Tag Archives: Questions

Is there a better way?

Seek not, and ye shalln’t find. ✎ By Wayne K. Spear

I have a Post-It Note fixed to my desk, next to my keyboard. On it are written the words “IS THERE A BETTER WAY?”

I realize how this must look—like I’m at my rope’s end.

But I’m not saying “there’s got to be a better way.” There doesn’t. Everything in my world might be as good as it could ever be, and if that’s so I’m fine with it.

My life is good, after all.

Asking “is there a better way?” is not about hating how things are, or wishing they were better. It’s about cultivating an inquisitive, active mind.

A mind that is alert to the better way to open doors, to take notes, to eat food, to keep up with friends, to learn, to do laundry, to write a book, to build relationships, to find joy, to make a home, to be idle.

I’ve become an enthusiast of simplicity. Often, the better way is a more simple way. If I can do something in three steps and five minutes that yesterday took me five steps and fifteen, I’d say that’s a better way.

What I’m describing is the cultivation of an active mental discipline. Everything in our world works against it: gravity, habit, human laziness, fear, vested political interests, tradition, experts.

We probably will never find something we haven’t decided to look for. Seek, and ye shall find; don’t seek, and ye shalln’t.

Is donating the bulk of your material possessions to charity a better way? Or dropping out of school? Maybe it’s making less money and having more joy, or stopping everything you’re doing right now, to instead relax and take stock of your blessings.

I don’t know, and maybe neither do you. And the reason is probably because we’ve never decided we want to know.

What we do know are the things we never even asked to know—the conventional ways of thinking and doing:

– Follow the rules
– Go to school
– Get a job
– Work
– Retire
– Die

Is there a better way? The question doesn’t seem quite so weird when you consider the alternatives.

Becoming a Question Machine

Questions matter more than answers. If you have the right answers to the wrong questions, you have wrong answers. We’ve all had this kind of wrong answer.

I know I have.

According to James Altucher, action is a subset of an idea. Ideas matter. Maybe that’s why Altucher recommends we become Idea Machines.

I recommend that we become Question Machines, by asking ourselves:

What are my right questions?

My right questions are not your right questions. We are all at the unique intersection of a time and a place.

There are, however, universal questions. A universal question is a question you can ask anyone—a question that is relevant everywhere and at all times:

– What are your regrets?
– What gets you out of bed in the morning?
– What do you think about death?
– You have a time machine. Where are you going?

Today I am giving you my right questions. They also happen to be Bernadette Jiwa’s questions.  I used them to build my business, and it transformed how I thought about my work, and my life.

I was so impressed with the power of these questions that I now use them with my clients, to help them achieve focus in their business.

The results are always powerful.

Bernadette calls this the Difference Map. If you like this, please show her some love.

Today I Answer Questions from My Blog’s Spam Folder

Boo-the-dog-Sleepy
Letters, oh I get letters. But mooostly I get SPAM. Lots of thousands of hundreds of lots of spam. So, you know, when life hands you a blog folder choc-full-o’ lemons, what do you do? You make artisan organic gluten-free Lemon Spamade! Cos that’s the ri-dic-u-lous kind of society that we’ve become! (Kidding.)

K!—time for the spam questions, peoples.

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