The Most Powerful Question

Have you ever had an experience of “Why didn’t I think of that before?” You’re struggling to solve a problem and suddenly you stumble into the obvious answer. You say, “How did this not occur to me?”

When you feel stuck and you can’t think of the right answer, it may be that you’ve skipped a step. Work first on asking the right kind of question.

We all want answers.

They do exist. But before we can understand them, we must learn to give more value to the questions.

Questions are powerful because they keep our eyes open. They keep us searching. The quality of one’s questions makes all the difference between dullness and insight.

The Most Powerful Question

This question is a question generator, a way of discovering better questions. It goes like this:

“What questions have I not yet thought to ask?”

Turn this one question into a habit and it will serve you greatly. It reveals blind spots and broadens your horizon of thought.

Here’s how I’ve been using the question lately:

Having worked hard to discover and refine my own ideology, I’m trying to propel my ideas into wider discussion. I know what I believe about Scripture, philosophy, and Christian life; now I want to help others discover it. So I’ve been asking how to change the world.

But the future still appears as a partially blank page.

I don’t know of any good strategy-guides for how to change a culture. I need a plan. I have needed to invent it.

Mainly, I have done this by asking the Most Powerful Question over and over, and then by taking action.

Tell me about your project right now… What questions have you not yet thought to ask?

Originally published at www.codylibolt.com on February 20, 2015.
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