“What” IS the question. (Period.)

Here’s a great exercise! When asking a question, try to phrase it using “What”.

  • It takes away the energy of “Why” – which can lead to defensive answers.
  • It opens up the dialogue – allowing the person being questioned to believe that you need to hear the answer before making a conclusion (which you do).

MAHATMA GANDI, Spiritual Leader:
A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.

THOMAS EDISON, American Inventor:
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

LEONARDO DA VINCI, Genius:
I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

KURT LEWIN, Social Psychologist:
If you truly want to understand something, try to change it.

BUCKMINSTER FULLER, American Genius:
You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

ERIC BUTTERWORTH, Spiritual Author:
We don’t change what we are, we change what we think what we are.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, Author:
To believe your own thoughts, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men – then that is genius.

DR. DAVID HAWKINS, Genius:
A universal characteristic of genius is humility. The genius has always attributed his (or her) insights to some higher influence.

EDWARD O. WILSON, Author / Genius:
You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, German Philosopher (1788-1860):
Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

LEO TOLSTOY, Author:
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

HENRY S BURNS, Management Consultant:
A good manager is one who isn’t worried about one’s own career, but rather the careers of those who work for him.

JAMES GLEICK, Author of Chaos:
Small perturbations in one’s daily trajectory can have large consequences. A batter facing a pitched ball knows that approximately the same swing will not give approximately the same result, baseball being a game of inches. Science, though – science was different.

LEWIS F. RICHARDSON, Scientist:
Big whorls have little whorls, which feed on their velocity; and little whorls have lesser whorls, and so on to viscosity.

HERACLITES, Greek Philosopher (540 B.C. – 480 B.C.):
Everything flows; nothing remains.

TENZIN GYATSO, The 14th Dalai Lama:
We can see that all the desirable experiences that we cherish or aspire to attain are dependent upon cooperation and interaction with other sentient beings.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL, Spiritualist:
I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. Follow your Bliss.

BLACK ELK, American Indian Shaman:
There can never be peace between nations until there is first known that true peace which is within the souls of men.

LAO TSU, Buddhist Lama:
Seeing the small is called Clarity.
Keeping flexible is called Strength.
Using the Shining Radiance you enter the Light, where not harm can come to you – this is called Enlightenment.

RICHARD BACH, The Messiah’s Handbook:
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you do.

LAURA B. HOLMAN, Author and Mystic:
God punishes no one. Create happiness and joy around, below and above you, and the past shall fade away and submerge with the dust. Dust is your body. It has no feeling, no pain. Talk of interesting things and you forget your pain.