“We are our questioning habit. It’s really about being in the habit of questioning — and the nature of that habit — and the places that it takes you.” ~ Larry Robertson

What is more fundamental to who we are than questions?

And yet, what makes a question great — and how do we do more of that?

When someone takes on the question of questions, and — better still — offers a thoughtful distillation of this elixir of life, my antenna go up.

Larry Robertson has got my attention. 

His latest book is Great Question: The Art of the Ask and Getting More of What You Really Want.

With an amazingly rich array of stories, culled from 140+ interviews, Larry makes his case: we aren’t just a “questioning species”, questions are the source of our flourishing. And when we learn to use them well, we all benefit.

I think that in the future the thing that I’ll be glad I learned is that this process of playing with questions is vital for us getting to the future — and it’s so darn simple, because it’s innate.

We talk about the special “everywhere, everyone” nature of questions, the dangers in our collective moving away from questioning, patterns in how we think about and use questions, listening as a subset of intellectual humility, what it takes to catch people in the act of thinking, powerful reframes that allow us to reengage, getting over the duality of wanting to know and not wanting to appear we don’t know — and employing habits of mind to explore ourselves… and our questions.

Listen to Ep. #331: Great Question: The Art of the Ask & Getting More of What You Really Want, with Larry Robertson

Larry Robertson is an author, innovator, advisor, speaker and columnist. Great Question: The Art of the Ask & Getting More of What You Really Want is his fourth book.

Here’s my first conversation with Larry: Rebel Leadership, with Larry Robertson.

I mentioned David Pearl’s surprisingly meaty question “What will the future be glad you learned?” Check out this C2BC Classic: Street Wisdom, with David Pearl.

Read more from Deborah Meier on the five habits of mind in her seminal 2009 article, “Democracy at Risk”.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Great Great Lengths” by The Balloonist, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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