What's YOUR Dominant Question?

When Jim Kwik was in kindergarten, he was in an accident and sustained a traumatic brain injury. His teacher in New York described him as “the boy with the broken brain.” He struggled at school with focus, memory, and concentration. “I sought refuge in comic books, especially the X-Men because they were misunderstood and didn’t fit in. I could relate.”

After scraping into college but on the verge of failing out, a mentor introduced him to strategies that could help him learn how to learn. It changed his life. At the age of 28, he founded Kwik Learning which has gone onto help students with accelerated learning programs in 195 countries. He has coached celebrities like Will Smith and Simon Sinek and helped teams at Google, SpaceX, and Nike. It’s easy to understand where his purpose and passion came from!

The reason I share this is because when he works with entrepreneurs, he likes to challenge them with this: What’s your dominant question?

You may not know your answer right away but it’s something you ask yourself many times each day – usually subconsciously on autopilot – and it has an 80-20 Law impact on your outcomes.

Jason Feifer shares an interview he did with Kwik in his new book Build for Tomorrow. In it, Kwik tells about a friend that he took through this exercise. They discovered that her dominant question was: “How do I get people to like me?” This revealed all kinds of unhelpful behaviors she had that undermined her best interests because she was too concerned what others thought of her.

Feifer shares that the question he asks himself most is: “What am I missing?” which as a writer and editor makes plenty of sense given that he’s usually working on stories to publish and doesn't want to overlook a key point. However, Feifer admits he also uses it in his personal life to his detriment since it tends to lead him to wishing he was somewhere else doing something ‘better’. Kwik agrees: “I think every dominant question has benefits and drawbacks.”

As much as I don’t want to out myself and wish I could wow you all with how empowering and stunning my dominant question is, I cringe to share that it’s: “Why don’t I have enough money?” In my defence, I got hardwired as a child in a very scarcity-mindset household. My parents experienced government rationing until they were 20 during and after World War 2. I expect I learned their dominant question and have been fighting it for over 20 years. And it is somewhat perverse since I’m making over ten times what my 29-year-old schoolteacher self did. It’s also perverse because it suggests I am money-centric when on the contrary I love my purpose and vocation in life and have always been driven by a strong desire to help others long before I went into business.

But there are serious flaws to asking negatively worded questions: our brains feel obligated to come up with an answer. If you keep asking yourself: “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so slow to understand this? Why can’t I be more patient with my kids?” – your brain will tell you in no uncertain terms something thoroughly uncomplimentary: “You’re no good at this! You’re not very bright! You’re a bad parent!”

Why do you want to figure out your dominant question?

It impacts what you focus on. Kwik does say that all questions have some benefits. Pain can drive us to action (look at his life trajectory!) but I’m still inclined to believe that when you live life this way, it’s always a grind and seldom enjoyable. But his primary advice is to word your question in the positive. Two of Kwik’s favorite dominant questions are:

How can I use this?

Why must I use thiis?

How do you identify your dominant question?

Kwik notes that it tends to show up when you are stressed. He recommends journaling – writing down questions you notice coming up in your head repetitively. Start with thoughts, worries and aspirations in the morning. At some point your self-awareness will rise to the surface and you will see a common theme. My guess is that if you’re reading this, you’ve accomplished plenty in your life and I believe likely have some positive dominant questions. I’m deeply motivated to learn new things and feel listless quite quickly when I’m not, so I know I also have empowered questions that I ask myself too.

Clarify and likely upgrade your dominant question so it can speed up your progress.

If you want to BE MORE in your life, you need purpose to push yourself. Take what you believe is your dominant question and rewrite it into something that prompts an empowered answer that gets you into empowered action and confronting old limiting ways of thinking and being. I shifted my miserable, fear-based: “Why don’t I have enough money?” into “How can I be self-reliant to access my life purpose?” I’d love your feedback and answers to how I can do this better!

To feeding your brain a powerful dominant question!

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2024