What's your dominant question?

“What’s your dominant question?”

That’s what world-renowned brain coach Jim Kwik asks his clients. What’s he talking about? A dominant question is the question we keep asking ourselves throughout our day. We may be aware of our dominant question, but Kwik says it’s there inside all of us, shaping our thoughts and driving our obsessions.

If we want to be best equipped to build great things and embrace the future, it’s important to know what our question is… and if need be, change it.

I spoke to Jim for Entrepreneur’s June issue cover story, which you can read in full. You can also join Jim and me for a free webinar on Tuesday, June 15, where we’ll talk about how to learn faster. But here, I want to zoom in on one element of his advice — the dominant question — because I found it a useful way to understand what drives us.

It also helped me clarify my own dominant question, which I’ll share at the end.

First, why do we have a dominant question?

Consider it your filtering mechanism.

Kwik describes our brains as “primarily a deletion machine,” because its job is to filter out information so that we’re not distracted by every little thing around us. “The only things that come through that filter,” he says, “are the things that are important to us, that are charged by the questions we ask. Because ask and you shall receive. You ask and it directs your focus.”

This can work for or against us. For example, Jim once helped a friend identify her question — and it was, “How do I get people to like me?” This helped explain why she was self-deprecating and easy to take advantage of. In seeking people’s approval, she was undercutting herself.

The actor Will Smith, on the other hand, has a powerful dominant question. When Jim worked with Will, they realized that his question was, “How do I make this moment magical?” That drives Smith towards constant and empowering action — entertaining friends and family, making everyone feel welcome.

So how do we identify our question?

When you’re feeling stressed, Jim says, start journaling your thoughts. Then pay attention to the things you think and tell yourself throughout the day. Look for patterns. Your question will emerge.

If your dominant question isn’t helpful, you can upgrade it — but that takes time and dedication. First, you need a new question to program into your brain. Jim offers one to start: You could constantly ask yourself, “How can I use this?” (Imagine how useful everything becomes!) Next, you need to bang that question into you brain.

“One way is through repetition,” Kwik says, “and the other way is having external triggers.”

Some people put a question on their phone’s lock screen, and then set a sporadic timer to remind them to look at it. Others will write it on Post-It Notes and stick it on their walls. Either way, the point is to constantly remind yourself of a new narrative — and to then engage with it. Don’t just read the question. Ask the question! Ask it about whatever’s in front of you, during whatever situation you’re in. Ask it until it dominates your thoughts.

As Kwik explained all of this, I wondered what my own dominant question is. Then I came up with an answer:

My question is, “What am I missing?”

This was trained into me as a journalist—to always be looking for more information, or to seek out whatever someone isn’t telling me. But the question has come to dominate my perspective in life too. As I’ve built my brand and business, I’ve looked endlessly for new opportunities rather than be content with the ones I have. Whenever I write, I pause to explore what information I hadn’t considered, and whether it’s better than the material I already have. If a friend or colleague becomes difficult to reach, I don’t get offended; I instead wonder what’s going on in their lives that I don’t know about.

I asked Jim what he thought of my question. “I think every dominant question has benefits and drawbacks,” he said. “Asking ‘what am I missing’ helps you see things other people don't see and uncover and discover things that other people don't find. But some people could ask themselves that question and feel that they're missing out on something, and feel an exacerbation of FOMO.”

He’s right—I do feel that too. I regularly, for example, drive my wife crazy by insisting we stay out with friends long after she’d rather go to bed. But that notwithstanding, I think this question is a net positive. It’s driven me to think in non-obvious ways. Why, for example, am I not satisfied just being editor in chief of Entrepreneur, but am instead also making podcasts, writing a book, writing this newsletter, developing TV, and doing a bunch of other things? Because I cannot stop asking myself, “What am I missing?”

If we want to build for tomorrow, we can’t simply push ourselves forward. Pushing needs a purpose. We need to dig deeper into the foundational question we ask ourselves. We need to fix the filter we’ve set up for our lives. Because once we’re asking the right questions, we’re more open to challenging and complicated answers.

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