The
instinct is to look for answers, but the truth is that questions that
teach us most. It can also be that the rhetorical questions — the ones
that don’t even seem to have answers — that push and push the hardest. Who do you think you are? What does all this mean? Why? Why? Why?
The
right question at the right time can change the course of a life, can
still a turbulent mind, or heal an angry heart. While every situation
can generate its own, there are twelve questions, I think, that deserve
to be asked not just once but many times over the course of a lifetime,
some even many times over the course of the day.
I have gathered them from some of
the wisest philosophers, most incisive thinkers,
greatest leaders
and most awesome badasses that ever lived. I’m not saying I know the
answer to any of them, but I can say there is value in letting them
challenge you. If you let them. If you let them do their work on
you — and let them change you.
Start now by asking:
Who Do You Spend Time With?
Think
about your friends and colleagues: do they inspire you, validate you,
or drag you down? We seem to understand that a young kid who spends time
with kids who don’t want to go anywhere in life, probably isn’t going
to go anywhere in life. What we understand less is that an adult who
spends time with other adults who tolerate crappy jobs, or unhappy
lifestyles is going to find themselves making similar choices.
Same
goes for what you read, what you watch, what you think about. Your life
comes to resemble its environment (Ben Hardy calls this
the proximity effect). So choose your surroundings wisely.
Is This In My Control?
Epictetus
says that
the chief task of the philosopher is to make the distinction between
what is in their control and what is not — what is up to us and what is
not up to us? We waste incredible amounts of time on the latter and
leave so many opportunities on the table by mislabeling the former.
Our
actions, our thoughts, our feelings, these are up to us. Other people,
the weather, external events, these are not. But here’s where it comes
full circle: our responses to other people, the weather, external events are in our control.
Making this distinction will make you happier, make you stronger and
make you more successful if only because it concentrates your resources
in the places where they matter.
What Does Your Ideal Day Look Like?
If
you don’t know what your ideal day looks like, how are you ever going
to make decisions or plans for ensuring that you actually get to
experience them on a regular basis? It’s important to take an inventory
of the most enjoyable and satisfying days of your life.
What did you do?
Why did you like them?
Now be sure that your job, personal life, even the place you’ve chosen to live takes you
towards these, not away from them. If you don’t want an office, don’t set up an office. I run
my company
remotely. If you enjoy being in harness and that’s what makes you feel
good, then you’ll probably need something that has a lot of
responsibilities and set requirements.
If
you enjoy influence more than material success, then make sure you pick
something that allows for that. If you’re a quiet person, then you need
a lifestyle that will let you be quiet — not one that forces you to be
constantly
not yourself. If you
thrive on attention and collaboration, then pick accordingly. If you
want to live in the same place for a long time, maybe
buy a house. If you don’t — God, please don’t. And on and on and on.
To Be Or To Do?
One of
the best strategists of the last century, John Boyd, would ask the promising young acolytes under him: “To be or to do? Which way will you go?”
That is, will you choose to fall in love with the image of how success looks like or you focus on a higher purpose?
Will
you pick obsessing over your title, number of fans, size of paycheck or
on real, tangible accomplishment? He said that in life there is a roll
call and it sorts people by their answer to this question, the doers and those who simply pretend.
Which will you be?
Which have you been?
If I Am Not For Me, Who Is? If I Am Only For Me, Who Am I?
The alternative translation of that last part is “If I am only only for me,
what am I?” The answer is “the worst.” The question comes from Hillel the Elder (also happens to be
a favorite quote of Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist). It doesn’t make you a bad person to want to be remembered.
To want to make it to the top.
To provide for yourself and your family.
But if this is all you want it is a problem.
There is a balance.
Think
of someone like General George Marshall, winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize for the Marshall Plan, who had the same traits that everyone
has — ego, self-interest, pride, dignity, ambition — but they were
“tempered by a sense of humility and selflessness.”
When
he was practically offered the command of the troops on D-Day he told
President Roosevelt: “The decision is yours, Mr. President; my wishes
have nothing to do with the matter.” It came to be that Eisenhower led
the invasion and performed with excellence, Marshall’s opportunity to
change history came soon after — winning the peace prize and saving
Europe as Secretary of State.
What Am I Missing By Choosing To Worry or Be Afraid?
As Gavin de Becker writes in
The Gift of Fear,
“When you worry, ask yourself, ‘What am I choosing to not see right
now?’ What important things are you missing because you chose worry over
introspection, alertness or wisdom?” Another way of putting it: Does
getting upset provide you with more options?
Obstacles in life make us emotional, but the only way we’ll survive
or overcome them
is by keeping those distracting emotions in check — if we can keep
steady no matter what happens, no matter how much external events may
fluctuate.
The Greeks had a word for this: apatheia.
It’s the kind of calm equanimity that comes with the absence of
irrational or extreme emotions. And so when you find yourself indulging
in those emotions, one way to get yourself back on track is simply by
reminding yourself of the cost they incur: That you’re missing something
by being nervous, scared, or anxious. That you’re taking your eye off
the ball to do it.
Can you afford that?
Probably not.
Am I Doing My Job?
The three-word command from Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, Sean Payton, Jason Garrett:
Do Your Job.
The last thing the great John Wooden would say to his players in the
locker room before a game was, “Well, I’ve done my job.” So the question
is:
Are you doing yours?
Do
you even know what that job is? It’s important to remember that we can
be very busy — exhaustingly busy — and still not be doing our job. We
can be caught up in the things that don’t matter, we can be interfering
and encroaching on someone else’s job, we can be just plain
procrastinating. All these things keep us working — but not on the job
that actually matters.
What Is The Most Important Thing?
If
you don’t know what the most important thing is to you, how do you know
if you’re putting it first? How do you know if you’re taking the right
steps to get it. Maybe the most important thing to you is family.
Awesome,
so that’s your priority. What it means is that not only do you have to
start measuring yourself by family-related metrics, but you have to stop
comparing yourself to people with different priorities. Maybe money is
the most important thing to you.
That’s perfectly fine. Know that and own it — as Michael Lewis writes,
the problem is the lying to yourself. You have to know and own whatever it is. Only then can you understand what matters and what doesn’t.
Only then can you say no — can you opt out of stupid races that don’t matter, or exist.
Only
then is it easy to ignore “successful” people, because most of the time
they aren’t — at least relative to you, and often even to themselves.
Only then you can develop the quiet confidence
that Seneca called euthymia
— “the belief that you’re on the right path and not led astray by the
many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.”
Who Is This For?
If you’re
making something, selling something, trying to reach people you have to be able to
answer this question. It is shocking how many entrepreneurs, writers, salesman, even politicians never bother to stop and go:
Who the hell is my audience here?
The result is that the message is out of tune or the wrong group is targeted (and failure usually follows). Every
creative must stop and really think about who their audience is.
What do these people want?
What do they need?
What value am I offering them?
Don’t try to get lucky. Don’t follow your hunch. Get it right. Ask the question, make sure the answer is clear.
Does This Actually Matter?
The reason that wise people never let the very real fact of their mortality slip too far from their mind (
memento mori) is
because it helps them ask this question: Given the shortness of life,
does this thing I’m thinking about, worrying about, fighting about,
throwing myself into even fucking matter?
Sadly, the answer is usually no.
We
want to ask ourselves this question before we throw good time after
bad, before we waste more life than we have to. “You could leave life
right now,”
Marcus Aurelius reminded himself,
“Let that determine what you do and say and think.” In light of that,
does this thing you’re so worked up about actually matter?
This
moment is nothing in the light of eternity,’ and that opens you up to
the next moment if you don’t put too much weight on the moment where you
are failing right now.”
Will This Be Alive Time or Dead Time?
Early on in my career I had
a pivotal conversation
with author Robert Greene. I was working full-time at a really good job
but planning my next move, saving my money and thinking about what I
might do next.
I told him I wanted to
write a book one day,
but I wasn’t sure what, how or when or what about. He told me, Ryan,
there are two types of time: Dead time — where we are just waiting and
Alive time — where we are learning and active and leveraging. And then
he left it there with me to decide which I would choose.
Alive time or Dead Time?
So
let that question catch you the next time you find yourself sitting on
your hands or goofing off as you wait. Let it jolt you back into line.
Pick up a book,
pick up a pen and get back to work. Resist the temptation to get
distracted with silly politics or wanderlust. Make the most of every
moment as you prepare for the next move or the next event. If you want
to be productive, be fully alive.
Is This Who I Want To Be?
Our mind has the cunning ability to make the distinction between what we do and who we are. The problem is that this is complete nonsense. You can’t be a good person if your actions are consistently bad. You can’t be a hardworking person if you take every shortcut you can.
It doesn’t matter that you say you love someone, it only matters if you show that you love them. Remember
Cheryl Strayed’s line: “In your twenties you’re in the process of becoming who you are, so you might as well not be an asshole.”
This
is true for life itself. You are what you do — so ask yourself whenever
you’re doing something: Is this reflective of the person I want to be? That I see myself to be?
How we do anything is how we do everything.
It is who we are. So ask this question about every action, thought and
word. Because it adds up in a way that no amount of self-image or belief
ever will.
**
Last question. Sort of. It comes from the great Viktor Frankl, the psychotherapist who survived the Auschwitz and
wrote many beautiful books.
He tried, as best he could, to try to address that perennial question
that every philosopher and hungry young person has struggled with:
What is the meaning of life?
Frankl
struggled with this question too, surely the horrors of a concentration
camp and the loss of one’s entire existence will do that to you. But he
found that the answer was simple, though there was a problem how the
question was posed. You see, he said, it is not us who get to demand of
the world, “What is the meaning of life?”
Rather, he said, life is demanding that we answer
the question with the actions and decisions we make. That we create
meaning in our choices and our beliefs. I think we create it in doing
our best to challenge ourselves with the questions above:
What am I for?
What is my job?
Who do I want to be?
What’s up to me?
What does a good day look like?
Some are simpler than others, sure, but the answers rarely are — and the act of asking is the most important thing.
