Page 92 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

The Benefits of Asking a Better Question 83

we assume they’re 75 years old. Because aren’t those the techno-
phobes?” (I’m not sure they still are, but back then this group had not
yet embraced the computer. Today, I believe, it’s one of the growing cat-
egories of home PC sales.)
Asking a better question, then asking an even better question, led
to some much better answers.

❖

You can ask a better question at any point in time, at any point in
the creative process. Of course, I prefer starting at a better place.
In fact, if you think about it, it’s an instant lobotomy: If you are
using the part of the brain that thinks about socks as paisley, argyle,
and all the usual suspects and thinks about tennis shoes as arch sup-
port, padding, traction, and all the usual comfort things, then asking a
better question will put you in a place where you don’t have the answer.
What’s a highly unusual design? I don’t know. How far does somebody
run? I don’t know. When you put yourself in that place, you loboto-
mize yourself and put yourself in a place of wonder—that place where
wonderful things happen.

THE BENEFITS OF ASKING A BETTER QUESTION

One benefit is that when you ask the right kind of question it triggers
curiosity. I study high-achieving creative people, and the highest-
achieving creative people of all time are tremendously curious.
Leonardo da Vinci showed great curiosity: How do birds fly? How do
fish swim underwater? Thomas Edison was tremendously curious.
Curiosity means putting yourself in a place you don’t know. Putting
yourself in a place of wonder. (Don’t we often praise bright people
with the compliment, “She knows what she doesn’t know”?)

Timeline of a great idea (continued)

Timeline of a lousy idea (continued)
Maybe you shouldn't have been so quick to commit
to that no-one-will-notice-if-I-slip-it-through idea.