Sometimes the answer is a really good question

Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

I believe this to be true. I’ve experienced it in my own life, and I’ve seen it in action in my work with female solopreneurs.

Really good questions have the power to unearth answers you didn’t know you have inside.

And by “really good questions,” I mean questions that when you first hear them, you have a visceral (and often negative) reaction to. Those that cause an insistent voice inside you to say, “I don’t know the answer to that!”

But perhaps after you’ve that initial reaction, you can find a place inside yourself where you can soften around the question, turn it over in your head a few times, like an interesting stone you picked up while on a walk that you’re curious about. Then, slowly, an answer begins form.

You may like what emerges, or not; it may raise other questions or challenge you to do something you’d not considered or thought possible. This is the power a good question.

Is there one (or more than one!) that you’ve been afraid to ask? One that if you had the courage to ask yourself might generate an understanding, a direction, an answer you didn’t realize you possess?

Now, that’s a good question.