My name is Lama and I don’t know how to ask good questions.

Asking questions opens possibilities, asking more focused questions gives you a better chance in achieving them.

I've been reading a lot about how to harness this skill, and here's what I've learned:

Prepare

Before an intended meeting or impending conversation, try to spend some time thinking about the parameters of this exchange. First thing to understand is what you need from it. The questions to investigate this line of thought can snowball after the starting point. I say snowball, because you start with a simple WH question, and keep adding words to form sentences, to narrow focus, to build upon existing knowledge and marked assumptions.?

Assumptions are a big one. You need to identify every assumption and turn it into a question. Once you’ve mastered this skill, interactions in every aspect of your life will become significantly smoother. This is such an important point, I’m moving it to its own section.

Identify assumptions, and turn them to questions

Assumptions, the self imposed wardens and walls. Don’t let presumed obstacles stop you, proceed until stopped. Once stopped, pivot to the next turn. Maybe they’re not dead ends. Maybe the paths are further, smaller, less clearer than what you’d expect. Maybe it’s not a dead end, but there’s a door that needs forcing a way into. Assumptions are any pieces of especially unverified information that are capable of weighing us down from healthy progress (a great source of insecurity, too). And even when you have a piece of information with power to stop you, after all, this is only a piece, making further investigations and questions necessary.

One question is not enough

If the first question doesn’t specify enough (it likely won’t), keep going, build more around it, trap your target in like a shark circles its prey, but be disarming about it. *JAWS music starts playing*. But no, just scare them with your friendliness, charm them with your big, sharp, pointy, toothy smile.?

This strategy isn’t exclusive to conversations with others, but most importantly applied to questions towards oneself. Use this to understand yourself, intentions and goals better. Everything is questionable.?

Be Bold

I grew up in a conservative environment where questions were considered an attack on privacy, curiosity dissuaded and discouraged, where a silently willing recipient is a more tolerable company. “Listen and don’t interrupt, what I say goes”, “ Don’t question your elders”, “Don’t make people uncomfortable with your questions”, “No one likes nosy people”, “Mind your own business”, etc. All valid, but need to be provided with context, rather than blanket-statement it into everything you do. I only realized recently how conscious I was about asking questions so I don’t trespass on people’s privacy. Of course this is a result of so many assumptions I’ve made myself to believe. Now, I’m trying to re-train myself into “Ask first, apologize later”. If someone isn’t comfortable answering a question, then they can say so, and there you can pivot into asking about it a different way, from a safer distance, or change subjects if you’re not too eager about its answer.?

A story

As I write this, I am seated in a cafe, on a high table facing a two-storey wall of glass windows. Across from me sat a family with a dog. The dog is tied to a leash, the leash to the table. The dog didn’t just sit alongside them giving in to the fact that it is on leash and therefore cannot go far, no, it started exploring all that’s around it within its allowed perimeter, and once it spotted something worth chasing, it did so with unstoppable force that moved tables - screechingly.

Conclusion of this story: we perceive the lesson learned from whatever’s encountered, the closest reasoning to any preconception already wandering our thoughts.

Question form of this conclusion: why do we attribute so much meaning to randomly encountered situations?

Build on it: why do we seek to reinforce preconceptions with assumed meaning derived from random encounters?

Assumed answer: brain prefers grounding information through storytelling.

Questioning resumed: How can we see more than what we want to see?

Proposed answer in a question format: what if we attach a disclaimer to all assumptions/ information digested labeling them as “one part of a multifaceted explanation”, so all that we mentally consume is predeterminedly incomplete? Thus leaving room for growth, expansion, reiteration, and restructuring.?

Next steps: keep refining the questions, keep asking. How many more applications can this be extended to?

When should the questions stop?

Should they?