The Art of Asking the Right Question | Caroline Reidy | TEDxTralee

[Music] good morning everybody i'm delighted to share a gift with you all today today i'm going to share the magic of the art of asking the right questions so let me start and set the scene for you i'm from the most beautiful part of the world valley height in county kerry in ireland i go there to reflect or if i've something important to decide the sound of the waves in the backdrop as well as my grandfather's fabulous saying in my mind i think of his saying which is you need three bones to enjoy the journey

of life you need a wishbone to dream the dream you need a backbone to work hard and make it happen and you need a funny bone to enjoy the lighter side of life i adore that saying it helps me to reflect and refocus and brings me back to think about what's most important so as you listen to me for the next few minutes i invite you to quieten your mind of all other thoughts and to think deeply are you dreaming your dream are you working hard to make your dream a reality or are you just

being busy being busy and are you enjoying the lighter side of life and having fun and enjoying your one and only life they're great questions aren't they they're questions that deserve time for us to press pause and think deeply and listen to those answers because the answers could change your life because time and time wait for no one time is our most valuable resource in the busy lives we live but we're all time poor if it's important enough we make time for it if it's not we make an excuse so when you think about how

do you spend your time i invite you to reflect and think are you happy having lived through a pandemic what will you do differently and what's stopping you these aren't easy questions but it's really important that we ask ourselves these questions now because the answers will present an opportunity to change our future it's great to ask questions of our past to take learnings but it's even more important to ask questions of our future so that we get into the driving seat of the destiny of the next chapter of our lives time and tide wait for

no one what an exciting opportunity for us all to really reflect and make our time really really important in terms of the past tense we don't want to look back and think when it's too late what would i have done differently why didn't i do that why didn't i take that opportunity because then it's too late it's not easy though asking ourselves these really deep meaningful game-changing questions so be kind when you ask yourself and be kinder when you hear those answers because remember wb yates's fabulous saying which is tread softly because you tread on

my dreams children have the power of curiosity as a natural wonder within them i have in two nieces and nephew who i absolutely adore and they ask questions without any thought they really challenge me when they ask those questions they ask things like why is the sky blue how are stars formed why are you so old and why don't you get another dog these to them are simple questions that need to be asked and deserve an answer but to me the question of why don't i get another dog pulls every heart string and emotional card

within me but as i say to them they're just simple questions they're curious to hear the answer to it's really important that we feed our minds with the best of positivity the best of knowledge and are really open to learning it's also really important that when we're talking to ourselves we're really kind and positive because we are listening i grew up in a house where my mom said caroline you can be the president what a powerful self-belief to be instilled in you from being a child and my mom today still instills that self-belief in us

which is an amazing gift to give to anybody that power of listening and giving people that opportunity to believe when we think about our best philosophers best entrepreneurs best innovators they all share the gift of the art of asking amazing questions they don't accept the here and now as acceptable they're constantly thinking about what could be better how can they improve things and why is that problem not yet solved as we think about what's stopping us we often think of things like blue sky thinking and brainstorming but all these things are simply thinking with no

boundaries asking the question and being open to the potential of what the magic those answers could lead to without thinking about the what ifs and the what butts and why not along the way that ability to improve both ourselves and everything around us is a magical gift and by asking magical questions it unlocks that potential for us and remember roald dahl said those who don't believe in magic will never find it so today maybe let's think about how we might believe in a bit more magic magic in terms of what we might be able to

achieve ourselves and also magic in the world around us when we think about the right questions albert einstein says any fool can ask questions but it takes a genius to ask the right questions we all have the gift of being able to ask the right questions today i hope to unlock the magic that that's going to give us all as we think about the best questions for me the best questions are open questions who what how but not always when i was 16 i came home with my leaving search results i was really proud of

myself thought i did really well my dad was throwing turf into the shed when i came home and i expected him to say caroline well done i'm so proud of you but instead he asked me and cars are you happy that question stopped me in my tracks then and it stops me in my tracks now he knew that i didn't know what i wanted to do with those results so they were never going to make me happy but he asked the right question in the right context at the right time and he was silent and

wanted to hear my answer that question made me reflect and decide i had a bigger question to answer and it was an amazing gift to give the art of asking the right question combined with the art of listening magical questions asked in the right question in the right context in the right time can unstick people untangle their thoughts give them empathy give them self belief they can unlock somebody and they can bring somebody further to the next step powerful aren't they without the art of actively listening questions don't come to life and we don't maximize

their potential so we really need to master the art of listening as well as the art of asking great questions and the hard thing about the art of listening is in our busy lives with whatsapp social media and all that busyness listening requires us to give time and silence to be fully and absolutely present i think it's really interesting that when you spell listen and you spell um silent they're made up of the same letters but we're not great at being silent and if we want great conversations and the art of really listening we need

to really master and get comfortable with being silent the whole art of conversation is something that we think about to bring clear understanding to our journey the more we listen the more we give space to the thought and information that's coming our way the clearer our understanding is going to become i'm a mediator and the power of giving people the opportunity to be truly heard is powerful we make space and time in mediation to unlock that person's need to be listened to and give them the space to be truly hurt often people would say things

like caroline that's the first time i really feel i've been listened to are caroline that's the first time i really feel i've been hurt it's a powerful gift to give somebody isn't it just that ability to make them feel that they've been really hurt it's important also we don't presume and instead we ask often times we sketch information scant information and make up what we think is what the story is and instead of falling into that presumption pitfall it's so much easier to just ask and listen to what is being heard us humans are fairly

complex and trying to guess what somebody else is thinking is really difficult and we often get it wrong as a result i always say psychic communication doesn't work which means we're psychically trying to think what that other person is trying to tell us instead think about how we could just simply ask the question and listen to the answer much simpler isn't it but we don't do it as often as maybe we should i also believe that there's junctures in our lives that we should press pause and ask ourselves really important questions one of those junctures

in my life was when i got those precious leaving search results and instead of thinking what would i do with the results i should have thought about what am i good at what are my natural traits and natural skills and as a result of which i would never work a day in my life because i'd be doing a job that i would naturally love and naturally be good at but sometimes life is so busy we're on that roller coaster of life and we forget to press pause and ask those great questions we all want a

positive culture that feeling that's in the room are in our families in our work environments when we're not there it's intangible but we want it to be as positive as it can be one easy way to make all of that environment better is just to simply ask what are we doing well what do we need to start doing and what do we need to stop doing the answer is generally in the room all we need to do is present great questions and listen to the answers that's going to bring us to a place of shared

understanding and everybody is going to have that buy-in to bring us to the next stage which is really exciting as we move there with shared understanding great questions also facilitate the most amazing conversations lots of you will have heard of emotional intelligence but for me emotional intelligence is simply giving empathy time and space for somebody to be really listened to and really hurt it's a gift we all have the ability to give but think about the last time you asked somebody how are and think about did you really actually listen and make space for that

answer or were you so busy moving on to the next thing that you didn't really give that person the time they deserved to be truly listened to and truly hurt i invite you all from today to use how are you in a much more powerful meaningful way ask people and wait and really want to hear the answer the gift you will give that person and what you will receive will be bountiful in the world of whatsapp instant messaging social media we very little space for the art of verbal communication the art of true conversation and

for me there's nothing more powerful than two people having a real engaged conversation so i would invite you all to think about how we can reignite the power of true conversation and in doing so always start with asking instead of telling and even when you tell end with asking because asking brings you to learn new things that you never knew you knew and it's also showing the empathy and interest you have in that really being part of that conversation i believe in the world that we live in now instead of learning to multitask i think

we need to learn to singularly task we need to get good at actively asking great questions and actively making time and space to deeply listen i hope today you've seen the magic of the art of asking great questions i hope you'll think about my dad's powerful question are you happy it's been a game changer for me every time i ask it i also hope that you'll remember my grandfather's great saying that you need three bones to enjoy the journey of life you need a wishbone to dream your dream you need a backbone to work hard

and make it happen and you need a funny bone to enjoy the lighter side of life so i i invite you all to reflect and think are you dreaming your dream are you working hard to make your dream a reality rather than just being busy being busy and are you enjoying the journey of your one and only life because time and time waits for no one so today as you hear those great questions i like my grandfather believe you need to have those three bones in equal measure to enjoy the journey of life i also

believe that reigniting the art of asking great questions making space and time to listen and making space and time to get back to the art of true conversation will be a game changer in your life thank you for listening thank you