You Didn’t Ask.
By: David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

When I was young and in school, I rarely asked questions. Consequently, unless someone else asked the questions I had, I never got the answers. Thank goodness, I didn’t go to a school with small classes. I bet that’s the first time you ever heard someone say that. I was afraid of looking stupid, so I seldom got the answers I needed because I never asked the question. I had never heard the old Chinese proverb that says, “He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who never asks is a fool for a lifetime.”  I was a fool because I was more afraid of looking foolish than actually being foolish. Thankfully, as I got older it became easier to ask questions, but it still is a struggle that I face almost daily.

Questions are one of the greatest ways to grow. Think about how much you can learn when you Google something. We ask questions so often that we have turned a company name into a verb. Googling something is safe because only Google, Apple, and the NSA really know what we are asking. Or at least we think that is all that know.  Asking questions is the great differentiator between those who are highly successful and those who are not. The reason is quite simple; you don’t get any answers to the questions you don’t ask. If you don’t ask questions, you will never get any answers. If you don’t get any answers, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn, you don’t grow. If you don’t grow, you will never succeed. Are you letting pride get in the way of your success?

Determining the right questions is also important.  Albert Einstein put it this way, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” It is important that the questions you ask are well thought out. Here are some simple questions that can stimulate your questioning: What is the problem? In what area of my life am I facing challenges? Who can speak into my life at this time? How can I gain access to them? Once you get to the point where questions are your friends, you are well on your way to significant growth.

Please join Marisa and me on The Next Page podcast as we discuss what questions to ask and where we can get the answers.

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