Your Mind Control Superpower
Questions are the command line for the human brain.
Before reading further, take a minute to consider:
What was the reason you opened this post?
If you’re like most people, the question above triggered a change in your thinking process to find a particular answer.
Questions have the power to direct the thinking process and focus it on a very specific idea about one or more connected notions or symbols.
If you work with computers, you might be familiar with the command line terminal (or CLI). The way it works is that you type a bunch of commands on the keyboard, press Enter, and then the computer starts these programs and prints some information on the screen.
Questions are like the command line. You can specify some input that executes one or more subprograms in the brain and then returns some information back.
The way this process works in the brain is through the mental reflex known as instinctive elaboration.
Compared to just telling a person some information, a question can both communicate information and make the person think about an idea along a particular path.
The most important part here is that asking a question triggers specific thought processes.
Asking questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask. People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued.
— Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
So instead of taking them by the hand and pulling through a particular idea maze, you make them go through the idea maze themselves.
This has a few implications:
People trust their own thought process many times more than the thought process of other people
If you want to convey a controversial or new idea which the recipient might reject — asking thought-provoking questions would work much better, since it will be their own thought process
You can guide peoples’ thinking process by making them walk along a certain path of thought and make them better remember it because they thought about it themselves
Most importantly, this effect is partial in most cases, it doesn’t guarantee a total effect. You should rather think of it as hinting, or nudging the recipient’s thinking process in a certain direction.
The outcome would depend on many things, for example:
how well does the recipient understand your question
does the recipient have the context
do they believe in what you believe, etc.
Also, keep in mind that many people would get annoyed or even defensive when asked too many questions, so make sure you don’t ask too many.
Practically speaking, here are the situations when you might want to ask questions instead of just telling things upfront:
when bringing up an argument to prove a point
when you want to get a new idea across
when you’re teaching someone something
if you need to make your experience more relatable to another person
if you need to provoke someone’s thought process on a particular subject
Asking questions is very powerful with other people, but this approach can make an even bigger impact when used on yourself.
If you’re on the path of self-growth, asking the right questions is your most impactful instrument of change.
Typically, we spend very little of our time during the day analyzing and adjusting our thoughts and behaviour. It is a very slow and energy-consuming process.
It is even harder to do if it is not a part of your Default Mode.
On the other hand, asking questions doesn’t require too much effort. As long as you ask yourself the right questions — you can nudge yourself in the direction you want to go with very little effort.
You can prepare the questions you want to keep asking yourself and make sure you’re reminded of them but placing them somewhere in your environment (e.g. notes, posters, etc.).
Here is a good starting point for creating good questions.
Now that you know this, I’d like you to ask yourself:
What should I do with this knowledge now?