The Art of Manliness - #465： The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast to move forward

00:00:18.900 in life we typically focus on finding answers my guest today argues that we should spend more

00:00:23.020 time asking questions name is warren berger he's a self-described questionologist and the author

00:00:27.480 of the book the book of beautiful questions the powerful questions that will help you decide

00:00:31.520 create connect and lead we begin our conversation discussing why having an inquisitive mindset is

00:00:35.900 more important than ever in this fast-changing uncertain world of ours but why people are afraid

00:00:40.140 to ask questions warren then argues that questions don't necessarily need to have answers to be

00:00:43.900 useful and explains what he thinks makes a question a beautiful question warren then talks us through

00:00:48.220 the importance of asking questions when you're trying to make decisions be creative form relationships

00:00:51.880 and lead people while providing concrete examples of questions to ask yourself and others to be more

00:00:56.260 effective in each domain after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash beautiful

00:01:01.160 question and warren joins me now via clearcast.io all right warren berger welcome to the show

00:01:20.980 thank you brad it's great to be here so you are a self-proclaimed questionologist you've been spending

00:01:27.980 a lot of time thinking and writing about what makes a good question a good question and you make the case

00:01:35.380 that to move forward in life in today's fast-changing world we need to ask more questions which is you know

00:01:42.540 it's kind of counterintuitive because we think if we want to move forward in life we're looking for

00:01:45.320 answers so what is it how can questions asking questions improve all facets of our life personal

00:01:52.240 business etc yeah you know i think of questioning as a mindset and a way of looking at the world around

00:02:01.120 you you know with with sort of an open and curious mind and i think it's more important than ever these

00:02:09.000 days to approach life that way you know that i'm open to learning i'm i'm going to question

00:02:16.500 the information that comes at me i'm going to question the assumptions about why things are the

00:02:22.660 way they are i'm just going to go through life with that kind of an attitude the reason i think it's more

00:02:28.180 important than ever is because the world we're in right now is first of all you know think about

00:02:34.080 what's going on with the glut of information right and we all know about this situation of

00:02:39.680 bad information coming at people and distorting their their views and so in in a way it's more

00:02:46.980 important than ever that we be questioning just basic things like the the the news information that's

00:02:53.560 coming at us or the stories that we're being bombarded with on on websites so on that basic level

00:03:00.980 it's important but i think it's also important in the larger sense that we're in a world now where

00:03:07.080 everything is changing all the time and so you know maybe in the past you could coast a little bit

00:03:15.680 on what you knew you know you sort of you'd sort of go through school and go through college and and pick

00:03:21.200 up a trade or whatever pick up a a body of knowledge and then kind of kind of coast on that for a while

00:03:28.320 but today i don't think there's any coasting you know it everything changes so fast that all of us

00:03:35.020 almost have to be in constant learning mode and that's why questioning is so important because

00:03:40.700 questioning is how you learn you know i mean you just that willingness to ask questions and take in

00:03:45.540 new information and consider new points of view that's what's going to enable you to keep learning

00:03:51.000 and the learning will enable you to keep adapting and growing yeah i like what you said about it's an

00:03:56.700 attitude you take towards the world when you talk where you're talking about you know all this glut of

00:04:01.260 information it's really easy to get cynical yeah but it seems like questioning is is a positive

00:04:07.140 alternative to getting cynical yeah it is because part of what goes on you know i don't know if if you've

00:04:14.340 noticed this but but i noticed with cynical people they have this attitude like oh i've seen it all

00:04:20.900 you know i know it all like uh you know they always they always seem to take this view oh i've seen

00:04:27.040 this before we've heard this before you know and so they part of what their cynicism is is built on is

00:04:34.620 this idea that they've kind of already figured out the game and uh and there's nothing new for them to

00:04:41.540 learn and and that's a really bad i think that's a really bad attitude because that kind of traps you

00:04:47.560 in your in your current thinking or your current worldview you know so i think it's just it's just

00:04:54.680 really really important to to have that openness you know that's that's what's going to keep you

00:05:00.480 it's going to keep things fresh in your life it's going to keep you uh open to new people new ideas

00:05:07.580 and it's just going to it's just going to make you a better person overall but what holds people back

00:05:14.020 from asking questions because people don't like asking questions particularly as you get older

00:05:17.540 you stop you start asking fewer questions what's going on there yeah there's a few things going on

00:05:21.900 that you know it's really interesting if you look at the the research on questioning you know we all

00:05:27.680 kind of have heard or we all kind of know from experience that kids are good questioners right

00:05:32.880 kids kids ask a lot of questions that's kind of a known thing and what's interesting is if you look

00:05:38.620 at that the research totally bears that out in terms of numbers you know kids who are three four

00:05:45.080 five years old are asking just thousands and thousands of questions and but then what's interesting

00:05:50.940 and what a lot of people aren't as aware of is that there's a a drop-off that happens when kids get

00:05:58.300 to be six seven years old and as they advance through grades of school they seem to ask less and less

00:06:05.140 questions and then that continues into adulthood so so i think you know it's interesting to think

00:06:11.700 about why that's happening i think there's a lot of things that work against questioning i think of

00:06:17.860 them as the enemies of questioning and one of them is just you know that fear of admitting to the world

00:06:25.300 or to people around you that you don't know something so if you're asking a question it must mean you

00:06:30.900 don't know something and therefore you know we think oh well that's revealing a weakness that's

00:06:36.620 revealing something that's lacking in us so over time we seem to get defensive about that and and and

00:06:43.480 we don't want to um we don't want to admit that that that we don't know something so that's a big big

00:06:50.900 enemy of questioning and then there are just other things like time you know we we we get very

00:06:56.980 conscious of of having to get things done and and move forward all the time in our lives and and

00:07:03.520 questioning the very act of questioning to me is a is a kind of stepping back you know when you ask a

00:07:11.300 question it's like you're stepping back you're saying hold on a second i want to know this or i'm

00:07:17.600 wondering about that and to a lot of people that seems almost like it's not productive or something it

00:07:25.760 slows things down so that's another sort of thing that works against questioning is just that that

00:07:30.920 the pressure for answers and to get things done and to to just you know keep moving forward and then

00:07:37.040 you know i i would say one other thing that that works against questioning and this sounds odd but is

00:07:43.260 knowledge you know kids when they're very young aren't weighed down by a lot of knowledge and so

00:07:50.580 they're you know they're asking questions all over the place but as we start to know more we we start

00:07:57.700 to feel like okay we've kind of we're starting to figure all this stuff out and that causes us to ask

00:08:04.160 less questions and i think it's that's that's kind of bad i mean that's like the knowledge is good

00:08:09.720 but the the the lessening of the questions is bad ideally we we want to be knowing more and also

00:08:17.400 questioning more so that even though we we're knowing more stuff and learning more stuff we still

00:08:23.080 want to know even more and we want to learn even more so we have to kind of overcome that that trap

00:08:29.680 of expertise that idea that oh i've got this figured out therefore i don't need to ask any questions

00:08:35.140 so your first book was a more beautiful question so what makes a beautiful question a beautiful

00:08:42.480 question are all questions created equal there's that all that's sane right there's no such thing as

00:08:46.400 dumb questions but is that is that true well i i think there are there are dumb questions or there 0.97

00:08:52.760 are stupid questions you know when when oftentimes i'm in a meeting and you know where the meeting is 1.00

00:08:59.260 about is about uh you know how the how our organization is going to innovate and and someone 0.99

00:09:05.660 asks a question about uh their vacation time or something like that you know so so there are there

00:09:11.640 are questions that are off topic or that are you know self-centered and not concerned about what

00:09:17.300 anyone else is is is working on that there are definitely bad questions you know but i think i i

00:09:24.080 enjoy to me i one of the things i really like are naive questions which sometimes get dismissed as

00:09:30.560 stupid questions and a naive question is when you you know you sort of step back and say wait a minute

00:09:37.380 why are we doing this thing we're doing you know so it's like really basic right like like everyone 1.00

00:09:43.180 is assumed everyone's already figured out oh this is you know as a group our goal is to do x and and

00:09:48.820 now we're working on how are we going to do x and how are we going to do x faster and how are we going

00:09:53.240 to do x more efficiently and then someone comes along and says wait a minute why are we doing x in the

00:09:59.100 first place i love those kind of questions because um on the on the one hand they seem very fundamental

00:10:05.520 and very basic and sometimes they they're annoying to people because they feel like that's too basic

00:10:10.880 why are you asking that question but what they do is they force you to regularly challenge your own

00:10:17.480 assumptions or reconsider your assumptions reconsider the thing everyone the thing ever everyone thought

00:10:23.880 we agreed upon maybe it's time to just step back and say do we really all agree on this and does it

00:10:30.620 really make sense and have we thought about it lately so i love naive questions to me those are

00:10:35.840 beautiful questions but in general the way i would define a beautiful question is a beautiful question

00:10:42.660 is a question that's ambitious so it's not like you know oh what color should we paint the walls in our

00:10:49.520 kitchen and that's that's a fine question but it's not particularly ambitious you know i love questions that

00:10:55.140 are ambitious that are actionable and that you know might bring about some kind of change they might

00:11:01.640 bring about change in people's thinking or they might bring about change in the world or the change

00:11:07.220 in your your company or your organization so so if you would ask a question like um how might i help this

00:11:16.980 organization to do a better job of communicating with each other like maybe you've noticed that there's a

00:11:22.540 real lack of communication in your group or your organization and you you sort of pose that question

00:11:28.040 to yourself i love that because that's a beautiful question i mean that's ambitious right but yet it's

00:11:32.920 something you might be able to actually work on and do something with and it's a question that if you

00:11:37.900 answer it it could change things there could be a there could be a change that comes about because of

00:11:43.580 that so those are that's the way i define a beautiful question i love that my favorite questions i think

00:11:48.940 is kind of in line with what you're talking about are the questions that don't they don't have an

00:11:53.500 immediate answer or they don't even have an answer at all but like they just get me thinking yeah like

00:11:58.720 those are my my favorite absolute questions oh yeah yeah and and they can be those questions can come

00:12:04.900 from anywhere you know there's a story that i tell in the in in my first book a more beautiful question

00:12:10.160 about the polaroid instant camera and and how it it came about because um the founder of

00:12:17.160 polar edmund land was out one day with his with his four-year-old daughter and he was taking

00:12:22.640 pictures with a with a standard camera back in the 1940s and of course you know in those days you took

00:12:29.700 a picture you had to send the film out and wait for it to get processed and all and it would be days

00:12:35.980 and days before you ever saw the results and so he tried to explain this to his daughter his four-year-old

00:12:41.200 daughter and she asked she said i don't understand why do we have to wait for the picture

00:12:46.820 so that question like just blew his mind it just shifted um edwin land's thinking because

00:12:55.080 it's like so obvious and so fundamental but he'd never really thought about

00:12:59.120 you know why why do you have to wait for the picture and what if you didn't have to wait what

00:13:04.420 if there was a way to you know create a a camera where you could get the results right away

00:13:10.120 and that became the basis of him creating the polaroid instant camera so i think what's

00:13:16.520 interesting is you know the questions have this power the right question has this power to

00:13:22.020 unlock something in our minds or in our imagination that can be really amazing it can do you can do this

00:13:29.940 to you in your own mind you can do this by asking yourself a great question or sometimes you can do it to

00:13:36.400 other people when you put a great question out there it can just trigger something in other

00:13:41.240 people and they'll say wow you know i never thought about that that question before but you know i'm

00:13:46.820 going to think about that that that's that's got me going yeah and the one great thing about those

00:13:51.540 type of questions is that you might not even get the answer you were thinking you would get

00:13:55.460 right if you just go with that that openness it's like you throw it out there and it can go

00:14:00.380 completely somewhere completely different and but it's because of the question yeah well

00:14:04.280 well you know what i what i think of is that the the the greatest questions the most beautiful

00:14:10.180 questions first of all there's no simple answer right you can't look it up on google if it's a

00:14:16.200 really a beautiful question like how am i going to bring about change in this situation or in my life

00:14:20.580 you're not going to find the answer on google you know you have to sort of as i like to say you

00:14:25.940 know you have to do a different kind of search you know google's not going to help you and and i love

00:14:31.600 that i mean i love the idea that that we can we can and we should pursue really ambitious questions

00:14:40.400 that don't have easy answers and we don't know where they're going to lead us you know they may

00:14:45.700 lead us somewhere that's not what we expected that's in a whole different direction than we thought

00:14:51.280 starting out so in your latest book the book of beautiful questions you get really specific and

00:14:57.380 offer suggestions like with specific questions for different facets of our life and um the one

00:15:02.660 section i found really useful and i've been using in my own life since i read this book is the section

00:15:07.680 on you know making using questions to make better decisions yeah well first off like how do people

00:15:13.660 typically let's by decisions let's say we're talking about big decisions like you know not yeah what

00:15:18.920 you can eat what am i gonna eat for breakfast today though you can question that right right but like

00:15:23.000 the things like you know should i you know take that job where i have to move my family right uh how

00:15:29.020 do people typically approach decisions like that that without asking questions that prevent them from

00:15:35.460 exploring different options or even eliminating options right yeah well you know there's this very

00:15:42.580 popular expression of going with your gut right and that's what a lot of people do when they're making

00:15:49.180 decisions they kind of go with their gut instinct and you know there's two schools of thought on that

00:15:54.600 through the years there have been a lot of people that really praise gut instinct and say yeah you know

00:15:59.780 you should trust your gut and go with your gut and you know you remember malcolm gladwell wrote the book

00:16:05.360 blink that was all about amazing decisions people made just in the in the flash of a of a second just

00:16:12.640 based on a gut instinct so there's a whole school of thought that says you know just make gut decisions

00:16:19.300 and it's great but increasingly the research if you look at the the scientific research on this

00:16:25.840 it shows the opposite it shows that if we are making a lot of decisions just based on our gut instinct

00:16:32.760 on what we feel in the moment we're going to make a lot of mistakes we're going to make a lot of bad

00:16:37.540 choices and the reason for that is that we as human beings we tend to have all these biases we have

00:16:43.900 these inherent biases that we're not even aware of and the biases can be things like you know we're

00:16:49.960 biased in terms of short term instead of long term we tend to be much more focused on what's happening

00:16:55.020 right now as opposed to what you know what's down the road we have a bias that's sometimes referred to

00:17:00.960 as the negativity bias where we're biased negative things have a much bigger impact on us in our

00:17:07.220 minds than than positive things and we have a lot of fear so we make decisions sometimes based on fear

00:17:13.480 so the the point is you know you have all these um these biases uh and assumptions and things like

00:17:20.480 that that are going to cause you to make a decision that might not be the best decision so i guess what

00:17:26.880 i'm the the case i'm making in the decision making chapter is that you need to slow down the decision

00:17:35.100 making process a little bit if you can obviously if you have to make a snap decision because of the

00:17:40.480 situation you know then you make a snap decision but if you have time you know take advantage of that

00:17:46.940 and think about your decisions more and one of the ways you can do that is by asking yourself

00:17:52.740 questions and asking other people questions it's one of the ways you can bring more um you know sort of

00:17:59.040 more information into the decision making process and open up more possibilities to choose from more

00:18:06.320 options and it can also help you overcome some of those some of those biases you know just you know

00:18:13.480 like the uh the fear issue when you're making a decision just asking yourself questions like you know

00:18:18.980 okay what scares me about this decision and what excites me about it just asking yourself those

00:18:25.860 questions to identify these these things that are under the surface it'll help a lot or asking a

00:18:32.720 question like you know what what's the worst case scenario here what what's the worst that could happen

00:18:37.880 if i make this decision and what's the best that could happen you know just getting yourself to think

00:18:45.100 about those things will give you more information to help you make the decision yeah one of my favorite

00:18:51.960 questions and i've used this a couple times on people when they've come to me with this question

00:18:55.660 was the one about overcoming the bias of short-term long-term thinking because one of the hard things

00:19:00.740 is that you don't know what your future self is going to like no right exactly um and you're just

00:19:04.860 focusing on what you want now and so one of the questions that i loved was uh you know about whether

00:19:09.740 you should take a job that has a pay raise or whether you should stay where you're at now because it's

00:19:14.580 easy on your family things are good and the question was i believe you kind of invert it you you ask

00:19:19.820 yourself all right let's say you you've already you're already living in that new city you've got that job

00:19:24.460 let's say you get offered to move back home right but with a pay cut would you take that would you

00:19:30.780 take it exactly so what that question is doing and this is the amazing thing you can do with questions

00:19:35.700 you can shift reality you can shift perspective so you can basically say okay i'm trying to answer

00:19:42.540 this question or make this decision based on the here and now but what if i shift things around i think

00:19:48.420 about a year from now or i think about uh i think about it from a different perspective in some way

00:19:54.800 that allows you to just come at the decision a different way so what what uh that that example

00:20:02.080 you cited came from someone who who actually did that he he was you know he was he was facing the

00:20:07.740 prospect of having to make a move and for a job raise or not and what he did when he when he made

00:20:14.600 that little switch and he asked himself the question as if he'd already made the move as if

00:20:20.120 he'd already made the decision and would he regret it would would he go back and take a pay cut to be

00:20:25.640 back home what he was doing there one of the things he was doing with that question was he was overcoming

00:20:32.720 his own fear of moving and change his fear of change basically so what that exposed to him what that

00:20:38.880 revealed to him was that the thing that was keeping him really from taking the job was just a fear of

00:20:45.820 making a change that's all and when he asked the question framed the question as if the change had

00:20:51.720 already been made then it was a no no question at all it's like oh yeah obviously this is what i want

00:20:56.840 so the only thing getting in the way was change and once he realized that then he realized okay

00:21:03.920 i should take the job right because because um i shouldn't let a fear of change stop me from doing

00:21:11.140 what otherwise is clearly the right thing to do so so you know that's what you can do with

00:21:17.500 questioning you can sort of reframe things you can remove certain um constraints just temporarily

00:21:25.520 you know i love the question that's in the book called what would i try to do if i knew i couldn't fail

00:21:32.920 right that's a very popular question right now in silicon valley they love to ask that question

00:21:38.120 so what you're doing with that question is you're temporarily removing the constraint of failure

00:21:45.680 so that you can then think about possibilities in the boldest bravest way and you think okay i don't

00:21:54.020 have to worry about failure anymore i've put that off to the side so what would i do and now all of a

00:21:58.940 sudden you have you start to have very bold ideas you know well if i if i didn't have any fear of

00:22:04.220 failure i would i would do this and i would do that and the reason that's so good is it it just opens up

00:22:11.580 a part of your brain it opens up possibilities that might be ignored otherwise now the important thing

00:22:17.700 to note is after you do that kind of after you think about that question and you you come up with

00:22:23.740 these bold possibilities you still have to go back and understand that failure is a possibility

00:22:31.420 so now you you go back and you you bring failure back into the the equation right you say okay i've

00:22:36.860 thought of all these bold possibilities now i have to realize yeah failure could actually be

00:22:41.620 be an issue here so how would i deal with it if let's say i did fail in this situation what would

00:22:49.380 what would be the worst case scenario how would i recover from that so basically it's it's a really

00:22:56.440 powerful way to to allow yourself kind of the freedom to really think and really consider all

00:23:02.880 the possibilities yeah another powerful question that i got out of the book and i've used it on

00:23:08.520 two people that came to me with some problems was all right if let's say a friend came to you with

00:23:14.360 this exact same problem what would you tell them right like i just that that right that question

00:23:20.020 i guess gives you some mental distance from your problem which allows it's incredible yeah um there's

00:23:26.500 uh the the author dan dan arieli has talked about this and has has showed showed the research

00:23:32.900 that that that that shows that we give better advice to other people than we give to ourselves

00:23:41.000 which is weird right i mean it's like why would that be the case well there are reasons for it you

00:23:46.600 know where it's like you know how sometimes you're too close to a problem to see it clearly you know

00:23:51.500 so that's the way we are with our own lives like we're too close to it to see it clearly but but when

00:23:58.520 our best friend is having a problem that we can see totally clearly right we can see our best friend's

00:24:04.860 situation we know what what's in his best interest and so we're able to make a really great decision

00:24:10.840 for our friend and to say hey i know exactly what you should do but then when it comes to ourselves

00:24:18.000 we have trouble so again here's where you can use a little questioning trick you know just to just to

00:24:24.160 say how would if my best friend were facing this decision that i face what advice would i give how would

00:24:33.360 i advise my best friend to proceed and the chances are whatever advice you would give your best friend

00:24:38.380 is also pretty good advice for yourself i love that and there's so many more questions in that

00:24:43.520 section i love how specific they are let's move on to creativity because with the robots coming after

00:24:50.120 our jobs yeah right uh success in today's economy requires creativity thinking differently yeah but the

00:24:56.880 problem is a lot as you said a lot of adults you know not only they stop questioning asking questions

00:25:01.720 they start thinking themselves as not creative right and i think the same you know things that are going

00:25:06.620 on why adults don't ask questions also goes into why adults think they're they aren't a creative

00:25:11.180 right they're just yeah it's it's it's it's just something we were sort of trained it's been trained

00:25:15.100 out of us just as questioning was kind of trained out of us creativity is is trained out of us not

00:25:22.140 intentionally you know but just the the systems we go through in in school and in in the workplace

00:25:28.480 tend to discourage both questioning and creativity so so i you know i think of creativity is all

00:25:35.880 about asking questions and and and but but one of the things i i say in the creativity chapters

00:25:41.640 let's start with the most basic question of you know am i creative right which is what that's the

00:25:49.060 that's the first question to deal with if you want to unlock your creativity is you got to deal with that

00:25:53.760 that question that people wonder about is gee am i really creative i don't know and the answer to that

00:25:58.680 is yes you are you know we all are and so you almost have to stop asking that question and reframe

00:26:05.960 it a little bit as what are some of the ways i seem to be creative and try to identify that try to

00:26:12.120 identify where you're where your creativity naturally seems to come out or seems to flow and the other

00:26:18.740 questioning you can do around creativity is you know one of the big things i i i talk about in that

00:26:25.440 chapter is that a lot of times creativity is about just finding the right problems to focus and work

00:26:34.400 on you know artists are always trying to do that innovators inventors are always trying to do that

00:26:41.480 they're trying to find that problem that that something that's lacking in the world something that's

00:26:48.200 missing a voice that's not being heard a device that people need and they don't have you know so

00:26:54.580 you're kind of just trying to ask you know what is the what problem can i make my own what problem can

00:27:02.060 i take ownership of and work on and and so that's that's a big question and then in terms of finding

00:27:10.680 that in terms of finding what it is you might want to work on you know you just ask yourself questions

00:27:16.100 like you know what stirs me or what or what bugs me you know what are things i see out there and it

00:27:22.500 drives me crazy i say why hasn't someone done this or or why doesn't anyone ever present this point of

00:27:28.060 view look for the things that that somehow raise your emotions a little bit or or really really

00:27:35.920 engaged and that may be the area where you want to search for a particular that you want to tackle

00:27:41.280 yeah i think you mentioned i think it was david kelly the guy at ideo he keeps like a notebook

00:27:46.540 yeah he keeps like a list like a notebook of like annoyances that come up throughout the day

00:27:50.960 so so when he's walking around every time he finds something noise i'm like you know the the fact that

00:27:56.840 certain kind of doors have to be pulled out instead of pushed in or or whatever um you know he he will

00:28:03.660 he will make a note of that and you know his his company is they're always working on innovations

00:28:10.620 they're always working on new ways of designing things and uh so he's he's just got this long list

00:28:16.680 of things that he thinks could be better designed and and i think all of us can can find things like

00:28:22.760 that now it doesn't mean that we're going to we're going to change every little thing that annoys us

00:28:27.500 but it just means you are you're looking for areas of opportunity and somewhere among that in that long

00:28:35.100 list that you start to compile there may be something that you can actually decide you know

00:28:42.060 what i'm not just going to complain about this i'm going to try to do something i'm going to try to

00:28:46.880 take ownership of this particular problem or this particular challenge we're going to take a quick

00:28:51.680 break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show yeah one thing i've read about

00:28:57.240 creativity is they've done these experiments with kids and adults where they'll you know give them a box

00:29:01.520 of just stuff and the kids end up coming up and they had to like you know solve a problem with

00:29:06.600 just random stuff be like a hammer and a piece of cardboard or paper towel tube and the kids are

00:29:12.020 able to come with a lot more solutions than the adults and they think it's well they say it's because

00:29:16.580 you know when adults see a hammer they think well you just hammer nails with that a kid sees a hammer

00:29:20.600 they don't know that that's not you know encrusted in their brain yet so some other questions would

00:29:25.200 just be question making assumptions about stuff you know or asking questions that challenge the

00:29:30.260 assumptions of everyday life right yeah yeah yeah and you know the other thing that kids are really

00:29:35.860 good at and and um we can all learn from is uh kids kids will just try stuff so they won't think

00:29:42.340 about it they won't they won't like um you know worry and and be paralyzed by what should they try

00:29:49.300 they'll just go ahead and try it so what they're doing there it's interesting they're they're acting

00:29:55.320 on their questions immediately right so they're there's if you could see inside their head you

00:30:01.660 know they're saying what if i try this okay let's try it what if i turn this upside down okay let's

00:30:07.940 turn it upside down so they're constantly questioning but then they're also acting on their questions

00:30:13.020 really quickly and turning them into little experiments and that's one of the reasons why if you give

00:30:18.240 a kid some type of a little building project you know with with you know some funky raw materials you

00:30:24.760 know duct tape and and straws and things like that they're they'll be able to build something much

00:30:30.340 faster than a an mba graduate uh you know would be able to do it because they just are they're just

00:30:38.280 natural born experimenters and they'll start they'll start trying stuff right away so i think of that as a

00:30:44.380 form of questioning too i mean they're they're always in that mode of hey they're always in what if

00:30:49.960 mode you know what if i try this what if i try that so another area you talk about in the book are

00:30:56.020 relationships and questions and relationships and that i think again people don't ask a lot of

00:31:00.740 questions and relationships because questions are scary uh they're afraid of the answers they might

00:31:04.820 find out or they're afraid that the question will come off as too intrusive challenging um but you

00:31:13.000 argue that no questions can actually really strengthen relationships both personally and in business

00:31:18.440 yeah they the it's questioning the questions seem to do three things that are important for

00:31:24.940 relationships they number one they show interest so when you ask a question you're showing interest in

00:31:30.260 the other party number two they create understanding because as you ask questions you get information

00:31:36.020 back you understand more and the third thing is they just they build rapport you know because they

00:31:41.440 they create conversation they generate conversation which in turn builds rapport between the two parties

00:31:47.780 so i think of those as like the three three legs of the relationship stool right the three legs that a 0.97

00:31:56.680 relationship can can be built on and it's it's really interesting because it it matters and it works

00:32:02.800 both with new relationships so people you're just meeting as well as established relationships you know people

00:32:11.300 you might be really close to you know it's it's important in either case if you think about it with a new person

00:32:17.840 yeah you want to show interest yeah you want to create understanding and build rapport that's that's all really

00:32:23.900 important to creating a new relationship with someone but those things are also important with your

00:32:31.380 girlfriend of 10 years or your you know your spouse or your your brother or your your father-in-law or

00:32:37.860 whatever you know it's um it you want to even though you've known that person for a long period of

00:32:45.400 time you still want to show interest you still want to create more understanding and you still want to

00:32:51.540 have that rapport so i think questioning is just it's a really really valuable uh tool for that people

00:32:58.480 worry about it that it's it might be intrusive or something when you ask people questions but it's not

00:33:05.640 really the case um for the most part people are flattered when you ask them questions as long as

00:33:11.400 you ask the questions you know in a in the right way i mean the questions should be coming out of

00:33:16.760 curiosity you know um they should seem somewhat authentic like you really are interested you know if

00:33:23.320 you're asking kind of rote questions that like what's up you know those don't that those those don't have

00:33:30.780 that much power but if you're asking questions that really seem to have really seem to show interest

00:33:35.760 and curiosity generally people love that because hey they they they love that someone's curious about

00:33:42.260 them right well i mean you highlight this arthur aaron i mean i think his like his list of 36 questions

00:33:49.200 you can ask that can possibly lead to love yeah he did he he's been doing these experiments for years

00:33:54.780 he's a he's a uh psychology professor who's who specialized in intimate relationships and whether

00:34:02.180 people could build intimate relationships essentially whether they could fall in love with each other by

00:34:09.160 by talking to each other in certain ways and and one of the things he found was that um asking questions

00:34:16.820 of each other if two people you know are let's say getting together for the first time they're on a date or

00:34:22.180 something and they ask questions of each other it was really really powerful and then he started

00:34:27.920 trying to figure out what kind of questions are the are the best ones and he came up he ended up coming

00:34:32.540 up with 36 questions that were you know they're all about like you know if you could if you could have

00:34:37.940 dinner with anyone in the world who would it be or you know what how would you describe your relationship

00:34:43.280 with your mother and there were these sort of questions that that got at deep beliefs and feelings

00:34:50.080 that a person might have and he found that if two people did this these 36 questions with each other

00:34:57.040 it was pretty amazing by the end of the by the end of the experiment or the question asking session

00:35:03.360 they um they felt very close to one another a few of them actually did fall in love one couple got

00:35:09.760 married after they did his experiment and so but his point was again coming back to that idea that

00:35:15.860 just by showing the interest is is really important and then by creating an understanding

00:35:23.080 you know the questions if they're good questions will help you start to understand this other person

00:35:29.680 on a much much deeper level so i i think it's really valuable um i think guys especially guys can

00:35:36.620 really benefit from this this information because i i think women tend to be pretty good question 1.00

00:35:43.400 askers especially let's say on a date you know women will tend to ask questions but guys a lot of

00:35:50.960 times don't and and i don't i'm not sure i i think it may have to do with guys sometimes feeling like

00:35:57.520 they have to make a good impression on a date and that the way they're going to impress someone

00:36:02.680 is by you know telling stories or telling jokes or or you know whatever just kind of showing

00:36:08.480 showing something about themselves so they tend to forget about asking questions and and so they're

00:36:15.640 missing a really really important thing a really important element that could really help them build

00:36:21.520 a rapport with the other person yeah and one of the insights i got from there is really powerful

00:36:27.040 is like you can start off with those superficial questions that you usually do on a first date like

00:36:30.820 how many brothers and sisters do you have but then you go deeper be like what what made you the most

00:36:36.180 different from your siblings right right exactly yeah the the deeper you can go on questions and um

00:36:42.440 and you know people people worry about deep asking deep questions too soon but you know one of the one

00:36:49.000 of the people i quoted in the book said you know he he believes just jump right into the deep end

00:36:53.640 the deep end of the pool because you know there's there's no point wasting too much time on a lot of

00:37:00.040 surfacy you know shallow questions they're really not going to they're not going to get you that much

00:37:04.880 information but as soon as you start to ask a fairly deep question that really gets at someone's

00:37:12.980 feelings or what makes someone special or different as soon as you start to ask those questions that's

00:37:18.120 when you're going to start to be making a connection with that person and you know i i think most people

00:37:24.960 will welcome it and if someone doesn't welcome it then maybe that's a signal too maybe that means that

00:37:30.560 they're really not that interested in you right yeah and as you said this works for also

00:37:34.760 established relationships like one of the questions i got from the book and i as soon as i read it

00:37:38.440 i was like i asked my wife this question it was uh what's something you've always wanted to try but

00:37:42.960 haven't done yet and she's like that's a great question yeah like we had this great conversation

00:37:47.200 yeah and what's so funny is you know we we assume we know so much about people that have been in

00:37:54.380 our lives for a while and what what you will discover through that kind of questioning is

00:37:59.820 well there's a lot you don't know you know because it just doesn't come up in day-to-day

00:38:04.640 conversation so there's the it's a really great way to you know just to surface things that you

00:38:11.420 probably should be aware of but aren't aware of so uh related to relationship is this you know

00:38:17.780 this idea that we live in an intense time of political polarization yeah do you think questions

00:38:23.000 can bridge the gap between people on different sides of the spectrum well they can help you know

00:38:29.000 i mean right now it's you know it's tough i mean it's tough out there right now there's a feeling of

00:38:35.460 like we're just there's a wall between us and and you're either on one side or the other side and

00:38:40.700 you know it's it's it's a difficult time but i think you know any attempts to reach over that divide

00:38:49.440 are going to have to involve questions they're not going to involve statements statements won't do it

00:38:55.500 you know the problem we have right now is that both sides have their statements they have their ideas

00:39:02.140 they have their beliefs and when they try to communicate with each other the way i envision it

00:39:10.040 is like their statements are butting heads their statements are just banging into each other

00:39:16.180 and nothing good happens nothing good comes of it so by changing those statements to questions

00:39:24.000 we at least have a chance of starting to make a connection again you know going back to that idea

00:39:30.860 of what do questions do when you ask someone else a question number one you're showing interest

00:39:36.400 all right number two you're trying to create some kind of understanding

00:39:39.900 and then number three you're building rapport so we have to show interest in people who are

00:39:47.460 on the other side from us you know we we may be inclined to say i don't care i don't i don't

00:39:52.680 agree with them and therefore i don't care but if there's going to be any progress at all

00:39:57.480 you have to show interest there's a great line that someone in the book used which is lynn

00:40:03.100 nodded she's a playwright and she said i try to replace judgment with curiosity so when you're

00:40:11.820 encountering someone of a different point of view instead of automatically judging them try to bring

00:40:18.560 curiosity into the equation and curiosity would be you know why do they feel the way they feel

00:40:23.300 what what are some of the factors that might be going into that is there anything in their viewpoint

00:40:29.300 that i should think about or i should consider is there something i might be missing that that that

00:40:36.340 they're saying is there something they're not saying that is kind of under the surface so i think if you

00:40:43.180 bring that kind of curiosity to your interactions with other people um people on the other side it's at

00:40:49.740 least a start you know it may work it may not it all depends on how receptive they are to your

00:40:56.040 curiosity but if if they're receptive to it then they may turn around and ask you some questions

00:41:03.680 too you know okay why do you feel the way you feel and at least when you get on to that level

00:41:09.860 of conversation you're starting to exchange information a little bit instead of just

00:41:14.900 lobbing uh you know grenades at each other yeah i think that's a good point to make that you know 1.00

00:41:20.780 you need to go in the mindset that you're not going this isn't going to happen you're not going to

00:41:24.420 convince someone no no absolutely exactly that's a great point because everyone right now is is in

00:41:30.480 that mode of i'm gonna i'm going to beat you up with facts and i have my set of facts here and my set

00:41:37.760 of facts is so strong that there is no way you will be able to resist well sorry that doesn't work

00:41:44.660 we know that doesn't work um when people have made up their mind about something yelling at them

00:41:50.380 and citing a bunch of facts at them unfortunately it doesn't have much impact they kind of have built

00:41:56.660 up a defense against that and they have their counter facts that they will come back at you with

00:42:02.580 so um so you need to get beyond that kind of thing that thing of like i'm going to argue you into

00:42:09.100 my point of view and you need to instead be thinking in terms of okay is there any common ground

00:42:14.860 we can find is there anything we can agree on because that will be the the beginnings of a of

00:42:21.260 a dialogue at least and if there is a goal that you're trying to do through questioning a person of

00:42:27.360 a different point of view it's a very modest goal you just want them to consider your side just a

00:42:37.040 little bit that's all you don't want them to come over to your side you don't want them to accept your

00:42:42.620 side totally but if you can get them to just for a minute think about your side of the of the of the

00:42:49.840 issue that's a victory so that it's a small victory but it's a victory because at that point they've

00:42:55.100 gained a 10 you know they've gained a tiny bit of understanding of your side and and that's that's a

00:43:01.720 good start yeah i mean a question you can ask for that you you mentioned in the book was is there

00:43:05.940 anything about my position that you find attractive exactly that's a very powerful question

00:43:12.240 another way that you know another trick you can use with questioning is uh you know you can say

00:43:17.820 here's my position you know on a scale of of one to one to ten or how much do you disagree with it

00:43:27.160 and how much do you agree with it and the reason that's a really effective question is because

00:43:32.620 if people even if people disagree with your point of view rarely will they put it at the lowest number

00:43:39.140 so they won't say oh i give your your point at your point of view i give a zero i don't usually

00:43:45.840 they'll say well on a scale of one to ten i'll give your point of view maybe a two and then you can

00:43:51.400 say okay why are you giving it a two what is it what is it that that gives it a two instead of a zero

00:43:58.120 and at that point you're forcing them to articulate the positives in your argument you're almost you're

00:44:05.640 almost forcing them to articulate your side of the argument a little bit so again it's a it's a it's

00:44:10.760 just a way to make that little shift of perspective where all you want someone to do is to think about

00:44:17.080 your side just a little bit and by the way you should be doing the same thing with their side i

00:44:21.860 mean it's not fair to think i want them to think about my side of the issue a little bit without also

00:44:28.160 saying i'm willing to think about their side a little bit too yeah that uh one to ten trick that

00:44:34.100 reminded me it's completely unrelated to you know polarization but uh tim ferris we had him on the

00:44:39.040 podcast a while back ago yeah one little trick he had was when he goes to a restaurant and he's

00:44:44.400 asking the waiter you know is is this is this meal good is this dish good he asked on a scale of one

00:44:49.860 to ten uh what would you rank this dish but you can't say seven right because that forces usually

00:44:56.480 people was like oh you know it's a seven that's that doesn't really tell you anything but like if it's

00:45:00.140 nine that means it's really good if it's six oh yeah he's forcing him to sort of make that choice

00:45:04.160 yeah yeah that's interesting yeah yeah so and what he's doing there again is using questioning as a

00:45:09.740 great way to you know kind of manipulate thinking or you know shift thinking a little bit or um you

00:45:17.360 know force a different perspective on there and that's just that's the power of questioning what it

00:45:22.020 all all boils down to is you know what you're trying to do with questioning a lot of times is just

00:45:27.560 shift perspective a little bit you know we all of us tend to have a narrow perspective we're looking

00:45:33.900 at things just through tunnel vision and you know what you want to do is open it up a little bit open

00:45:40.060 up that tunnel vision a little bit so you see more you consider more you take in more information

00:45:46.580 and you have more possibilities to choose from you have more points of view that you're you're

00:45:52.880 considering you want to do all those things and questioning helps you do all those things you

00:45:57.920 know the last section was about leadership leaders need to ask more questions which is counterintuitive

00:46:02.900 because we think of leaders as you know the people that have the answers right the buck stops with me

00:46:08.120 yeah but yeah i think that's yeah why do leaders need to ask questions i think that's kind of the old

00:46:13.300 model of leadership right it's it's uh you know the the idea that the leader has all has all the

00:46:19.260 answers and to some extent that that's still there are still a number of leaders who still operate

00:46:25.720 that way today but i think it's there's a new model of leadership that's that says you know you should

00:46:32.220 be a questioning leader the reason is goes back to sort of what we were talking about at the outset

00:46:38.160 about this sort of changing world we're in now where everything is happening very quickly um change

00:46:44.860 is going on all the time and the idea that a leader can have all the answers is is sort of obsolete you

00:46:53.460 know i mean a leader in today's world should be uh very open to new information should be uh soliciting

00:47:01.760 uh points of view from all around him or her and should just be questioning why are we doing things

00:47:09.620 this way or uh how how should we react to to this new change that's going on a leader today just has

00:47:16.060 to be a questioner has to be curious and has to be open-minded if not what what the leader is going

00:47:23.800 to do is lead lead people off a cliff because what what will happen is the leader will be operating

00:47:30.500 in a very limited with very limited information with a a very sort of biased point of view about what

00:47:38.080 works and what doesn't and it's almost bound to fail in the world we live in today yeah and this

00:47:44.980 is not to say that leaders don't have a vision right leaders have a vision but they ask questions

00:47:50.280 to get to that vision yeah and and they they question that vision constantly as they go along

00:47:57.020 so they ask questions to establish the vision you know starting with what is my vision pretty basic

00:48:03.820 right but you know you do have to you do have to ask yourself that and articulate what do you really

00:48:09.020 believe you know why why are you a leader in the first place why do you want to be a leader and and

00:48:14.360 what are your sort of core values right so you need to ask those questions in the beginning and articulate

00:48:20.800 that vision but then you also need to be questioning that vision as you go along because you know as i was

00:48:29.340 saying it's it's like change is so constant now that the vision that you came up with at the beginning

00:48:36.800 of your venture whatever it is might not hold up as well now as it did a few years ago and maybe it

00:48:47.140 needs to be changed or you or just fine-tuned in some way but um but that's that's one of the things

00:48:55.080 that a leader has to do now is be willing to say okay you know last year i thought this but this year

00:49:03.800 i'm thinking more we should be doing more of this and that's okay that's actually what you should be

00:49:09.580 doing now as a leader you should be totally open to that kind of adaptability based on the change

00:49:15.860 that's going on it doesn't mean you're wishy-washy it doesn't mean you don't have that core vision you

00:49:21.100 can still have that those core values that core vision but it has to be much more adaptable now

00:49:26.700 has to be more flexible you see people leading companies now who are having to ask questions

00:49:33.720 like you know what business are we really in you know like last year we thought we were in the shoe

00:49:39.620 business but now people aren't buying shoes the way they they used to and maybe we need to adjust

00:49:45.340 the model so i think it's it's just become kind of a fact of life for leaders now and it's challenging

00:49:52.200 because it's it's uh it it requires almost a different skill set than leaders are trained

00:49:59.880 and are used to um uh using um you know that that that top-down model of leadership where you're

00:50:08.580 supposed to make snap judgments and then and then execute them it's this is a different skill set this is

00:50:15.220 this is more of the questioning leader is more of has to be someone who's willing to um you know

00:50:20.920 show a little bit of vulnerability which old leaders necessarily weren't used to and didn't like

00:50:26.860 to do you have to show that you have to be willing to admit that you don't have all the answers

00:50:31.220 and that you're open to um to new points of view and you have to be confident enough to do that and

00:50:39.560 believe that people will still follow you right so i guess the question that a leader should

00:50:43.940 constantly be asking is why why are we doing this yeah why are we doing this and uh again what was

00:50:49.520 on a on a personal level why why me why am i why am i leading this organization you know that's that's

00:50:55.860 a pretty basic thing you find a lot of people sort of fall into leadership positions or they or they

00:51:01.960 they climb up to them because it's a natural it's sort of a natural outgrowth of their career

00:51:09.260 advancement they just climb the ladder and eventually they're the leader and then they look

00:51:14.220 around they go whoa this is not necessarily what i wanted so um so i think leaders need to even be

00:51:20.920 asking that basic question of you know why do i want to be a leader do i really want to be leading

00:51:26.620 this group of people and and do i want it for the right reasons because if you don't want it for the

00:51:32.340 right reasons i mean if if the answer to the why question is all kind of selfish if it's like i want

00:51:39.520 to be a leader because it pays more money you know um or there's a lot of glory i'll get on the cover of

00:51:45.640 of a business magazine if you have those kind of selfish uh reasons for leading those are not going to

00:51:52.480 serve you well in terms of your followers that eventually your followers are going to get wise to

00:51:59.760 that and you're not going to have a loyal followers eventually so i think it starts with asking you

00:52:07.500 know why do i want to be a leader do i have the right motivations and then it's it moves to the

00:52:13.600 organization you know what are we about as an organization what should we be about what should

00:52:17.640 we stand for yeah i imagine it's scary to ask that question because the answer could be like well

00:52:21.740 maybe i shouldn't be a leader oh yeah definitely could and there's a lot of people out there who are

00:52:26.180 leaders right now who shouldn't be um you know one of the things that you see in companies is um

00:52:30.820 the star performer often ends up the leader the person who was the greatest salesperson in the

00:52:38.020 history of the company you know ends up being the leader and sometimes what you discover is that

00:52:44.200 really great salesperson probably should have stayed a salesperson because once they become a leader

00:52:50.920 it's a whole different world and now instead of it being all about them and their their individual

00:52:58.120 results or their individual performance now they're suddenly responsible for a whole group of people

00:53:03.940 and as a leader this sounds counterintuitive but in some ways you have to step back and and step away

00:53:13.100 from the spotlight because being a leader is not so much about individual achievement anymore

00:53:18.440 now it's about sharing credit with other people um you know worrying about other people's performance

00:53:25.520 as opposed to just your own so it's a it's an interesting thing and not everyone is cut out for

00:53:30.520 it and i think some some of these star performers at companies it would be nice if they realized that and

00:53:37.440 by the way it would also be nice if organizations figured out ways for those people to still prosper

00:53:43.600 and be very successful without becoming the ceo yeah you see the issue with founders of companies

00:53:49.460 they found they're really good at starting companies but then they want to maintain you know still be ceo

00:53:53.840 but they're not a good ceo they're not a good ceo and if they're smart they will outsource that to

00:53:59.540 someone who is a good ceo and you know some of the smart ones do exactly that i mean they they realize

00:54:05.840 hey i can't handle this i'm going to find someone who knows how to be a leader and i'm going to let

00:54:10.680 that person actually run the company but you know a lot of people there's ego involved there a lot of

00:54:16.760 people i don't know they they feel like they can do anything and they're not honest with themselves

00:54:22.140 about what they really are good at or what they really want to do right it's a bias a curse of

00:54:27.120 expertise like you think you're good at one thing absolutely it's that feeling like i can do it all

00:54:31.260 right well warren this has been a great conversation there's some place people can go to learn

00:54:34.940 more about the books and also maybe place to go find some questions that they can start using today

00:54:39.680 yeah well my my main site that i uh that i use is amorebeautifulquestion.com so just take those

00:54:48.220 four words a more beautiful question and just squish them together into one word and it dot com and

00:54:54.240 and you've got the site that basically has my new book the book of beautiful questions featured on it

00:55:00.740 but it's also got all the articles and essays and things i've written the research the data there's

00:55:07.440 some fun stuff on there like um i i created a list of all the songs i could think of that have a

00:55:13.700 question for a title you know like who wrote the book of love and things like that and i i'm up to i

00:55:19.520 think i don't know 60 or 70 songs now but you know there's all kinds of fun there's those quizzes you

00:55:24.700 can take on what kind of a questioner are you but it's it's basically a clearinghouse for all of my

00:55:30.580 information about questioning and anything that might be related to questioning and so that's the

00:55:37.020 place to go well warren berger thanks for coming on this has been a lot of fun thank you very much

00:55:41.140 i really enjoyed talking to you my guest today was warren berger he's the author of the book the book

00:55:45.640 of beautiful questions available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more

00:55:49.900 information about his book and his work at amorebeautifulquestion.com also check out our show

00:55:54.860 it's at aom.is beautiful question where you find links to resources where you can delve deeper into

00:55:59.860 this topic

00:56:00.400 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:56:16.840 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy the show you've

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00:56:28.460 friend or family member who you would think get something out of it as always thank you for your

00:56:31.880 continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:56:54.680 understand you we're now paying attention you and i'll be freaking out i'll be in high the next night

00:57:06.420 you

The Art of Manliness - December 10, 2018

#465： The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead

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