There’s a great scene in the movie “The Hunt for Red October”, a submarine action flick from 1990.

The Red October is running from the Russians and while everyone is chasing the submarine…the following dialog takes place:

Captain Davenport: They’re pinging away with their active sonar like they’re looking for something, but nobody’s listening.
Jack Ryan: What do you mean?
Captain Davenport: Well, they’re moving at almost forty knots. At that speed, they could run right over my daughter’s stereo and not hear it.

The scene resolves with Jack Ryan understanding that the Russians are actually not looking for the submarine, they are trying to drive it somewhere where they can destroy it.

The world today is operating a lot like that scene…

Everyone’s blaring about something.

Social media is alive with e-cards, pictures, boo-hoo and look-at-me statements, a veritable wall of “me first” noise. Everyone’s talking, very few are actually listening…and in the tidal wave of “me” noise, something critical has gotten lost: our attention.

When it’s all about you, I have to stop caring. Relationship (social media or otherwise) are built on give and take by both parties. And there’s an epidemic of taking today. Ironically, by making “me” noise begging for attention, we’re driving away those who we’re actually trying to get the attention from.

We can reverse this trend by asking questions of others.

When we ask questions — we are inviting the other person to be valued.
When we ask questions — we show interest in the other person, not in ourselves.
When we ask questions — the relationship deepens and meaningful dialog surfaces.

Questions that build relationships are focused on the “other” and not “me”. These kinds of questions invite the “other” to share who they really are: their passions, dreams, desires, successes and failures.

They are powerful questions. Take the glossy “weather” and “what you do” questions and throw them away. Ask the kinds of questions that challenge the relationship to be real.

Because in the end, we all want to be real with someone who cares about us. Someone who listens, who asks us meaningful questions and celebrates us for who we really are.

Who can you start asking questions of today?

This post originally appeared on John’s Blog at johndregan.info

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