Ask Better Questions to Build Better Connections | Amber L. Wright | TEDxCSULB

[Applause] as many parents of school-aged children can probably relate to i was once lost in the land of good with my nine-year-old daughter when she started elementary school i was so excited for her for us and she was embarking on this new journey and every day with that excitement in my eyes i pick her up and i say so how was your day today and without fail she shrug her shoulders and say good and then i'd say okay what was good about it i don't know it was just good naturally i wanted to know more

i was so curious about what was happening in her little life how was she liking her teacher and was she getting along with her friends and what was her favorite subject and looking back on it now i don't know how i thought i was going to get all of that by simply asking how was your day but ultimately i was in search of an opportunity to connect with her an invitation of sorts to join her on this journey of big girl school as we called it that she was embarking on but i wanted to do

that in a way that didn't feel like a daily interrogation so i sat with it for a while and then one day it all just kind of changed we are driving home and i say tell me what was the best part of your day today she said oh my best part i said yeah your best part like what made you smile the hardest today she stops and she thinks about it and she says oh i know the best part of my day was getting to play handball after school with my friends really i said i

didn't know you knew how to play handball she said oh yeah it's a fun game you throw this ball and you do like this now she's giving me instructions from the backseat on how to play handball not knowing that her own mama played handball tetherball and dodgeball when i was a kid and i share that with her and she's so surprised she can't believe it and we have a short but riveting conversation on after school activities and that kind of became a new thing between us and it's something that we still do to this day

and i ask her what was the best part of your day today and it has ranged from eating cinnamon rolls in the cafeteria to practicing violin to going to the computer lab which she loves to do more than anything and just like that that invitation i had been longing for into her life i finally received all by asking a better question and it's that interaction that i consider to be the path to connection real connection with real human beings through real conversation as a communication expert and certified life coach my life's work is built around

this idea that the quality of your life is directly influenced by your ability to communicate with confidence and with clarity part of being a good communicator requires that you are an active listener part of active listening requires that you ask questions but i want us to go deeper i want us to ask good questions the juicy kind that can help us go deeper faster with the people in our lives in the 15th edition of their textbook looking out looking in authors adler and proctor state that questioning helps us to do more than just gather information

like data and facts and details it can also help us learn what people are thinking how they're feeling and in some cases what they want and that i consider to be the secret sauce to developing relationships that add value to our lives and fulfill us to be clear i define a better question simply as one that demonstrates genuine curiosity but without being too intrusive and when we can strike that balance that's when we can shatter the perceptions that we have of other people and that in some cases people might have a bias take my former

student khalid for example i was an adjunct professor in communication studies for about eight years and over the course of that time i realized that a good number of my students had never had a black teacher before in their lives ever let alone a black female professor in college so it wasn't lost on me that by me showing up in all of my glory on the first day of class would impact how some of them perceived me and in some cases how they experienced me as was the case with khalid a young black male this

night in class we are brainstorming persuasive speech topic ideas and it's his turn to share with me what he's going to give his speech on so he comes to my desk and he pops down in the chair and i said so tell me what are you thinking about your topic for your persuasive speech and he says i think i'm gonna do my own recycling and i said oh okay um tell me more about that why recycling and he says because everybody should recycle and i said uh yeah you are right about that but tell me

more is this something that you're really interested in is are you really passionate about recycling and he says uh i mean not really i guess so clearly he wasn't sure what he wanted to give his speech on so we take a moment and i noticed that he's wearing a maroon colored hoodie with the letters tde printed on it in white and i recognize that to be the logo of top dog entertainment the record label that puller surprise winning rapper kendrick lamar assigned to and this sparks an idea in me and so i asked him do

you think that you could write a speech that argues that tde is the most important label to west coast rap since death row and he looks at me and says i'm sorry what i began to repeat the question and he said nah i heard you but how you know that how do you know what tde is and i said well first of all it's on youtube and second i listen to hip-hop i love rap love kendrick you know don't kill my vibe he couldn't believe it his whole accountants changes and he smiles wide and he

says see miss amber that's why i like you because you like you oh and you young at the same time i never had a professor like you before and i just smile and say thanks i think but in that moment a perception was shattered and a connection was made we weren't just teacher and student we were two hip-hop fans and we talked about everything from snoop to tupac to kendrick and i'll never forget the look on khalid's face as he was walking back to his desk brimming with new ideas on how he could possibly construct

that argument because it was the face of someone who had just felt seen and that's the benefit that comes from asking better questions i could have left it at recycling but by taking it a step further we were able to engage in a more thoughtful way some of you might hear this and say okay girl this just sounds like small talk which i already don't like doing now you want me to do more of it by asking people questions i don't think so and that's not exactly what i'm saying asking better questions isn't about meaningless

chatter it's actually quite the opposite it's about communicating with intention with the people around us we see this play out in our romantic relationships for example a 2013 study found that couples rate communication as the most important deciding factor to relationship success more than sex and passion and to me when we can get good at learning how to engage in a thoughtful way around us that's when we can really see a change happen in our relationships so think about that for a second and let's merge these two ideas how would you feel if your partner

the one you have the one you want or the one you had on a regular basis looked you in the eye and said how can i show you that you're a priority in my life or how does this relationship contribute to your happiness wouldn't you feel seen by that person and appreciated and loved don't you feel that way now just by hearing me say that out loud and we're not even in a relationship together that's the gift that we all have the power to give the people in our lives when we train ourselves to be

thoughtfully curious to further demonstrate what i mean let's play a quick round of ask this not that say you're at a networking event and you meet somebody new instead of asking so what do you do you can ask what about your work inspires you or say you're on the phone with a friend who's going through a hard time instead of how you hanging in there you can ask how can i support you in this moment i see this in my line of work as a consultant and trainer at the start of every engagement i ask

the client what does success look like for you when all of this is said and done it gives them a chance to think about their goals and articulate them to me and then we can have a conversation about how we can work together to meet those goals and i feel like it's a much more effective question than how can i help now this whole thing of asking better questions can take a little bit of time and practice but you can get it i believe in you it's important for me to note feral that asking questions

is only half the process the other half of it is being mindful in how we respond to people a 2010 study published in the journal of social psychology found that questioning has benefits to both the questioner and the person responding and i think that one of those benefits is providing someone with the opportunity to show up as their more authentic selves because i think that ultimately that's what we're all searching for is an opportunity to just be ourselves or a space to be ourselves so it's important to note that we also have to make sure

that we answer authentically and honestly how this played out in my own life is i used to be the kind of person that was really good at convincing people that i was doing much better than i was i think we all are good at that when someone says how are you doing you say good i'm how are you and then we will keep walking but there was a time in my life when i wasn't doing that good i was working two jobs one that had a two-hour commute each day raising a small yes thank you

raising a small family and trying to get a small business off the ground i was so tired and overwhelmed i didn't know how to say that and one day at the full-time job i had a co-worker and i were just having a conversation and she could tell that something wasn't quite right with me and so she asks me she looks me in my eye which is always important and she says amber are you okay finally someone noticed i thought that was so much of a better question than how are you doing because i could have

said i'm great she knew better than that and because she noticed i decided to answer honestly and i said no i'm not okay and with that admission i began to cry and i cried so long and so hard i left work early that day and i didn't come back for two weeks the question unraveled me and i realized how much of a disservice i had done to myself and to my loved ones by not just telling the truth and say yo i'm tired and i need a break so i made a commitment to myself to

always answer that question honestly now when people ask me how i'm doing typically it's the first interaction the first time i hear that question of the day i'll stop and i'll think about it and i'll say i'm doing great today thank you for asking but if i'm not doing well i'll just say you know i'm not doing my best today but i'm trying my best my friend noticed that i do that and she said would it i noticed you always say today now when i ask you how you're doing what do what does that mean

is something going on i said no no nothing's going on i answer this way because today is all i have today i could be doing great feeling productive getting my steps in drinking my water but tomorrow i could be in my car crying in the target parking lot like i was last week this gives me a chance to honor this space and the truth of where i am and speak that truth but without telling everybody all my business she said i like that amber i think i'm going to try that i said you know i

hope you i hope you do and that moment with her gives me a chance to see how impactful this process can be so again it's a transaction i believe that relationships are life's greatest currency and communication is a transaction whereby we build our interpersonal wealth so if you want to be wealthy in your relationship i encourage you to think honestly and critically about how you engage with the world around you and train yourself to be more thoughtfully curious and make the effort to ask better questions and answer those questions honestly because you never know you

might learn a thing or two about handball hip-hop or how a friend is really doing thank you [Applause]