I was just going along my day this morning, doing the things I had planned. I was in the middle of a workshop and received a writing/thinking prompt that exploded inside my mind like fireworks.

The prompt came in the form of a question, and I love it so much that I absolutely MUST share it with you today. It’s brilliant. It’s simple. I can’t believe I never encountered it before. I mean, I’ve come across similar questions, but nothing this pure.

Are you ready?

Here it is.

How could I be wrong about this?

Isn’t that brilliant? Are you underwhelmed? Do you need some convincing? Let me explain to you why I think it’s so awesome.

But first, let’s make sure that we get the tone of voice correct. It’s a neutral, curious tone of voice. Definitely not: HOW COULD YOU?!? like you would scream in a fight. More like: hmmm, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

Second, and I may have mentioned this before, our brain loves to solve problems. This question sends our brain on a treasure hunt, looking for new ways to look at “this thing” – whatever it is – in a new way. What are the ways – plural – that I might be wrong about how I’ve been looking at this? The more options, the better!

Third, we’re not asking “am I wrong?” so we aren’t asking a yes/no question. No binary, black-or-white thinking will answer the question. Feel into it for a second. Can you feel the difference? “Am I wrong about this?” gives me a little spike of fear and sets me off on a hunt to defend myself and prove that I’m not actually wrong.

Fourth, this way of asking the question lets us skip over the part where we could drop into judgment or blame or shame. No beating ourselves up. We don’t need to think that wrong = bad. We don’t need to undermine our confidence. We can go straight to curiosity.

Finally, we set ourselves up to reward our brain for creativity – our brain gets a prize (endorphins) for coming with answers that show how we could be wrong, because that’s the solution to the puzzle. The whole purpose of this question is not to find ways to make ourselves wrong. The purpose is to find creative ways to reapproach the topic. It’s a different way to find more and possibly better options.

This is a Color Thinking question extraordinaire! So what color question is this? I think it could be an all-purpose question, but I really want to call it a gold question. The brilliant side of gold is all about our wisdom, our confidence and insightfulness, our deep knowing. So yeah, this is a gold door question!

I hope you can see just how awesome this question is now. And if you don’t, I’ll just go play with how I could be wrong about it!

In the meantime, remember these things: You are loved. We are all loved. Let’s all be kind. And in all things – progress, not perfection!

Love and light,

Maggie

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Are you interested in being the leader you are meant to be? Send me an email and we can set up a time to talk: maggie@maggiehuffman.com