Tag: what

Changing the questions

Posted on by philipdodson

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Today I met Amanda, at a very posh coworking space, We Work, and it happened through the power of Twitter, well partly.

So sitting last week a notification popped up from Twitter saying ‘Amanda C Watts, is now following you’. I have to be honest, I don’t always look at these notifications, as I am training myself not to be a magpie and look at the next shiny new thing

Anyway, I replied with ‘thanks for following, can I ask why do you do what you do? replying in 140 characters might be a challenge’.

The response from Amanda was ‘help people build their dreams. I am on a mission to help 1 million people leave a legacy so I can leave mine’.

She asked me the same, my response ‘I am on a mission to create an alternative world based on putting people first and values. A world for the many not just a few’.

Today we met for the first time. I had a great conversation, realised that we had common values, had other things in common and agreed to connect further, and who knows what will come from it.

So the point of this, had I just followed back or replied with ‘thanks for following, what do you do?’. She might have replied ‘I’m a coach’ and when Amanda asked me, I might have replied ‘I run a coworking space’.

The meeting probably wouldn’t have happened.

If you want a different outcome, ask a different question.

What do you do?

Posted on by philipdodson

The question we ask all too often is ‘what do you do?’

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The reason we do this, is that we have been conditioned by society to use the answer as a way of judging whether the person is worthy or not of our time.

All too often we help that process with our response too, we simply say ‘I’m an accountant’ or ‘I am a doctor’ or ‘I am a waitress’

Perhaps if we answered ‘I help people achieve their dreams through maximising their financial assets’ or ‘I save lives and improve people’s quality of life’ or ‘I make your dinning more special’ The list could go on. But would make a more interesting response and would remove a good deal of the instant judging.

However, surely it isn’t about what we do. Isn’t more interesting to perhaps ask people, ‘what are your values?’ or ‘what things make you happy?’. Or even ‘why do you do what you do?’. Or ‘what are you passionate about?’, ‘what’s your favourite book?’ or ‘who inspires you the most?’ or ‘what’s the most interesting place that you have visited?’. The list can go on and on, once you start to use your imagination and once you get into the habit of finding out something more meaningful about another human being.

It is better to build relationships based on common interest, shared values and trust. What does it matter what someone does as a job? By knowing that it often, will wrongly cloud our judgement.

All people are already worthy, it doesn’t matter what they do, it matters who they are as a person, what they stand for, what inspires them, what they love and why they do what they do.

It is just a habit and it is one worth breaking, it is all about thinking differently, being different and look at the world from the other end of the telescope.