The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead

To ask a question is an admission that 1) you don’t know, and 2) you do care—doubly uncool.

Julia Galef, cofounder of the Center for Applied Rationality, offers up a clarifying metaphor in the form of a beautiful question. Galef suggests we ask ourselves this question: Am I a soldier or a scout?17 She explains that there is a very different mindset for a soldier as opposed to a scout. A soldier’s job is to protect and defend against the e

young children discover early on that the information they seek can be easily extracted from other human beings,5 merely by using that certain combination of words and vocal inflection that forms a question.

ASK THESE FOUR QUESTIONS TO CHECK YOUR BIASES AND BELIEFS What am I inclined to believe on this particular issue? Start by trying to articulate your beliefs/biases. Why do I believe what I believe? The “jugular question,” per Nobel Prize–winning physicist Arno Penzias, forces you to consider the basis of those beliefs. What would I like to be true?

Is this someone who would rather be right or would rather be successful?

Carl Sagan told the interviewer Charlie Rose: “If we are not able to ask skeptical questions15 … to interrogate those who tell us something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority … then we are up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.”

Why do I believe what I believe? (And what if I’m wrong?)

Would I rather be right or would I rather understand?

The late founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, was one of the busiest people on the planet, yet he made a conscious effort to regularly ask fundamental “Why?” questions while making the rounds of his company’s various departments. At each stop, whether in the marketing area or accounting, “I always asked why we’re doing things the way we’re doing them,” Jo