In my upcoming book Salvaged there’s a chapter focused on the power of asking good questions. A recent question I asked of a young man who wanted to be mentored is a case in point.
He’s in his mid-30’s, an intelligent guy, married with kids, doing his best to live a faithful life. There’s much to admire about this young man, and I wanted to say that up front because I’m about to make him sound really stupid.
He asked to meet with me, and the timing worked, so I agreed. Eventually, awkwardly, he got around to asking me if I’d mentor him. This isn’t an unusual question, and you’d be surprised how often I agree. But his round about way of asking and his lack of confidence in the question set off a little warning light in my head (yes, I really do have warning lights in my head; had them installed when I worked in the junkyard).
So I asked him a question we need to ask each other more often, “What do you want to learn?”
He looked at me with a blank expression. “Um, what do you mean?” he finally said.
“I mean what do you want to learn? You’re asking me to invest time, energy, and wisdom into your life. What do you want to learn from the experience?”
There was a profoundly uncomfortable few seconds as he bumbled around trying to figure out how to answer the question. He never really did, other than some cliche’s we’ve all heard before.
So I said, “Why don’t you take some time and think about that, then we’ll meet again. Maybe you’ll have an answer and we can go from there.”
He agreed, and we will meet sometime in the future. He’s a good person, but his lack of proactive thought about what he wants from a relationship was laid bare by one simple good question. The warning light in my head is still flashing.
Ask good questions, folks. It will save you and others a lot of time!