Ask Active Questions
During my college years, an extracurricular program taught me more than every mandatory class in my major combined. The life lessons continue to shape me today. In this three-part series, I’ll offer some of the key takeaways.
A core component of the program involved having prestigious business leaders speak to our class each week, from the president of American Airlines to innovative start-up founders. At the end of each talk, all 40 students were required to ask a thoughtful question based on what we’d just heard. Half of our semester grade was based on the quality of the questions. In that setting, you quickly learn to be an active, curious listener. The first questions tended to be the best and those asking them appeared the most engaged. Plus, after 39 questions, there wasn’t much left to work with (“um, what’s your favorite color?”).
Asking active questions begins with being a good listener. To be fully present means setting your phone down, making eye contact, paying attention to the speaker’s tone, and noticing the words said as well as unsaid. It also involves allowing for moments of silence rather than rushing in when they catch their breath to tell a story of when you went through something similar. When we do, we miss the speaker’s heart and any possibility of true connection. We also lose the chance to practice the art of curiosity, an essential trait for creatives.
You can become a more active, curious listener today—by listening well, thinking about what they are saying rather than how you’re going to respond, and then proving it by asking really good questions about them rather than trying to turn the conversation back to you.
The second life lesson tomorrow didn’t happen in the classroom but in a grocery store. It’s a good one that I’ll share in the next reading.
This reading was crafted to encourage your pursuit of story and creativity with God. Your donation makes this crowd-funded initiative possible. You can support it via PAYPAL (or by check to Allen Arnold at PO Box 62841, Colorado Springs, CO 80962).
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