In this episode I am going to talk about the three simple questions you need to constantly ask yourself at an unconscious level:
Why? What? How?
As children we’re so curious and inquisitive, but as adults we lose this. We stop asking these simple questions which will help us make better decisions and better life choices.
This podcast is going to empower you with these three questions and teach you how to use them to enhance your life and make better choices about everything from what you should drink to where you should invest your money.
Links & Resources:
Highlights from this episode:
(01:15) Let’s create a new habit
(02:06) Why why?
(06:17) What does this mean?
(08:58) Narrow down your decision-making process
(11:08) Shape the way you think to be more successful
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Using Other People’s Money: How to invest in property 4th edition
Make More Money from Property: From investor thinking to a business mindset 2nd Edition
Property for the Next Generation: Securing your future in uncertain times 2nd Edition
The New Estate: Insights from the 22nd century
The Wealthy Retirement Plan: A revolutionary guide to living the rest of your in style
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9 Critical Property Principles
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The Values Manual: Understand what your values are and how they can be key to a successful business
The Goal Setting Manual: Create meaningful and practical goals then achieve them
Episode 21 Transcript – What Questions are You Asking Yourself?
Hello and welcome to A Wealthy Life. My name is Vicki Wusche. In this podcast, we’re going to be asking questions. And by the end of the podcast, you are going to be able to have a tool kit of just three simple questions that you can apply to every decision going forward, no matter how small or how big, that are going to help you make a better decision, have a better outcome, become more successful, and actually achieve the goals that you really want to achieve; to cut through all of the noise that is around us now and is building over the months to come.
Let’s create a new habit
So, the title of this podcast is “What Questions are You Asking?” And there are three questions that you need to be asking, literally on everything that you do and almost at an unconscious level. And when you get good at this, it will be on an unconscious level. And those three questions are: why, what and how. There are other questions that you can ask yourself, but these are the three that you need to ingrain into your habits. And I spoke to you on a previous podcast about, “Are You a Creature of Habit?” And this is a new habit that I would love for you to take on board.
Why why?
When we were children, we would’ve asked the question “why” all the time. Your parents would’ve told you to do something and you would’ve said “why?” And your parents’ reply probably would’ve been “stop asking why!” And ironically, I’m now going to come back to you and say you need to be asking why. We need to reintroduce that habit. It doesn’t have to be out loud to people like, “can you come over here, please, darling? Why?” You don’t have to do it all the time. You don’t have to do it overtly. You don’t even have to do it out loud, but you need to do it.
And if we can get it even to an unconscious level, it’s even more powerful because it then doesn’t take up your thinking time. So, why do you need to ask why? When we ask “why” we are looking for relevance, we are looking for importance. It’s part of the processing that we can now do when we are not facing things like tigers and bears and everybody else that might kill us.
In the old days when we were at our most primal, our instincts were based on fight or flight, and we will still have those. Your instinct to fight or to flight is still there to protect you at a very basic level. But we are now full of so much information from social media, from news, from access to the internet, podcasts, books… We have got almost information, data overload, if you like.
And what we now need to do is introduce that question “why” to help us cut our way through the data so that we can identify what data is relevant and what data is important to us. So, what I want you to do is to start thinking about the question, “why.” If I say to you, “you need to drink water” rather than “you need to drink coffee,” I want you to start thinking about why you need to drink water rather than you need to drink coffee. And the point here is about hydration. But if you don’t understand hydration, you won’t understand why water is more important to you than coffee and why coffee theoretically could be detrimental because it’s a diuretic.
So, I’m using this as an example. It’s a simple thing; would you like a glass of water? Would you like a coffee? Which should I get for you? “Why” is the question you should be thinking here? Why should I have water versus why should I have coffee? And if you don’t understand the information, you can’t make the decision.
“Why should I be thinking about my finances going forward?” If you don’t have the answers to that question, you won’t know to prioritize focusing on your finances over the next few months. “Why should I invest in property?” If you don’t know the answer to the question “why,” you won’t then once get into the, “what does that mean,” and “how can I do it?”
So, you see how “why” opens everything, but also at the same time, narrows. It opens up your thinking because it’s the point at which you start gathering top-level information about the topic you are considering, or the decision you are facing. But it also narrows, because in filtering that information and looking for its relevance, looking at whether, “does this information about this topic, this decision that I have to make, add to my plans, help me achieve my goals, make me more successful? Or is it a distraction, or even will it cause me to go backwards?” Then that puts you in a position where you can make a better decision, right at the point about filtering through the information.
What does this mean?
Once you’ve filtered through, by going to the “why” question, you can then work out what you want to achieve more information on.
So, where you need to get more what in your life? That sounds a bit of a strange sentence, but “what” is the second question. And you need to know where you can get more what into your life. So, I’ve worked out why I need to listen to this podcast, this piece of information, why I need to make this decision rather than another decision. And that’s helped me narrow down my thinking. Now I’m at “what,” I can start to get more information about–this is a bit judgemental–the right topics. Because I’ve narrowed it by asking “why” first, “why” has filtered out the things that are relevant, the things that aren’t going to support, so therefore I can increase the data that I gather about that specific “why” by asking the question what: “what does this mean?”
So, let’s go back to the water drink. Why should you drink water versus coffee? So “why” is really important because it’s about hydration. Now you can get into–and hydration is something that you’re concerned about, or it’s a hot day–now you can ask “what,” what does hydration mean? “How does water help with hydration?” And actually, you could go back the reverse way and go, “how does coffee detrimentally help your hydration?”
“Why should I be investing in property?” Because it can create that second source of income for you. “What do you mean by investing in property? What would that entail? What amount of money might I need? What team would I need? What is the best location? What is the best strategy you can ask?” All of those questions.
Narrow down your decision-making process
And then we can move on to the third one. So, when you’ve got enough fact findings, so “why” filters data, is gathered through the “what” question. Once you’ve got the right data to help you form a decision, then you can get into the detail of the, “how.” Too often we put it all the other way around: how you can do something, not why you should do something. Not even what it means to do that thing. We’ve got the questions up the wrong way around.
Let’s go back almost to a childlike way of thinking and ask questions that are going to support us, ask questions that are going to enable us to achieve our goals. And if you’re listening to this podcast, then your goal is a wealthy life. And if you want a wealthy life, you know that your time is important. And by asking the question, “why” first, followed by the question “what,” you can actually overall save time by asking the right questions in the right order, rather than spending time getting into all the detail of something that’s not relevant to you, or something that’s not going to support you.
Now, in case you’re worried about, “well, hold on a second. If I just use this technique, then I’m not going to be open to different ways of thinking,” you absolutely are because you apply “why” to that different way of thinking and you evaluate it. And if by evaluating it at the beginning, it is something that will support you, something that is important, something that is new that you didn’t know about and you need to check it, then you can ask the “what.” And as you then get into the detail, you make another level of decision. By understanding “what,” you may then rule it in or rule it out still at that point.
It’s not, it’s not linear. You don’t ask the question, “why,” go down one path, and then follow that into the “what,” follow that into the “how,” and rule everything else out. You are just using smarter questions to help you filter through the noise, to help you remain focused on achieving the goals that you want, and to being more successful; but also, to minimizing the amount of time that you have to put into this decision-making process, by narrowing it all down.
Why is this important to me? What does it mean? And if all of those answers are relevant to you, then you ask “how do I achieve this? How do I move forward? How do I go to the next stage?” And you can narrow this down.
Shape the way you think to be more successful
So, let’s get more childlike. Let’s ask the “why” question. As I say, maybe, maybe some of that time, you’re going to have to ask it in your head, because if your boss tells you to do something, you might not want to go “why” to them on the outside, you might think the “why” on the inside. And equally, if your children start asking you “can we have tea?” you don’t want to say “why” to them. But you can still start thinking this through.
And what you’ll find is that you are very quickly and almost unconsciously getting into this. So, like the previous habits I spoke to you about–I can’t remember quite what episode it was, I think it was maybe Episode 20*, so a couple of weeks ago–we were talking about this and I was talking about creating a gratitude habit in the morning and setting your alarm for 3:33 in the afternoon and all of those sorts of things. Now, what I want you to do is add in the questions that you ask.
So, this is probably–given that I have plugged it for so many episodes–actually a very short episode, but a very poignant, a very powerful episode, which is about asking the question “why,” and only when you know why something is relevant, do you then get into the detail of “what” and “how,” that by planting this seed, I hope that I’m going to shape the way you think so that you can be more successful, more focused, and find that it’s easier to filter out what’s relevant to you.
We often hear people saying, “turn the TV off,” or “don’t watch these programs,” or “don’t do social media.” I like flicking through social media. I like the videos. I find them–some of them–entertaining, but I don’t spend hours on them. And I know why I am doing it; I am doing it at a time because I just want some relaxation, I don’t want to get into a whole film. I just want to flick through something visually to change the way I’m thinking so that I can step into a relaxation phase. So, I know why I’m watching those videos.
I don’t need to get into the what of all of them. I don’t need to get into the how of all of them. It’s serving its purpose. You can apply this to everything; your food choices, your business choices, your financial choices, your life choices, even. So, let me know how this works for you. Let me know if you apply it and let me know what better questions you are asking yourself and what better outcomes you are having.
And above all, I hope that in listening to this particular episode, I’ve enabled you to get a little bit more “Whoosh” into your life by asking the question “why.”
You’ve been listening to Vicki Wusche – wealth strategist, author, and property investor. With a name like Wusche, spelt W-U-S-C-H-E, I’m easy to find on all the usual social media channels. Do come and connect. Been loving the podcast? Then join the listener Fan Club, where I will share extra insights and host webinars. Links to this and more of my story are both in the show notes and on my website: vickiwusche.com. See you on the next episode!