Ask the Right Questions, Get the Right Answers

Ladies, are you familiar with the term ‘blissful ignorance’? If you haven’t, would you rather not know what it meant? There you have it! I’m kidding you just a bit here and this section is about escaping the void that is blissful ignorance. I’m reminded of a quote that goes like this:

“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

Before you ask, no, this isn’t a section designed to promote higher learning or some other educational pursuit. It is designed to get you into the habit of never settling for not knowing something that could help your pursuit of success. Comprende?

What I want you to do here is to think of someone you admire and write down five questions you’d like to ask them if you had the chance. Go ahead, turn to the bottom of page 43, and do it! I’ll explain in a moment.

Ladies, what did you come up with? Whose name did you write down? Was it somebody famous or maybe someone in your town who you’ve met but don’t really know that well? There’s no right or wrong here; who you wrote down is who popped into your mind at the time and that’s good!

More importantly, what questions did you write down? Were they personal questions, success related questions, both, or neither? The reason I ask this question of you is that it has a lot of bearing on how you interact with other successful people. It’s said that if we want to become successful, we should model ourselves after other successful people. Sometimes we know how they did it and sometimes we don’t. This is where curiosity and questions enter the picture.

I know what you might be thinking. It could be something like, ‘Well, I’ll probably never meet __________ so wouldn’t have a chance to ask them questions anyway.’ or ‘I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) want to ask ____________ questions because I don’t want to bother them.’ These kinds of reservations can get in the way of you learning about other people who you admire and want to be like. I’m telling you: Don’t let this be a hurdle!

Being OK with asking questions starts with being curious. Curiosity has always been a fundamental part of the development of civilization. Modern technology would not exist if someone way back when did not ask ‘How?’or ‘Why?’ See what I mean here? Curiosity and the questions that spring from it are a part of what makes us human! It’s how we direct this curiosity and express our questions that affect how successful we can become!

Do you think it’s true that sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know? Of course! For example, you knew that success was out there before reading Success 103. What you may not have known is what is involved in becoming successful. That includes how real it can be for every one of you!

Your quest for success had to start with some simple curiosity about how it worked, or maybe why it works for some people and not for others. You had to have been at least curious enough to want to see what this program could do for you. I for one am very glad that you did! Now, you must take your curiosity to the next level by filling those holes in your base of knowledge. This program will hopefully fill many of those holes for you!

Those holes that remain can be filled as long as you are open to learning. One of the most common ways to learn is to simply ask questions. It sounds so simple yet still escapes many people, who prefer to embrace the unknown and are content where they are. This ‘blissful ignorance’ is not life threatening but is also not a formula for success.