The Book of Beautiful Questions - #bookperweek2019

What is it about a book that makes it great?

According to Warren Berger, this could be a great example of a "Beautiful Question." A question that invokes a thought or inspiration to take action to do something.

For all of us, questions are something we use daily, but as we grow up, our ability to question becomes faulted. Berger goes into this in great detail in his book as he explores how humans overly trust their "gut" rather than asking key questions to help improve their odds of success.

This single aspect of the book was of great interest to me as I read the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, again earlier this year, which works to prove the opposite of this claim. The data presented in Berger's book, I must say, is very compelling to ask some more questions on the subject on the whole. Which I guess should have been the result coming out of a book helping me learn to ask better questions. LOL!

When I added this book to my reading list, I had mixed feelings about it. I believe now my hesitation on the book was due to all the people I have heard preaching about asking more questions, but never providing the all-important "how" to accomplish asking those questions. After the first four pages of this book, I realized this book had been the how-to book I have been looking for all this time.

No matter what you do in life, this book is something you need to place next to your reading list. I have never closed the cover of a book and immediately opened it back up to begin reviewing all my highlights and notes. Not since my first sales book have I filled a book with as many highlights and notes as I have done in The Book of Beautiful Questions. This book has pushed me to ask new questions to myself and others. It has shown me that through questions and not comments, can we build better bonds and fix things for good.

The ability to ask better questions is something I believe we can all agree is essential. It is something we hear about enough, but as Berger mentions have never been taught to do right. As you open this book, make sure to have a highlighter and pen at the ready. The number of notes you are about to take will be extreme. Another word of warning is to be prepared to read this book at a pace far slower than your average speed. Typically I complete a book in 4-5 days max. Berger's book at only 224 pages would have been a typical four day read that took me ten days to complete. The data was so rich and the ideas thus provoking I needed the time to let them sink in. So make sure to be ready for the extra time here.

To close this summary, I only felt it right to end on a beautiful question from the book. A question that has now swum around in my head every day since I first read it on page 29.

"Am I a soldier or a scout?" A question posed by Julie Galef, cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality. A soldier's job is to protect and defend against the enemy, whereas the scout's job is to seek out and understand.

To Your Success & Prosperity,

Michael McMillan