The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish #26 Warren Berger: Improving The Questions You Ask
Create Mode vs. React Mode
- Separate your day into online and offline blocks to enhance creativity.
- Create a "cave" free from internet distractions for focused creative work.
Manager's Schedule vs. Creator's Schedule
- People operate on either a manager's schedule or a creator's schedule.
- Creators need large, uninterrupted blocks of time for focused work.
Regaining Focus
- When you lose focus, take short breaks like walking around.
- Return to your work and commit to a specific time block, as things often start clicking midway through.
Through asking the right questions we can spark innovation and creativity, gain deeper knowledge in the topics that are most important to us, and propel us forward in our personal and professional pursuits.
Yet very few of us do it well — if we do it at all.
My guest on the podcast today is Warren Berger — journalist, speaker, best selling author, and self-proclaimed questionologist.
His insightful book A More Beautiful Question shows how the world’s leading innovators, education leaders, creative thinkers, and red-hot start-ups ask game-changing questions to nurture creativity, solve problems, and create new possibilities.
In this episode, we discuss the importance of asking the right questions, why they’re critical to your success, and how you may be one great question away from a major breakthrough.
You’ll also learn:
- How Warren manages the constant input and stimulation from online consumption when it’s time to create.
- The small habits that pack the biggest punch and make the most difference in Warren’s life
- What makes a question more or less effective
- How to create a culture where questions are welcome and encouraged
- Why answering all your kids’ questions may be doing them a disservice — and what to do instead
- What “collaborative inquiry” is and how to use it to get the most out of your teams in the workplace
- How Warren transformed one of his most painful failures into one of his most proud achievements
- Why Warren insists that everyone is creative, and what we can do to fan the flames of our own creativity
If you think you could improve the quality (and frequency) of your questions to enhance key areas of your life, this is not a conversation you’ll want to miss.
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