The Power of Questions & Your Success

I am often asked in my various speaking programs and when working with executives, entrepreneurs and businesses, "What is the single most important factor in success?" This one is an easy answer for me as I believe that the answer permeates all areas of our lives. It is one simple word that most "left brainers" don't think about - "psychology". To put it another way it is our mindset, beliefs and meaning we place on the occurrences in our lives.  We live in two separate worlds every moment of every day - our inner world and our outer world.  Now bear with me for a moment before you think I am going all "woo-woo" on you.  Every result, product, service, company, creation began in someone's inner world as an idea before it ever became a manifestation in the outer world.  Given the fact that there are two separate worlds - which one do you think we have more control over?

Correct - the inner world! Yet many either consciously or unconsciously (mostly unconsciously) choose to give up this control. The result is that people are constantly living at effect where they believe that they have no ability to influence things and that all that has happened is someone else's fault. Now certainly there are things that are truly out of our control and yet we still have the ability to determine the meaning we will give them and how they are going to impact our life. You see the occurrence of an event is simply that an event - the event itself is neither positive nor negative until we place a meaning on it.  This is the reason one child that was abused, sexually mistreated and grew up in a drug ridden violent environment becomes a murderer and another under the same conditions become Oprah Winfrey. Her first six years living in rural poverty with her grandmother, Hattie Mae Lee, who was so poor that she often wore dresses made of potato sacks, for which the local children made fun of her. From age six to 13, she lived in Milwaukee with her mother. She was molested by her cousin, her uncle, and a family friend, starting when she was nine years old. After suffering abuse, rape and molestation, she ran away and was sent to a juvenile detention home at the age of 13, only to be denied admission because all the beds were filled and at 14-years-old gave birth to a son, who died in infancy. Most people under these conditions would never expect a child to become much of anything in life let alone to have the tremendous impact that Oprah has had in our world.

What makes the difference? It is the meaning we give these events in our life and the questions we ask ourselves.  If we choose to focus on the negative and give negative meanings to the events, the result is an unproductive (sometimes called, negative although this places a value judgment on it) perspective and focus.  As we know what we focus on grows, so if we are focused on the negative and negativity continues to grow what kind of life, business are quality of existence can you expect.  Considering that all things happen for a reason and there is always a productive reason for all occurrences, if we find that productive and empowering meaning and focus on that what becomes of our life.  That is the difference between the results Oprah has gotten versus someone else that has been raised under the same or similar circumstances that chose a different much more destructive path to their life.

If we want to shift things in our life, our business, our community and our world, we need to change the questions we are asking ourselves.  The questions we ask ourselves are what formulate your inner world and as a result and byproduct become your outer world. Our unconscious mind will ALWAYS answer the questions posed to it, even if it is an unproductive answer.  In the past, I had made some awful investment decisions and as a result I began to carry the belief that I was not a good investor and that I was meant to lose money in investments. In fact at one point I lost one-third of my total net worth.  The questions I was asking myself during these times included, "Why can't I make good investments?" My unconscious mind was coming back with an answer, "Because you aren't smart enough." or something more crass than that.  Needless to say had I kept my current questions, the results and impact on my life would have been disastrous.  Alternatively, by shifting my focus and questions to more productive ones, such as, "What else does this mean?" or "What can I learn from this? or "What can I do differently based upon what I learned?" and "How can I share these learnings with others?"  Hopefully, you can see how these questions provide a better foundation for growth personally, professionally and financially. Fast forward; to today as a result of this new focus, I have been able to more than recover from the losses previously realized.

How does this relate to you, your business and your life? If we look at what has been going on in our economy and within our businesses as well as where the focus of the media has been, we begin to see questions being asked such as, "When is this going end?" or "How bad is going to get?" or even "Who did this?  From this we nurture a myopic view of our existence to a moment in time where when we view our life through these questions we come up with unproductive answers. In order for us to move from this place to success, we must bring in more expansive thinking, more expansive questions and an expansive attitude.  I believe we are at a great cusp of change not too different from the industrial revolution or information age that is bringing us a tremendous amount of opportunity.  Certainly, life as we know it and business as we know has changed and that is OK. We need to ask ourselves different questions more expansive questions in order to bring the innovative and creative sprit back to this country that created this great nation.

If you have had enough of the questions the press and media are asking how about you as other questions, such as, "What have learned from this?" or "How does this serve me and society?" or "How can best position myself and business to serve the greater needs of my community?" or "How do I utilize my strengths, skills and knowledge to create a new avenue for growth for those around me?"

What questions have you been asking yourself that have not been serving you? Now, what questions are you going to ask yourself from here on out that will serve you and your higher purpose - in business and personally?

Cheers and here is to your success,

Mel

http://www.BusinessSuccessSensei.com

http://www.MelAbraham.com