Defining success, a topic that is recurring a lot to me these days. Seth Godin, a seasonal inspiration, writes this short yet profound idea on measuring systems touching on the feeling we get at times of not fitting in, or not being successful according to faulty system measurement.

I tried to recharge the lithium battery that works with my drill. After twenty minutes, the charger said the battery had failed.

Fortunately, I have a second battery. I put that into the charger and it also showed a failure.

Neither battery had failed. The charger had.

How do you get a group of people collaborating to solve a problem?

The answer to this question is called Collaborative Inquiry, according to Warren Berger in a conversation on The Knowledge Project. It’s the idea of getting people collaborating on answering a particular question together. This is evident in the start-up culture where founders and innovators start with a question or a problem and collaborate together on developing the solution.

In A More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger cites the revelatory questions that inspired a number of successful innovations. These are a few:
What if we could map the DNA of music?
Innovation: Pandora
Why can’t everyone accept credit cards?
Innovation: Square
Why aren’t football players urinating more?
Innovation: Gatorade

Building on yesterday’s frozen thought. Many other related-thoughts started to surface. A particular one came while I was studying the design aspects of lifestyle, a recurring theme was about asking as a designer, what problem am I trying to solve?.

This could go beyond this particular domain into other places, whether personal, in relationships, or business. It encourages the “step back and looking at the big picture” type of thinking, raising the awareness of what actually matters, and what can be done effectively at a given moment.

In the conversation with Warren Berger he talks in his insightful book “A More Beautiful Question” about the concept of changing Mission statements ➙ Mission Questions, and the profound shift in thinking that will happen once a statement becomes a provocative question.

So next time you are heading to start your work, start with this question:

“How might

If we feel like we know something, we are less encouraged to ask questions. Thus, more than ever before, and after listening to this inspiring conversation on The Knowledge Project Podcast, I came to believe even more now, in the power of asking good questions.

While I highly recommend listening to this episode, here are a few key ideas from the episode that reshaped my understanding of questioning and how to improve the quality of it. I would like to share (freeze) them here while attaching my current thoughts to them.

1.

“Questioning is seen as inefficient.”

There is this stigma that started from school and continued into the business world, where questions are seen as inefficient, a waste of time, uncool, and often asked by the nerds or people who want to look like they care. That is true, though, when the quality of the question is poor.

But what makes a good question?

2.

“A

Aristotle thought life was defined by movement. What does not move is dead. What has speed and mobility have more possibilities, more life.

A recent self-check-in question I ask on my review sessions while writing in my black book journal, “What movement have I done today?” that includes physical, and mental.

Development, progress, toward the desired outcomes I look forward to. I then rehearse what Dumpa says:

You have to move.

Dumpa's Way from RAKUDA.

This nugget kept processing in my head from listening to this morning to a great conversation on The Knowledge Project titled – Alive Time vs. Dead Time with Robert Greene here is a summary of this idea.

1

“The greatest power any human can have is the power to ask questions”

Ask questions about yourself – Why do you like what you like? This isn’t something we usually think to ask.
When we do this – “We uncover a little bit of the reality about ourselves, and the power of that is immense”

“Know thy self”

2

Reality is also understanding other people

“You can be married to someone for 30-40 years, and you might not even know them”

“The other people in your life are just projections of your own emotions”

• STOP – think about them, try not to project, try to get inside someone’s skin, and understand things from their point of view
• Then, you’ll be ever so slightly connected to...

The difference between the expert and the average in any field is the speed at which they adapt to reality. – Shane Parrish

It’s amazing how this is more evident to me today than anytime before. Even though “adapting to reality” is not straight forward action, there are many nuances in becoming 1. aware of what is reality because it’s so easy to be sunk in ones delusions or disbelief. 2. having the wisdom to differentiate, when to adapt with such reality or when to resist and fight that change.

Sipping coffee, munching on cheese croissant, while mindlessly checking a stream of social media feed, passing the time, I asked him,

Who do you think is the happiness living being?

I think It’s the one who wants nothing in life.

Do you want to be someone who “wants nothing in life”?

No, I don’t want to be the “happiest”; thus, I want things. But not too many things.

Where does one draw the line for too many?

He munches another bite. And flicks another scroll drawing back into his world.

Every education system rewards duty and tends to encourage us to forget our true desires. After years of school and university, we often can’t conceive of asking ourselves too vigorously what we might in our hearts want to do with our lives; what it might be fun to do with the years that remain. It’s not the way we’ve learned to think. The rule of duty has been the governing ideology for 80% of our time on earth – and it’s become our second nature. We are convinced that a good job is meant to be substantially dull, tedious, and annoying. Why else would someone pay us to do it?

This dutiful way of thinking has high prestige because it sounds like a road to safety in a competitive and alarmingly expensive world. But, in fact, success in the modern economy will generally only go to those who can bring extraordinary dedication and imagination to their labors – and this is only possible...