Introduction.

Who is this book for?

Everyone.

Well of course you’d probably expect me to say that, but these skills are so universally important that you can consider this a tool kit for success, in any area of life, an essential instruction manual, a Swiss army knife for life.

If you’re interested in personal development and the pursuit of excellence, both for yourself and working with others in a professional capacity, such as coach, therapist or business leader, and if you want to

Design and achieve your dreams
Ensure that your relationships work well, flourish and are fulfilling
Manage your business more effectively
Satisfy your customers’ and clients’ needs
Be more successful
Breakthrough areas of stuckness, blockage and conflict in your life
Stop recurrent arguments both within yourself, with your partner, your kids or anyone else
Sort out misunderstandings
Release yourself from self doubt, negative thoughts and unwanted behaviours and habits
Communicate, be understood, and understand others more effectively
Assist others on their paths away from conflict and wasted time and energy and towards transformation and fulfilment,

then, this book is for you.

How can a book that contains questions be the most important book you might ever read?

You might be thinking “Questions? Surely I want answers not questions.”

Whilst this is a reasonable request, it might surprise you to discover that the most important thing I’ve learnt from over a decade of working in this field is

providing solutions, advice, suggestions or

answers doesn’t really help much.

Others of you might have already discovered this and are looking for the tools and skills to ask the right questions.

Wherever you are in this journey of discovery, whether you’re new to this or have seen some of it before, you will gain new tools, new perspectives and, if you want it, a new life.

Let’s start by reviewing why you might prefer questions to answers.

Why giving out answers doesn’t help much

1 The answers I provide will be my solutions to a problem and not yours, which although may work well for me, may not be great for you;

Q: Should I marry that girl?

Advice: No, I don’t find her attractive.

How useful is my advice there?

2 If I supply you with answers then you won’t go through the process of finding the solution for yourselves. This ‘finding solutions process’ is essential in helping you to create solutions for other problems you come across in the future. Without it you are likely to either apply exactly the same solutions that I suggested before, which may be inappropriate for that scenario, or ask just someone else for help. Asking someone for help is an ok strategy, but what if there is no one there to ask or if the only source of advice is not very helpful or just plain wrong.

You can see how this is equally applicable when working on your own issues, with individuals, or with teams, and in a business, relationship or management setting.

Giving out answers makes the recipient more dependent on others, less able to make decisions and less in touch with what’s right for them.

Why questions do work

If instead we recognise that you already have the answers to your problems inside you, helping you discover those answers not only finds you the perfect solution, but also trains you to sort out different kinds of problems in the future.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish, and he feeds himself forever (unless he’s a vegetarian, which means you haven’t been asking Q3 enough!).

This is why we say the way to sort out problems is not to be given the answers but to know what the questions are.

Creating solutions yourself allows you to be more independent and skilled at finding and making the right decisions for yourself.

It’s interesting to remind ourselves that although there are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, the whole of English literature results from their skilful use.

I’ve got enough questions already.

Any old questions will not provide the answers. We will lead you clearly through the process of learning to ask

the key questions
at the right time
to get to the solutions.

This is the real skill of this process.

These questions are some of the most powerful tools on the planet, collected from many of the major teachings in personal and spiritual development, business and hostage negotiation, psychotherapy, NLP(neuro linguistic programming) and hypnotherapy and precision communication; they are the cutting edge technology of personal mastery, prepare to amaze yourself, as you unleash your power.

One last point, when you’ve asked the questions and discovered the solution, you must then do something about it. Can you recognise what self help books, diets and gym memberships, have in common?

How to use this book

It works best if you read it though from beginning to end, even if you are in the middle of a project and hitting obstacles, as very often these problems can be ironed out by getting the ground work of the creation section really sorted, or getting into action.

For the impatient amongst us (and that includes me) you could begin at the appendix, which provides a useful table of all the questions and the signals that will alert you as to when to use them, but please read the chapter related to the question before using it, you’ll see why.

The format of this book is to discover the questions by looking at the natural process of evolution from

desires and dreams, the Creation section,
to putting dreams into reality, the Action section
through the obstacles that we will meet, the Challenges section
through the daily management of your projects, the Smooth running section
to the Hey, I’ve done it! Completion-Now What next section

These questions are as valuable when asked of yourself, other individuals, groups and teams and even nations.

"Ask not “what your country can do for you?” but

“What you can do for your country?”
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy