in the past?
2. Will this choice bring me long-term fulfillment or will it bring me short-term gratification?
3. Am I standing in my power or am I trying to please another?
4. Am I looking for what’s right or am I looking for what’s wrong?
5. Will this choice add to my life force or will it rob me of my energy?
6. Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?
7. Does this choice empower me or does it disempower me?
8. Is this an act of self-love or is it an act of self-sabotage?
9. Is this an act of faith or is it an act of fear?

10. Am I choosing from my divinity or am I choosing from my humanity?

According to Debbie Ford, “These questions supply you with the wisdom you need to make what was previously unconscious, conscious, so that you can choose with all the power that comes from being fully aware.”

Let’s focus on question six, “Will I use this situation as a catalyst to grow and evolve or will I use it to beat myself up?” Ford suggests that every person and situation in our lives is “behaving in exactly the way we need them to at every moment in time.” This concept would be difficult for most people to understand and accept. However, she further adds, which I agree with, that we look at the situation with perspective and ask ourselves what can we learn, and how can we use this to evolve. I would ask what opportunities exist in the situation.

Five Great Ideas

1. The quality of our choices will dictate whether we will struggle in frustration or live an extraordinary life… Choice allows us to pick, to select, to decide between paths. To go right or left. To move forward or backward, be happy or sad, loving or hateful, satisfied or discontent. Choice gives us the power to be successful or unfulfilled, to be good or great, to feel pleasure or pain
2. We are where we are because of repeated unconscious or unhealthy choices that we’ve made day after day that add up to the reality we find ourselves in. if we want to understand why and how we created our present reality, all we need to do is look at the choices we made in the past… Our futures are determined by the choices we are making in this moment… If we want our lives to be different, all we have to do is make different choice
3. We’ve all been blessed with free will, which provides us with the power to choose how we react to our experiences in life
4. Faith invites us to believe in something we cannot see, feel, or know. Fear destroys dreams and exterminates possibilities… Our fears cause us to hold on to habits and behaviours that no longer serve us
5. The ability to rationalize behaviour that goes against what we truly want might be our biggest curse because it makes us masters at justifying our actions

What are your thoughts? How do you anticipate where your “puck” is going to land? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

The book review first appeared in Ambeck Edge June 2006

Book links are affiliate links

To get the information you need requires asking the right questions, but how do you know what the right questions are? Surprisingly, this post was inspired by Chris Brogan‘s blog post “Rethink Your Web Presence.” The post is about whether or not your website is achieving your goals for it, and he asks six questions from the perspective of the user.

Who do you want me to be?

How will I know that I belong?

What do you want to show/tell me?

What do you want me to do?

How will we keep this relationship going?

How shall I talk of you to my friends?

This post got me thinking about a few things:  how we get the wrong answers because we didn’t ask the right questions,  how we didn’t achieve our objectives because we didn’t meet the needs of our users. For internal and external clients, how can you give them what they need? I think the answer is to listen actively to what the client is saying, and ask lots of questions to grasp what’s being said. It is my experience that many times what clients say they need is not what they really need, and the supplier has to ask many questions to identify the true need. As an information professional with over 15 years experience, I have seen this time and time again.

One trick I use, which I learned in computer science years ago, is to always reinterpret to the clients what you heard them say. This works all the time. And with the prevalence of email, after the meeting send an email outlining what you heard. If you are mistaken, the client will let you know.

Sometimes you’ll not know what the right questions are, but if you are prepared for the meetings and listen hard, more than likely you’ll figure it out. Another technique which is used by many consultants, is to ask, “If we were sitting here three years from today, what would have had to happen for you to be satisfied?” And you would adjust the time to shortly after the project ended.

And if you have a website or a blog, it would be great to answer Chris’ six questions, I intend to. And while you are in the doing mood, read Penelope Trunk‘s post, Five tips for asking better questions. Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Photo Credit: Bing via Apture

Note: The section written in red font was written later.