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[Music] in this episode we're going to be talking about the power of asking questions put simply the quality of your entire life depends on the quality of the questions you ask and how consistently you ask them questions are like magic keys that unlock powerful answers and that's exactly what you lack in your life the reason you're lost depressed unfulfilled struggling sabotaging yourself fearful insecure and all the other problems that you have is because you lack the answers you lack the understanding and of course that's because you're not asking the right questions and this is a very simple thing a very simple technique here and I just want to take this episode to cement in your mind the importance of this very basic technique and in fact if you want to to just get into self-help and personal development this is a very good place to start is right here because this is extremely practical and this just applies to total newbies but at the same time this is a technique that you'll want to refine and hone over the years to get to very advanced levels so sorting out your life requires asking great questions which is a rare skill it's not a terribly complicated skill to learn it's not a terribly difficult skill to learn it's just actually so simple and so basic that most people ignore it and neglect to do it consistently and so they're losing a lot of potential growth that they could otherwise get so here's a key insight for you the answers to life are inside of you not outside the way most people think but it doesn't occur to you to ask and to look inside and because you don't ask you never receive so I'm talking about answers like how to be successful or how to follow your life purpose and how to actualize it and take it to the next level answers to how to fix any kind of emotional problems that you have any health problems answers about how to practice spirituality better how to meditate better how to fix your relationships how to fix your money problems these kinds of answers and all you need to do to get these answers is really to question more seriously or deeply and that's what I'm going to show you how to do here today now an important warning though is that when I tell you that the answers are inside of you don't misunderstand me this doesn't mean that now you don't need to read or watch videos or learn from great masters and teachers and gurus it's still very important to study external sources you study that because that gives you the raw data the raw knowledge sort of grist for the mill but then what you do is you turn inside inwards rather and you think for yourself and then you deeply question all the stuff that you read and learned and heard about whether it's for me or for anybody else and then you develop your own answers that are unique to you and that are true to what you need in your life right now and of course this is what's so critical about personal development about spirituality is that you need to craft a custom path for you that only works for you in your situation given your strengths given your weaknesses given your cultural background given your abilities given your interests and passions and that's different for everybody so just remember anytime because you're gonna be stuck in in your life many times you're gonna be stuck in business with financial problems you're gonna be stuck in relationships or with spiritual issues just remember that whatever problem you have you can find the answer within yourself if you ask the right questions hell you can even google your questions and find answers and in fact Google is a very powerful tool that a lot of people just completely ignore Google to change your whole life if you ask it the right questions and that's actually a whole separate topic that I'll I'll shoot an episode on in the futures how to use Google to transform your whole life you certainly could and most people don't most people use Google for all the wrong things in all the wrong ways searching for all the the stupid stuff which reinforces their all of their existing problems see Google is an amazing tool and we live in an amazing time right now where you have so much information and knowledge at your fingertips but the problem is is that it's too much it's overwhelming so how do you filter it down to something you can use well again asking high-quality questions and it's also important that your questions are well worded that they're precise that they're accurate a well worded question is like an instruction that is sent to Universal Mind so if you think about Google Google is like this hive computer mind that stores basically the entire internet in its index and you can ask your questions and it'll return queries within seconds well you can do the same thing using your own mind you can ask your subconscious mind which is connected to Universal Mind Universal intelligence which is running this entire show and running your whole life so it's sort of like you can Google you can google your own mind universal mind that you're constantly connected to but that you take completely for granted and that you don't utilize it's like you've been connected to this Universal database a hyper intuitive supercomputer and you don't you don't query it you see that's the problem now I have several older episodes where I've talked about questioning in some fashion I have an episode called contemplation where we talk about how to contemplate it's an important one I have another one called how to contemplate using a journal that's similar but we're talking about using a journal in that situation and then I have one called the the six for most fascinating questions that a human can never ask that's also an interesting episode so you might wonder well then what's the point of this episode well the difference is is that those were mostly focused on a sort of existential contemplation you're contemplating philosophical abstract topics they're like what is reality or what is the self or stuff like that and that's all great but this this episode here is about something even more ordinary and more basic and more practical which is just sort of like ordinary questioning that has to do with your everyday mundane life so let me give you some examples of what I mean now this is a list that I came up with of 50 or so different questions of course you can come up with thousands there's literally thousands of very powerful questions that you can ask for yourself and it will be one of your homework assignments to develop your own list but I want to get your mind jogging so let's look at some of these examples first is what do I really want that's an extremely powerful question and I want you to notice with these questions sometimes they're very simple and basic they seem so basic that they almost seem childish and yet that's actually what makes them so powerful and also so flexible because you can apply these questions in many different situations and also she have to understand is that you don't just ask one of these questions once and then you're done though this is a question like what do I really want you can ask that question every single year of your life and you will get new answers going deeper and deeper and deeper into what you really want out of life so make sure that you plumb the full depths that these questions are are making available to you next what is most important for me in life what is the purpose of my life what is my highest vision for myself what is the next level of my life purpose so this one if you've already found your life purpose you have to remember that it's not good enough to just find your life purpose once and then you're done if you've taken my course it helps you to do that but you don't just stop there like I talked about in the course you got to keep taking it to the next level and really finding your life purpose through the course is just the beginning of where you're going to go with that every year you've got to be asking how do I take it to the next level next how do I be more creative for you creative folks in the audience for you artists for you visionaries how do I be a visionary how do I keep myself from backsliding why do I backslide at all why do I have a go backlashes what new product or service could change the world what does the world really need right now what causes me to get in a rut what motivates me what excites me what would I do if I had no fear or limitation how am i dishonest with myself what am i avoiding in my life what ideological positions or beliefs do I cling to what am i unwilling to let go of in life why aren't I able to surrender for example if you're doing spiritual work or you're doing psychedelics some people struggle with the surrender aspect you can contemplate that and get an answer why is my mind so active all the time there's a reason for it it's not an accident you can discover the answer why do I have emotions what is the purpose of my emotions I mean you're experiencing them your whole life every single day you're wrapped up in your emotions and yet most people don't even know what an emotion is then it never even occur to them to ask not me or some book or some expert but ask yourself I mean hell you're as close to your emotions as you are to anything if anyone can discover what emotions are it's you you're the one experiencing them surely your subconscious mind knows what is the true purpose of emotions next why are people selfish why does religion exist why are there so many different kinds of religion why do people disagree about non-duality I mean if enlightenment is just a simple binary thing why so much disagreement why's humanity headed there sorry where is humanity headed in the future what is my role in that what is my role in society why do I judge criticize and complain what's the function of that how am i failing to take responsibility for my life that's a very powerful one what does it mean to be more conscious I mean I talk about consciousness all the time but do you know what that word even means you'd have to find it in your own experience next what are some examples of blank and this blank can be any kind of abstract term so a lot of times if you're listening to me or to any teacher we can use abstract concepts like consciousness or God or intelligence or awareness or existence or creativity or intuition you know these very abstract terms that for many different people they can interpret these terms in a different ways but a really good way to to understand the teachings better is to ask yourself what are some examples of this abstract fill-in-the-blank term and then have your mind supply the examples that's extremely powerful in fact if you notice in all of my episodes I give you giant lists of examples why do I do that because that's how your mind learns is through concrete examples by hearing lots of examples your mind because it's an intelligent supercomputer it can pull out and draw connections and patterns and it can better understand going from the specific to the abstract it's much easier to go from the specific to the abstract than it is to go from abstraction to specifics so people easily get lost in abstraction next how is my world view holding me back and a corollary what is my world view do you even know what your own world view is explicitly have you explicate Edyta yourself most people have no idea what their world view is next why do I love X fill an X with whatever you want this is a very powerful question because most people are drawn or attracted to things in life but they never question why or what is it about that thing that they're attracted to like maybe you read a book and you really loved that book but what about that book is it that you really love can you actually clarify that and put your finger on it actually articulate it if you can that's very powerful that's not just some rationalization for why you love a book that that tells you something deep about yourself about what you really value in life see if you go around for a whole month just asking yourself why do I love this thing why do I love that thing why do I don't not like this thing and you keep doing that over time you're going to actually develop and like a map and an understanding of the things that move you and the things that demotivate you next what is the next stage of evolution for my business or for my career next what do I truly believe that I need to have to be happy why do I meditate a lot of people start meditating but they don't have a good reason for why they meditate and it's important to be clear to yourself about why you meditate or why you do anything really because if you're not clear about that to yourself then you're gonna not stay with that habit you're not gonna realize how important it is to you why do I want this relationship a lot of people get into relationships for totally wrong reasons and it makes a big difference if you're conscious of the reason that you get into a relationship is it for sex is it for companionship is it because you're lonely is it because what you're using it to avoid your spiritual work or whatever next what is the most powerful question that I could ask what important questions are not being asked in this situation like maybe you're working on some business project what important questions are not being asked you see what I want you to understand here is I want you to become conscious of the fact that when you ask a really quality question this question unlocks something in your mind it has a like an immediate effect on your consciousness and immediately your subconscious mind goes into gear and starts to look at the situation in a way that I didn't look at it before so just by being like in a business meeting and everybody there is discussing some proposal just by being the one who raises his hand and and asks the question like well guys what important questions are we not asking about this business proposal immediately everybody they're there the whole like the tone of the conversation will shift and everyone's mind will start to wonder like yeah what what are we missing because we weren't even thinking about the fact that we were missing anything you see and all the sudden you can you can now start to see things that you couldn't see otherwise without having asked that question and so it is for all the questions on this list next how do I become successful do you want to become successful but you don't know how and then because of this year you're stressed and you're anxious and you're looking all over the place well how about you trust that you can turn inwards and discover answers within yourself now of course also understand that a lot of times when you turn inwards and ask a question of yourself the answer will be to go look it up somewhere so I'm not saying that like for this question of how do I become successful that you need to generate all the success strategies and techniques and tips that mankind has ever developed for success that you need to reinvent the wheel there no it's just like it might be for example as simple as like how do I become successful well I don't know ah but what I do know is that lots of people have been successful in the past and probably they've found principles for how to be successful so those principles must exist within human culture so let me go find those principles let me go find a book or a teacher or a seminar and that's enough to change your whole life right there see then you go discover the right kind of book which teaches you the success principles in fact if you're looking for that book I've got plenty of them on my book list next question what makes people so effective have you noticed that some people are way more effective than others you can always look at that person like maybe there's one guy in your office who is the most productive and the most effective one what makes them such a great salesman or what makes him such a great leader and then when you ask that question your mind will then start to observe that guy and what he does every day you're there you see him in the office he's doing something what is he doing he's doing something different and then when your mind choons into that because you asked the right question then lessons will come insights will come next how am i unique that's very important for you to to discover about yourself the ways in which you are unique and a corollary is how am I not being true to my uniqueness when you're not true to your uniqueness you suffer and your life is not optimal and you don't experience that joy of self-expression of being who you truly are a lot of times that's driven by fear but see it's good for you to be able to discover that so when I ask you the question of why are not you not being true to your uniqueness well one answer might be is because I don't even know what my uniqueness is okay well then you can ask the question well then how am i unique and then you can get answers your mind will supply you with answers and then once you know that then you can say well yeah I know the ways in which I'm unique but I can't do it I'm not doing it because of X Y Z because I'm afraid I'll be embarrassed or lacking in confidence or self esteem see then from that you can say like oh yeah so I'm lacking self-esteem that's the problem okay well how do I gain more self-esteem that's another question and then from that you can you can brainstorm ideas there and maybe that'll lead you to finding some self-esteem book or whatever which I also have an epic list if you're interested in that next how do I become a better leader artist parents or anything whatever kind of better you want to become how do I become a better person you could just sit down and spend an hour contemplating that and you'll get amazing answers what am I like when I'm at my best what am I like what I'm at my worst in what ways am I a devil oh man I love that question that's such a powerful question if everybody on earth ask this question seriously we would solve half the world's problems overnight half the world's Wars and the criminal activity would cease overnight next how are x and y the same and how are they different and it's really important to include both of those components when you're doing this comparing contrasting there's a lot of times what what people do is they focus on how two things are the same and they ignore the differences or they focus on the differences but they ignore the similarities so always ask both sides of this coin question next what are some totally new ways that I could live my life just sit down and start brainstorming different new lifestyles for yourself that alone can mmm prop you out of a rut why am i resisting X there's a lot of stuff in your life you resist but you probably never question it why am I afraid of X same thing a lot of stuff you fear but you never question a lot of times you fear something that really once you question it you realize oh that's not a big deal at all why was I so afraid of that it's because you didn't question it what would be my ideal job what will I regret most on my deathbed how am I being inauthentic and why what am I most proud of in my life and how could I do more of that what robs me of energy and passion how could I use my mind in better ways why are there so many deluded people in the world and how could I make sure that I don't end up like them that's a very powerful question that I constantly ask myself and I've gotten so much traction with that question and so many benefits by asking that question over the course of most of my life it's oh it's a really good way to avoid self-deception see my three part series on self-deception next what is the lesson here you can ask that about all sorts of situations especially when you have a failure or a problem or you face some sort of obstacle or you conclude some kind of project or endeavor always ask yourself what's the what's the key lesson here and just by asking that question immediately your mind will start to fill with with lessons that otherwise even though you win through that situation by asking the question now you make it explicit rather than just something that's floating around in the back of your mind you make it explicit for yourself and then of course you can write it down as well which then helps you to remember it to for the future another great question is what are the top five ideas from this book that's powerful after you finish reading every book that you will ever read in your life stop for a minute stop for 5-10 minutes actually and ask yourself this question what are the top five ideas that I learned from this book and then write them down and you will see you will get way more results from books just by asking this one question and of course there's many other questions you can ask in that context but let's move on what causes me stress and what is stress anyways what do I admire about that person there's always people you encounter that you admire but what specifically can you actually articulate it see if you can actually articulate it and distill it down to its essence then that tells you something about yourself because if you admire that quality in that person well then that tells you hey the next question that comes up will if what I admire that person is their generosity or their lovingness how can I be more generous or how could I be more loving just like that person and also what that shows you is of course that you value generosity and loving us that tells you something important about your yourself that might be one way in which you're unique is that you value that while others don't what lessons could I learn from that person and oftentimes it could be a negative person so you might see someone on TV who you hate what lessons could you learn from that person what lessons could you learn from Donald Trump see negative examples are all around us and there are great teaching opportunities but most people are so busy judging and criticizing the negativity that they see around them that they completely missed the fact that that's a lesson somebody they're like Donald Trump is living through hell literally he's he's living through hell he's sort of like the Antichrist you might say so you know Jesus died for our sins the Christians believed and Donald Trump is like doing the exact opposite of that he's sinning for you and putting it on public display for the whole world making an ass out of himself completely embarrassing himself showing you the the terrible consequences of egotism and unconsciousness and ignorance and selfishness so he's displaying for you pure devilry and self-deception and you can learn all those lessons for yourself as long as you just stop judging him and Ashley asked the question next what would a permanent fix for this be a lot of times were busy like solving problems but we never get to the root of the problem and so a corollary question to that one is what is the root of this problem you'd be amazed how how often this question is not asked to really sit down alone by yourself and to ask yourself genuinely what is the root of my blank problem whatever it is might be a sexual problem might be a relationship problem might be a spiritual problem your mind will go straight to the answers as long as you can tolerate the answers a lot of times the problem is that we don't want to know the root of a problem because it's not a convenient next question is what opportunities am i overlooking if I could get the answer to any question what question would I ask what makes me feel creative when am i win am i at my most creative what would be a more authentic way of doing this whatever this is what would be a more authentic way of doing my job what would be a more authentic way of flirting with women what would be a more authentic way of relating to my children what would be a better way of doing this whatever this is how does this look from another person's point of view that's a really powerful question that will change your whole life if you get used to asking in every situation where you disagree with somebody especially or where somebody seems crazy to you always remember to ask how does it look from their point of view actually step into their shoes and then that that makes huge changes in how your mind works what top three things would transform my life if I did them what makes me come alive why does this trigger me whatever it happens to be how can I be more aligned with God if you understand what God is and if you had an actual direct experience of God then this will be a very powerful question for you if you've never experienced God and you just hold it as a belief this will not be a worthwhile question for you because your ideas of God are a fantasy but if you really know what God is there's a lot of good questions you can ask yourself about that why am i struggling with blank whatever blank is where can I find the answers it's a really good question for any problem or situation that you have how am I being selfish how do I might make my psychedelic experiences actually stick in everyday life it's a good question to ask what is holding mankind back what is the big picture here I love that question so whenever you get stuck in technical details or in the weeds or maybe you're reading some chapter in some book you can always kind of zoom out by asking the question what is the big picture here what's the significance of this scientists couldn't really use to ask that question more often what are the most common traps here whatever here happens to be like one of the most common traps with enlightenment one of the most common traps with meditation one of the most common traps with starting a business one of the most common traps in dating one of the most common traps and having children this is an amazingly powerful question that will help you to avoid all the worst most common traps another great one is if this thing that I'm doing fails what will be the most likely causes of the failure what am I really good at what's a new way of seeing this problem that's a very versatile and powerful question why is my think how is my thinking how is my thinking about this limited also a very flexible one who could give me good advice on this topic whatever the topic is another one I love is what if my core assumptions are wrong about this situation what are my core assumptions how could I maybe change my core assumptions and how would that change how the situation looks and what I do about it what could I accomplish if I had more confidence in myself how am I being reactive and defensive that's a really good one what am I really trying to say here I really love that one because a lot of what I do with my work is I'm always talking to myself because I'm always trying to articulate insights because that's my job and that's what I'm interested in but sometimes you know I get lost just trying to articulate something and I'm wording it with lots of different sentences and I just want to like get right to the chase and so a really good question for that is what am I really trying to say here when you ask that your mind usually summarizes entire paragraphs of ideas and insights into one concise little statement like what am I trying to say with this entire video see when I ask myself that my mind goes in a in a very different direction than where it just was it starts like open possibilities for which then I can select the most appropriate one how am i creating this problem whatever the problem is how can I make this task more enjoyable that's a really good question how am I being closed-minded what is the most powerful self help what are the most powerful self-help techniques how can I become financially independent what should be the next chapter of my life so let's stop there with the list I could keep going and going I mean literally like I said thousands of these questions exist they're very context sensitive so you need to come up with your own list you'll be amazed at the kind of answers that your mind generates to some of these questions if you just ask now an important point is that your answers will not always come right away sometimes they will oftentimes they will but sometimes not especially if your questions are really deep and profound sometimes you have to ask the same question over and over again for weeks for months and even for years and even sometimes for decades on the really stubborn questions the really profound ones but you know what I find is that if there are questions that are really worth asking for entire years when you finally do get the answer to it the answers are so profound and so life transforming that all the years of questioning are totally worth it and in fact those are my favorite types of questions those would be the more existential type of questions but also a lot of them have to do with your life like you can ask the same question about like why am i unfulfilled in life for example you can ask that question for years until one day you'll finally realize and when you do your whole life we'll never be the same again and in fact really that's the only way you will ever become fulfilled in life is if you get a legitimate personal answer to that question it's not enough to hear from me I could tell you right now why you're unfulfilled but it's not gonna do any good you got to realize for yourself why you're truly unfulfilled because then you'll be ready to then do the things that are necessary to truly become fulfilled so keep asking the questions even if it takes weeks and months and years and eventually the answers will come have faith that the answers will come be patient place your faith in the question place your intent into it really want to know have a genuine desire and curiosity often the answer doesn't come to you because you don't actually want to hear it and it's too scary and too painful so it takes time for you to actually grow yourself before you can access the deepest answers and ask the deepest questions oftentimes you actively avoid certain questions and answers notice that notice that some questions are very very scary precisely because you know that the answers when you are honest with yourself about them will result in you having to transform your whole life and of course those are the most powerful ones but of course they're the ones that you don't usually want to ask so make sure you ask those push yourself you know asking these questions can sometimes involve emotional labor one of the problems with ideologues and dogmatists and fundamentalists will get stuck on some worldview or some belief system is that it makes it impossible for them to ask high-quality questions and this stalls their entire life gums up the works because their mind is so awesome I'd and what they're doing is they're defending some kind of ideological position or some belief system which prevents them from true genuine questioning powerful questioning so here are my top tips for you for doing good questioning number one believe that your questions are important and that they have answers this is critical a lot of people miss out on the best questions because they just assume like oh well that's a sort of silly question that can't possibly be answered and it can't possibly be important like for example the question why is there something rather than nothing if you ask this question of most scientists or highly intelligent people even they'll just dismiss it say oh well you can't really know it can't really answer yeah it's one of those sort of philosophical navel-gazing type of questions but we don't know it's not possible to know and it's not important anyways see but by thinking that way you miss out on the most important question of life or like what is the purpose of life a lot of people just say ah well it's subjective it doesn't matter it's just philosophy and yet it's it's absolutely central to how you live your whole life so you have to truly like believe in your questions and that's the only way you're gonna be able to ask the deepest question for years the deepest questions for years is if you have like a sort of a belief that there is a purpose behind these questions and that it's possible to actually know and that the it's not only possible to know but that the knowledge of it will transform your whole life and it'll be worthwhile secondly be genuinely curious you have to ask these questions from a non needy place otherwise you're going to get corrupted responses so genuine curiosity is very different from wanting to rationalize a situation so a lot of times you can ask a question and frame it in a negative way so you have to be careful so for example you could say you could ask yourself the question like well why why are evil corporations screwing over the world that would be a very poor question because it's frame so negatively and it's so biased you can tell that there's there's ego and there's sort of personal wounding there in that question or for example the question of why is life so unfair that I can't get laid that's a terribly framed question because it's negative is coming from the ego it's it's it's coming from a sort of a wounded place and the only thing that's gonna trigger in your mind it's not gonna trigger a genuine answer because here you see you're not being genuinely curious you're coming too much from your own selfishness and so of course what your mind what your ego mind will then come up with is some kind of rationalization and you'll see them all well I'm yeah I can't get laid because it's those feminists it's those feminists and it's those social justice warriors and the there they're emasculating man and all this see this this is not a true answer to the question because it's not you're not genuinely curious to know the answer what you're what you're asking for is a rationalization of your pre-existing ideological position which already is assuming that the world is so unfair and that it's impossible to get laid and that feminists are the problem so you're already assuming that so this is what I mean by ideological people not being able to truly question so be very careful about that don't just automatically assume that every answer you're monkey mind comes up with is a high-quality answer it only works when you're questioning from a sort of a pure place not from a wounded needy place of course another important tip for good questioning is that to really do this you need silent periods where you shut off the entertainment and all the distractions and just sit by yourself and really reflect in sort of a peaceful way where you're not pressured for any kind of results that's usually when your best answers will come but you see most people are so busy running around filling their schedule with social activities and other kinds of nonsense career and work and chasing stuff that they don't create these silent periods and so there's no serious questioning and so you can go kind of on autopilot and just be busy for a whole year and not ask a single serious question so your life is just on autopilot doing the same old stuff and so of course you're not growing another tip for you is that you got to work on phrasing your questions well make your questions succinct precise not wishy-washy that really helps I'm constantly amazed because I answer so many questions from people literally I answered thousands of questions if you count all my YouTube comments and my forum comments and in private messages that I received from people and I'm amazed at the low quality questions that I've asked a person with a serious problem often comes to me but then poor frames her questions so poorly that it's impossible to help them because of how the question is framed so really work on your framing and especially if you want advice and help from busy people people who are like doing something with their life these are usually experts gurus and leaders they will give you advice they will give you really high quality advice but you need to make sure that you frame your question the right way not as a as a giant rant ranting paragraph of telling me your life story like nobody cares about your life story like distill your whole life story to one question what is it you want to know what is it that would solve that for you what kind of advice do you need be very clear and specific and then you'll be able to get high-quality answers from from teachers and gurus and masters be very careful about not blaming criticizing and negativity when you're asking these questions that is that is ego that's not gonna give you genuine answers of course you have to be very open-minded you have to allow for radical unorthodox answers a lot of times the answers you get will be uncomfortable they will be paradoxical they will be counterintuitive they won't be what you expect and it's easy to somehow dismiss sometimes you will dismiss the exact answer that you need simply because it doesn't fit with your existing expectations or conventional orthodoxies or what your culture taught you or what your parents told you another tip is of course trust your highest intuition and trust your own authority the answers at your own subconscious mind generates are more accurate ultimately and more true and more authoritative than any kind of answer you can get from any professor guru or teacher because your mind knows best what's right for you as long as you purify yourself and you're not coming from a needy place then and you're tapping into your highest intuition then your authority will be will be ultimate over everybody else now you might wonder below how do I know that my question will actually get answered what if my question is impossible to answer won't I be wasting my time possibly years and the answer is that ultimately you don't know you don't know it's a somewhat of a gamble but a deeper answer is that this is a key insight for you reality is understandable all of reality is understandable there is a design to reality it's not random it's not just a hodgepodge of events and activities and coincidences there's a very deliberate design to how reality works and how life works and you can discover the principles and laws behind this design and you can basically understand everything of course sometimes what that means is that you will understand that the question you were asking is a poor question or is a misguided question or a question based on false assumptions but that in and of itself to discover that to discover that some question that has been lingering in your mind is actually based on false assumptions that's a that's a really valuable discovery that frees you up to then ponder deeper questions see and it also clears up various kinds of bad assumptions that you might have had that's that's really valuable to discover that so ultimately the way I treat it is that for me there's no such thing as an impossible question every question I've answers such impossible questions at this point in my life that that there's no limit nothing ceases to amaze me everything is possible I've answered the most impossible of questions I've answered questions like why is there something rather than nothing I've answered questions like why do I exist like what is my purpose here what is the purpose of life I've answered questions for myself like what is God and what is truth and what is time and what is energy and I answered all these questions and you can genuinely understand all these things that's what one of the most remarkable things about life so you will discover that more and more as you question deeper and deeper and more existentially now of course it's not enough to just sit down once a year and to ask a few questions or to sit down when you're in a real pickle and you're in some catastrophic situation and you're stuck with some problem and only then you ask questions that's not good enough you have to train yourself the whole point of this conversation we're having is that I want you to train yourself to ask questions every day habitually in all situations for the rest of your life that would be a huge technique right there if you could put that into place in your life and it's extremely versatile as you can see because it works in almost all situations for all problems often times you'll find that your answers come from totally unexpected sources so a lot of times it'll just come from your own inner voice from your intuition from your subconscious mind or from universal intelligence if you understand what that means a lot of times so in your own inner voice you'll get the answers but oftentimes you'll get it from the outer world so you might be asking yourself the question like how do I become successful and you in your own mind might not get the answers maybe you don't truly know you're too ignorant on the subject but then you go to the dentist's office and you're sitting in the dentist and then you're just you're bored and you just look around at the magazines and you see a magazine it says success magazine fifteen ways that people become successful like and then you see that and then your mind says oh yeah that's exactly what I was asking for and there it is now is this a miracle is this magic no it's just that your mind is very selective at what it's looking for so the whole point of asking questions that it Prime's your mind to be receptive to all the stuff that's around you in the world and so a lot of your answers will literally come from the world people say something you know your friend or your mom might be talking to you on the phone and they some say some some off-the-cuff comment that has nothing to do with any question that you asked but you realize oh that answers my question that I had for years that answers it you know your mind will connect these these dots for you so oh so what I call serendipity and what people call synchronicity but you can only activate this serendipity by asking these questions habitually you see sometimes the answers will just come totally out of the blue you'll be in the shower and just the answer will hit you like a lightning bolt about some question that you weren't even asking it's a question that maybe you asked a month ago but then it just hits you out of the blue a month later in the shower that's how it tends to work but that's not an accident that's because you were questioning and so you can actually cultivate this and then you'll you'll you'll have a steady stream of answers hitting you every single day that's what my life feels like I have a hundred new insights profound insights about life every single day I have so many of them I'm too exhausted to write them all down because if if I were doing that I'd be sitting for six hours every day just writing it's a it's amazing and it's a bit overwhelming actually so be careful what you wish for with these questions you can really really take your life into totally new directions and so once you get a handle on asking these questions officially you're not gonna have any more reason to feel lost in life at a certain point in life you will be so resourceful by having trained your mind and also consumed a lot of books and videos and such you will become so resourceful that you will never feel lost you will feel confident that no matter what problem arises or whichever way you get stuck that you will be able to get the answers and the way that you develop that confidence is by having spent years asking these questions training yourself to do it and then having gotten hundreds of high-quality answers then you will feel like the universe is your personal Google and it will answer whatever you want for you that's a very powerful that keeps you from getting into Rutzen hopeless bouts of depression and so forth here are some action steps for you to take away and to do after this episode number one contemplate the importance of questioning so that you understand in your own mind the potential of what we're talking about here number two start a list of all of your top questions about life make this list hundreds of questions long make it a thousand questions long number three determine which questions of these are the ones that you really care about find your top questions number four identify any chronic problems and obstacles that you have and brainstorm some high-quality questions specifically related to that so like maybe you have a problem with ADHD brainstorm 15 or 50 different questions that you have about that or maybe you have a problem getting a date brainstorm 50 questions about that maybe you have a problem with money brainstorm 50 questions for that next make a list of questions that you're afraid to ask so ask yourself the question which questions am i afraid to ask and then generate a list of 50 of them that'll be very powerful and therapeutic in itself and lastly I want you to buy a stack of legal pads those yellow legal pads and pens and leave them lying around your house everywhere so that you can use them for questioning and be constantly jotting down new questions throughout your life when you're in your shower thinking about stuff or driving your car have a have a legal pad there and you can jot down your questions and then if you watch my episode and you keep a commonplace book go check out my episode about how to keep a commonplace book you can compile all of your best questions in that commonplace book the way that I do so if you took my life purpose course you need to be ask yourself more questions and more powerful questions to be able to actualize that if you're a highly creative person an artist or an entrepreneur you need to be asking way more questions than you presently are more outside the box questions deeper questions to be good at what you do if you want to be a great scientist you need to get much better at asking quality questions your questions are not deep enough they're not broad enough and that's holding you back from making your greatest discoveries if you're doing spirituality there's a million questions that you should be asking yourself that I've talked about in the past if you're a psychonaut you need to get much better at asking how quality questions that's one of the biggest differentiators between someone who just does some psychedelics and gets nothing out of it versus someone who does psychedelics and transforms this whole life is that the true psychonaut is also really really good at contemplating questions and that makes the trips a hundred times more powerful and more productive and useful in everyday life so it's not just some peak experience so in conclusion don't take something so basic and simple as questioning for granted these sorts of basic techniques are really what account for 80% of your results within personal development remember that good questioning snowballs over time and it pays dividends for the rest of your life so it's worthwhile to do and I'll just leave you with three of the most life-changing questions that I ever pursued and asked in my life and that I have answered number one what is consciousness number two what is reality and number three what do I really want now of course I've asked many other questions very amazing questions that have been answered but these three in particular have probably been the most most powerful and these are questions that I've asked for years and sometimes it can take a decade or more to get the answer but boy is it worth it so you could try these out for size but of course you know this is just me everyone's going to have their own top three questions it very much depends on your personality and where you are in your life and so forth so there you go we're done here please remember to click that like button for me and come check out actualize that org you'll find my blog with unique insights and videos that I post on there check out the book list check out the life purpose course check out the forum ask your questions there and the final thing I'll say is that actualize that order's number one priority is understanding that's my number one focus in life to me it's even more important than awakening it's more important than then even embodiment of awakening or even mastery it's understanding because understanding is the foundation for everything else if you lack understanding you will screw up your awakening if you lack understanding you will screw up your mastery and embodiment of awakening you see so understanding is the most valuable thing because it grounds everything else with wrong understanding you're stuck and with accurate high-quality understanding profound understanding all of life opens up to you and not only that but really understanding is its own reward it's not just a means to some end it is the ultimate end is for you to understand what the hell everything is what else is there to do in life but to understand it all and it is possible to understand it all and of course the key to understanding is asking quality questions so don't delay begin today and I'll see you soon in the next one you