QBQ

QBQ stands for the question behind the question. This little book is about the questions we ask ourselves in our head and about getting to the question behind the question and taking personal accountability. It’s about changing our inner dialog and asking questions that serve us instead of asking questions that lead us to victimhood and disempower us.

Asking better questions starts by indentifying IQs – Incorrect Questions. These are questions that make us feel powerless.

Examples that you might hear currently:

• Why didn’t we see this pandemic coming?
• Why weren’t we more prepared?
• When is the government going to get its act together?
• Why do I have to practice social distancing?
• Why doesn’t everyone practice social distancing like I do?
• Why did they shut down my business?
• Who is going to pay our bills while we are shut down?
• When are they going to allow my business to open back up?
• When will this end?

Now I am certainly not trying to minimize what is going on. A lot of people are being impacted negatively, and not just those who get the virus. We are not all-powerful. Sometimes there are negative things that happen in life that we cannot control. It is a sad but true reality. But there are two things that we can always control and those are our perspective and our actions

The key to gaining back control is to ask better questions. Notice the questions above are disempowering. The implication is that it is someone else’s problem to fix or that if we just wait long enough maybe it will fix itself and go away. Starting a question with why, when or who immediately shifts the responsibility to someone or something else. It lets us off the hook.

Here the keys to better Questions:

1. Start with How or What instead of Why, When or Who
2. Use the word I not we, or they
3. Add some action

The real question behind the questions up above is what can I personally do about it? Some better QBQ Questions are:

• How can I help my business adapt to this new environment?
• What can I do today to help others?
• How can I make sure I am better prepared if this happens again?
• How can I lead by example, when it comes to social distancing?
• How can I remain connected to my loved ones in these times?
• What can I do to take advantage of the free time that I have now?
• What can I do to bring in some extra income right now?
• How can I protect myself and my family from getting the virus?

Simply asking these questions is not going to make all our problems go away, but they should lead you towards some actionable items that you can do right now in order to better your situation. Given these trying times we can’t simply solve the problem alone, but we can individually do the best we can to better our situation. Don’t we each owe it to ourselves to do the best that we can?

“God grant me the serenity to accept the people I can’t change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one person is me”

QBQ page 81