Why Should You Ask Questions: Ask Them Methodically To Get More And Better Answers
Because asking questions makes you smarter. Within reasonable limits, of course, the more questions you ask, and the smarter way you ask, the more you gain. A lack of question-asking ability can severely limit your thinking and overall growth as a person and a professional. It can even have devastating consequences.
Let's start with my case, why I propagate and stress the asking of questions, and what good the good habit of asking good questions can do for us.
Where am I coming from?
I am now generally a lazy bum. You can label me as having a lazy brain and a lazy body.
When I was a kid, an adolescent, and later a young man, I was mostly hyperactive.
I grew up in on-and-off challenging circumstances. Especially financially. Sometimes we had money and often there wasn't much inventory at my father's shop; so money was a bit scarce. But my father was a good provider despite his inconsistent business. My mother was very caring. And an overworked housewife because we were eight brothers and sisters.
The things going for me in my formative years were good parents and teachers, a decent school, some dormant ambition, an incorrigible obstinacy (I consider it an advantage), and a certain selective teachability.
I studied regularly in school, attended my classes, and passed my exams with good marks.
This teachability reduced with growing up more due to my truancy from college, an unwillingness to apply my brain to harder learning (ah! mental laziness), and a memory that remembered some things and completely forgot others, particularly some of the stuff I read. This was all due to lack of serious application to my education.
I had a good 'overnight' memory. In college, I mostly studied at night, regurgitated what I had studied the night before in the exams that I took the next day. And, generally passed the written exams with low marks in college.
Most of the verbal exams were passed with a different technique.
My name starts with an 'R', so I had to wait long before my turn came and by then I had enough time to learn the answers to most of the questions being asked by the examiner. The result: I passed my oral exams with flying colors.
In academic terms, I was till my first degree, which was a graduate degree in electrical engineering, considered an overachiever. I studied a bit more for my Master of nuclear technology degree. I also did an elementary German language course and a few MBA courses. My test score for English as a foreign language was high.
Based on my 'achievements', I was able to get a research assistantship to study in the USA. My undeserving ambition was to do a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and an MBA in the USA.
I curtailed it later to a second master's degree in electrical and nuclear engineering when I started approaching burnout. Soon, I capitulated under the pressure of my first anticipated major academic failure.
I fully realized then that my engineering qualifications lacked substance.
I hadn't learned in much depth. Wrong study habits.
This lack of depth and comprehensive comprehension also caused me much strain in my first and only full-time engineering job. I constantly felt like an impostor.
I felt the same fulfilling my teaching assistant duties in my graduate studies.
I held two halftime assistantships, a research, and a teaching, and also did occasional work for my nuclear engineering advisor. Plus, there were graduate courses.
The workload combined with the stress of the impostor syndrome, and some problems with my organization at home from which I was on leave, all contributed to my breakdown and failure to complete my graduate thesis and a second degree in the USA.
I couldn't ask the questions. I never asked for anybody's help and turned down offers from both my advisors for getting me counseling help. I was paranoid.
And all this added up to all else that was going on in my head and drove me mad.
I had to suffer very deeply for 30 years before I became consistently functional again, 'partly' (why partly?, Read my half-life autobiography mentioned below) due to the advent and prescription of new and better psychiatric medicines.
I am still a difficult person to live with. But isn't it so for everyone?
The Reason For My Two Blogs
Now you know who's talking.
Do I have some basis to talk about the topics I am talking about? Asking questions, self-development, and mental health. I would also suggest that you all also consciously and constantly learn about learning for obvious reasons.
As I have mentioned before, I have another blog newlifeafter70.blogspot.com in which I am currently serializing my half-life autobiography Deluded Nuker… which is about losing and regaining mental control.
Later, after the serialization is over, I intend to write about other aspects of living a new life after 70. The senior years have their particular challenges: how to meet them and live a better life will be the subject then.
In contrast, in this super you blog, I will occasionally write about the care young people can provide to their old parents and other elders in the family.
I will also periodically write about how the target readers (15 to 35 years old) can maintain their well-being.
The e-commerce part will be the Amazon affiliate marketing part which will become a part somewhat later.
Deciding on my purpose and this niche
At different stages, you should evaluate your life lived till then and decide what to do next. Whether you need to alter course or proceed along the same trek. I realized I was a lost person, and most of all needed to find my purpose and niche.
Then there was the trial and error to find my definite purpose and niche. This took lazy, confused, and inconsistent me another ten years.
I hope you have asked yourself the 1 +11 guidance questions mentioned in the second post of this blog thesuperyou.blogspot.com.
There are many articles on Google and blogs on this subject that you can read, but don't waste any more time if you haven't definitely decided on a purpose and a plan for yourself.
The purpose should be decided with much thought and deep consideration.
The plan can be adjusted, even redesigned, but the purpose is to be definite.
Also, the profession you want while you pursue your definite purpose needs to be decided after much consultation and evaluation.
Remember, you have to take full responsibility for your decisions.
When I was 70, I realized that writing, however inadequate my skill, was my niche. Otherwise, I couldn't have published two poetry books and a half-life autobiography in the condition I was in. I request you to read my books, you will learn quite a few important lessons. Although they recount my misery, they do so in a creative, interesting, and very readable way. Defeats, even if they are of others, are a greater teacher than victories. And when one writes a book about their defeats, there is some analysis, too, which is a good aid.
The books mentioned in the first blog post are listed here again for your convenience:
Musical Words For Singing Birds by Rashid Sultan
Love, Happenings, Discoveries by Rashid Sultan
Deluded Nuker: A True Story Of Total Failure, Faltering Reconstruction And Deep Transformation: Autobiography Of Half My Life by S. O. Sajan. I used the pseudonym S. O. Sajan to publish Deluded Nuker…
The first two are simple poetry books telling mostly the stories of my failed love quest.
The third book, my 'half-life' autobiography, tells you why I lost my head and what it took to get it back.
Realizing that I had to write to provide meaning in my recovering life I started my blog newlifeafter70.blogspot.com in which I am serializing my half-life autobiography Deluded Nuker… Later, after the book is completely serialized, I will move to topics that more directly address the new life after 70 part.
In the book Deluded Nuker… I mentioned my long-time ambition to write a self-help book. My autobiography was written partly to help motivate others facing challenges in life. So I started to motivate and equip people with this blog thesuperyou.blogspot.com.
This practice of helping others, while learning and helping myself is part of my Definite Purpose.
If time, health, and interest (mine and readers) allow, I plan to help at least 10,000 readers become better versions of themselves. The test of success will be when their family members, friends, and colleagues begin to acknowledge that each of them is the super you.
Furthermore, I have realized that until you truly imbibe the spirit of inquiry, it's hard to develop actively. Hence, I started the posts with the topics about asking questions.
Asking Questions has been a particularly weak area of mine so I realized there must be others who needed corroboration that they were not alone in this weakness.
Other than in my studies, I also suffered due to my inability to ask the right questions proactively in my nearly twenty years as a part of our small family business. My duties also involved selling.
To be successful in buying and selling you have to ask questions actively. I was, and still am, timid about prying a customer's intent.
And, so I wasn't a successful salesperson. I used to wait for the buyer to volunteer information that I could use to consolidate and close a sale.
But, do keep in mind I had a disconcerting incessant dialogue going on in my head due to the ailment.
So this business was another opportunity not fully taken advantage of!
What has been my handicap, I don't want any of you to have. I am especially talking to my target readers, the 15 to 35 years young folks. At your age, it is much easier to overcome any handicaps and develop new strengths and skills.
I hope you are now convinced Why Should You Ask Questions: Ask Them Methodically To Get More And Better Answers.
The Methodical Questions Continued…
Now, let's get on with a few more of the 11 categories of which we have defined the first four.
Here, once again, are the 11 categories for instant reference:
"Diagnostic Questions
Strategic Questions
Empathetic Questions
Bridging Questions
Confrontational Questions
Creative Questions
Mission Questions
Scientific Questions
Interview Questions
Entertaining Questions
Legacy Questions"
"Confrontational Questions"
Confrontational questions are a major part of accountability. They are used to directly place responsibility for wrongful acts by anybody, but most prominently in public affairs.
Often in everyday life, you have to confront someone with questions when they have done something wrong and you need an admission or to put it on record with an accusation. The accused may or may not admit to the accusation. But the question, and whatever the answer, brings the matter on the record.
This may be required when your children have done something wrong. Or, somebody else's unethical behavior needs to be acknowledged or admitted by them or they may need to be put on the defensive for public knowledge as is done by journalists and media interviewers.
Sesno, in the chapter on confrontational questions in his book Ask More, cites quite a few examples of confronting authority figures with these questions.
Encounters with people like Trump, Arafat, and disgraced famous cyclist Armstrong among others have been included.
When you pursue an accusative line of inquiry such as with politicians, salespersons, students, or employees, they may employ evasive tactics and even fib answers. Be prepared for such responses and display stubborn persistence in your questioning.
Confrontational questions as tactics are often used by trial lawyers in courts.
Remember, you want to hold the person you are accusing accountable. Use close-ended questions that permit yes-no answers. Avoid open-ended questions to circumvent sidestepping and attempts to put you off-track.
Don't let the confronted person fool you by slipping into a speech. Be on the lookout for flaws or discrepancies in answers, and question their evasion tactics. Insist on your line of inquiry, and question again and again.
Don't just shoot off questions, target them accurately without causing unnecessary friction. Be positive that your questions are precise and will have the desired impact.
Active or deep listening to answers is a must as with answers to all types of questions.
The environment in which you ask confrontational questions, the tone, and the method you use matter a lot.
Also, when you ask such questions, consider beforehand the cost to your reputation and the cost to your future relationship with the person you are confronting intending to make them accountable in public or in private. Be sure it will cost you.
"Creative Questions"
Now, I am going to talk about creative questions. Creative questions, according to Sesno, transport you into the future. They change your mental state. The limitations and constraints on the flight of your imagination are removed, thus liberating your creativity. You get into a new reality where the "impossible becomes possible."
Differing viewpoints find common ground when you explore using creative questions, and coalesce.
Creativity questions catalyze collaboration causing Big Things to happen.
Two friends frustrated with San Francisco's inconvenient taxi service asked the question, "How they could travel like chauffeur-driven millionaires", and came up with a solution---Uber. It is now a multibillion-dollar company in tens of countries where people travel in comfort and convenience in the 'shared service' of Uber taxis.
"Possibility thinking" is enabled by asking creative questions which transport you to a new world. The author cites the example of America's moonshot in 1969 in response to Russian Gagarin's space travel in 1961—perceived as a challenge to the American nation by President Kennedy.
The way to go about such stupendous feats as well as great ambitions on a more earthly level as in the case of individuals and groups is this: Picture the future in the present and describe it. You can now start striving to achieve the anticipated future. But first, decide your Why.
There is never any surety that you or your team will realize that future. But gradually adding detail to the initial picture you can assign tasks and roles to your team members and determine what needs to be done by each individual.
How will you measure your progress and the costs? Step by step you can move toward your goal. But your steps and your movement will be more surely guided as you all know where you are headed. And you will always have the picture of your destination in your sights.
Frank Sesno further illustrates the key role questions asked by different people either of themselves or by another person played in their individual life or on a larger canvas like a state or the country. He uses the examples of a cop turned Hollywood filmmaker, a publisher of magazines, and two state governors.
A desired future can be visualized and hence achieved by starting with creative questions.
Conclusion:
I have told you where I am coming from and why I am writing this blog thesuperyou.blogspot.com
and my other blog newlifeafter70.blogspot.com. I have told you the names of the books I have written which are also related to my blog topics. In these books, I have tried to inform the readers what caused me serious troubles and how I am recovering.
I have also so far explained part of what Frank Sesno has taught us about asking questions, dividing them into 11 very well-defined and methodical categories, in his book Ask More… When we follow this, and other such books, we can master the art of asking the right questions at the right time. And this skill can enable us to reach places we desire.
I have in this blog post included my summarization of confrontational questions and creative questions.
Confrontational questions are a major part of accountability. They are used to directly place responsibility for wrongful acts by anybody, but most prominently in public affairs.
Creative questions transport you into the future. They change your mental state. The limitations and constraints on the flight of your imagination are removed, thus liberating your creativity. You get into a new reality where the "impossible becomes possible."
Next Week...
I will explain two more of the remaining categories of questions.
The Ritual:
Please comment on my effort. I need your criticism as well as a pat on the back for anything I have improved in doing.