how to ask better questions

Summary

when I was trying to turn my online business into my full time income, I only ever asked one question. how do I make this my full time job? I asked mentors, peers, anyone who would listen. they answered the question I gave them, not the one I should have asked. and that’s the trap most entrepreneurs are stuck in.

the fix is the guru question. imagine you climb to the top of a mountain and you get to ask one all knowing being one question. one. you would not waste it on, hey how do I get a little less stressed. you would ask something massive. you would think about it for days. that’s the energy your real questions deserve.

the way I do it now is I set a huge goal and then shorten the timeline. how do I 10x the business in a year. how do I double customers in 90 days. those questions force a totally different answer than, how do I get one more client this month.

zoom out. set the goal way bigger than feels comfortable. then ask. the better question pulls the better answer.

Transcript

introduction to the importance of asking better questions

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey. So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. All right, let’s get straight to it. You are asking dumb questions.

Sorry that I have to be the one to tell you, but yeah, you are. You’re asking dumb questions. This is the Better Human Business Podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. And questions are everything. But unfortunately, we can ask the wrong question. And if we get into the habit of asking the wrong question over and over and over again, it will stunt your growth trajectory. I know when I was trying to make my online business full-time, that was the only question I was asking, how can I turn this business into my full-time income?

discussion on common pitfalls in the types of questions we often ask

That was it. That was the question I would ask over and over again. I would ask, we could call them mentors, we can call them peers, whatever, just other people doing it. How do I make this my full-time job? What do I need to do? The thing is though, when you ask somebody who’s been there or knows what to do and you ask that question, they will answer that question. They’re probably not going to tell you that you’re asking the wrong question or that you need to ask a better question.

So they’re going to give you an answer to your specific question. And I think the best way to highlight this and where it can be problematic is this philosophical thought experiment that people do. It’s pretty famous. Maybe you’ve done it before. Or not famous, it’s well-known. And it’s the guru question, right? So let’s say there’s an all-knowing, infinitely wise guru sitting at the top of a mountain just knows everything. Call it a guru, call it God, call it whatever you want, but this person, this being knows every single thing in the universe and you get to ask one question.

exploration of the guru question thought experiment and its implications

So you appear at the top of the mountain, you get one question and one question only. What are you going to ask? What are you going to ask that guru when you only have one question? I can guarantee if I put that much pressure on a question, you’re not going to ask something stupid. Like, how do I make my life a little bit less stressful? That’s not the question you’re going to ask. But you also don’t want to ask something that is so far out there that has nothing to do with you.

So it’s okay for it to be a selfish question, right? But what are you going to ask? What you ask is irrelevant. But the fact of the matter is, you would probably put some time into crafting that question. If I said, hey, you get to meet the guru in two weeks, have your question ready. If you are a smart person, you’d probably spend the next two weeks brainstorming questions, thinking about everything you want to know about life, knowing what you want to get out of life, the direction you want to go with your life, what you enjoy in business, what you enjoy with your family.

insights on crafting impactful questions in business for substantial growth

You would take in all of these things that are your human experience and then you would brainstorm for two weeks straight before you ended up and appeared in front of the guru and you had this one singular question that you thought would be a really good question. And you would probably even talk to other people, right? You would probably talk to as many people as you possibly could. Smart people, friends, family, everyone in between. You would probably reach out to them and your question to your friends and your family and everyone that you know would be, what question should I ask?

You wouldn’t be asking, what question would you ask or what should I want to know or anything like that. You’d be asking them, what question should you ask? You would spend a lot of time formulating a phenomenal question. And what I’ve found to be true is that the better questions you ask, the better solutions you will find when you start to go down that path. Like a good question for the guru, without putting a ton of thought into it, would be, what if I asked the guru, I just asked, what questions should I ask for growth in all areas?

closing thoughts on setting big-picture goals to foster innovative thinking and solutions

A question like that admits the fact that there is no one piece of knowledge that’s going to matter. The only thing that matters is the journey and continually trying to get better. That’s all there really is. So what question should I be asking to continue down this path and continue down this journey? So that’s kind of like a meta version is like, hey, if I’m prepping for this, I’m just going to ask questions. I’m going to ask people about what questions I should be asking and I’m ultimately going to ask the guru, what question should I continue to ask in life to be better?

Now let’s flip this to business real quick because there’s not going to be a business mentor who knows it all. There’s not going to be one set person or AI or Google search that’s going to get you there. But the habit I’m wanting you to build that I am working on myself and have been for a long time is asking the best possible question I can. So again, bringing it back to your business, if all you ever ask are small little questions like how do I make a thousand extra dollars this month or how do I get five new leads this month?

That’s okay. Those are tactical level questions. Again, if I sent you to the business guru and you get one question, I guarantee you’re not going to ask, how do I get a thousand more dollars this month, right? You’re going to ask a bigger question. And so you might have this big overarching goal, how do I make a hundred million dollars? Maybe that’s the question you want to ask the guru. But do you see how just framing a better question starts to point you in different directions on your trajectory?

Because if your only goal is a hundred thousand dollars or this many new leads, the trajectory you’re setting yourself by going down the path of looking for a solution to that simple question means you’re never really going to get there. So the first thing you need to do is know where you’re going, the big picture goal and make it gigantic. This is the someday goal. There’s no timeframe, there’s no five year, there’s no 10 year, it’s someday.

The someday goal can be massive because you know that’s the trajectory like, hey, that’s where I want to hit. Now you can ask those smaller questions along the way, but you know you need to be asking questions about how to ultimately get there. But the best way, in my opinion, to ask really good questions in business and really in a lot of different areas is first set that big goal. So set the big gigantic goal. So let’s say you want to make a million dollars, $10 million, I’m going to heavily lean on just the financial side of things right now because it’s just easier.

So I want to make a million dollars, $10 million, a hundred thousand dollars, a hundred million dollars, it doesn’t matter, this big gigantic monetary goal. Okay. So I have the big goal. Now, if I want to start asking better questions, now I start shortening that timeline. Okay. So, because if I say I want to make a million dollars and then it’s like, okay, we’re gonna make a million dollars. And how quickly do you want to make a million dollars?

What’s the timeline? If you’re like, I want to make a million dollars in five years, be like, okay, well, that’s not in business, that’s not crazy hard to do. Here’s what I think you should do over the next five years. And you’ll start asking those questions. But if you keep shrinking that timeline to where it gets more and more challenging, you’re like, well, I want to make a million dollars in three years. I want to make it in two years.

I want to make it in one year. I want to make it in six months. I want to make it in a single month. You see the questions you’d have to ask to be able to get there. If you say, hey, I want to make a $1 million in the next 30 days, you see the flood of questions will come in. And the plan you’d have to create to even do it would be massive, right? And you’d have to realize what was efficient, what was inefficient.

You’d realize, well, this vehicle I’m in right now will not get me there. This thing is not going to work. You might have to think of a new business model. You see, it really just really flexes your ability to think big. And I think that’s the whole point of asking good questions. So all you need to do is set a big goal and keep shortening the timeline until it starts to stress your abilities to come up with good solutions.

And then, you know, you’re starting to ask good questions. We can oftentimes as business owners get in this realm of small, stupid questions. And I’m not trying to offend anyone. I do this too. Sometimes I’m just focused on this month’s metrics, this month’s KPIs. And so I want to know how to fix that. So I’m asking how to fix that. That’s the solution I’m chasing. And then I have to zoom out every once in a while and be like, hey, in the grand scheme, where are we going?

Where do we want to go? And how do we get there? And then I keep shortening the timeline until I’m like, okay, now I’m scared. Now I’m scared again. That’s massive. That’s a big goal. So I, now I’m asking different questions. I have to seek out different mentors. I have to get a new education. So you have to zoom out occasionally. It doesn’t mean you never focus on the small things to grow your business right now.

But if you do get in the habit of only this marginal 5% growth, 5% growth, you have to occasionally ask, where is this ship going? And what timeline, like what’s the timeline here? And can I shorten this down to ask better questions? If you start asking better questions, you will start seeking better solutions. Again, this is not asking better questions to a single person or a single coach. This is just out there because if you honestly said, hey, I want to have a hundred million dollars per year business, you would, it would just change everything for you.

Just a quick example, off the top of my head, if I said, hey, I want a hundred million dollars per year business, I’d immediately be like, okay, well, I probably need to get into like software or specifically AI and software right now. There could be a bubble there at this moment, but that seems like the biggest opportunity out there at this moment. And that will change every couple months that, you know, there was like the, the.com era and then there was, you know, anything that had to do with a lot of software companies are valued really high and that still seems to be the case.

And then there are companies like Facebook and Amazon, right? That kind of technological side of things, social media. And now it looks like AI is pushing in a heavy direction. So just the only hundred million dollar opportunity out there might be something else. So if that’s honestly my goal, it’s like, well, I need to do new things. I need to start finding new people. I need to start educating myself differently. So you see how that could change.

Now that’s not my goal. And so I want to do what I enjoy doing. So there’s always some sort of like, okay, well, maybe that’s not what I want because there might not be getting your current business to a hundred million dollars. That might not be a reality. As much as you might think the sky is the limit, there is an actual limit. Every business has a limit. If, if there was no limit to a business, then they would all just see year over year growth forever and ever, and no business would ever fail.

But they all do over time and they cap out and they get to marginal growth areas. It happens in every business and it’s coming, it’s coming for all of us, right? Like, so you have to know what you’re chasing and when you know that you can start to ask really good questions. So the goal is very important and the timeline is very important. But when you start asking better questions, you will have a better business because you will chase better solution.

And to do that, you have to try harder.