Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others

you have ever been asked?”
Suggestions for How to Use This Question
“What was the most difficult question you
have ever been asked?
Elie Wiesel wrote that God created the Earth and made humans because God loves
stories, and all of our lives are the stories He tells.
What is the most difficult question you have ever been asked almost always creates a
flowing stream of conversation. When asked the question, what you will most often find

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is that the person stops and says, “Okay—what's going on here? Let me think. Wow!
That's a tough one. In my heart of hearts, what is the answer?”
When to Use This Question
When you want to plumb deep into the person's psyche.
When you want to know much more about the character and makeup of the
person.
Alternate versions of the question
“What is the most profound question you have ever been asked? That you have
ever asked anyone?”
“Tell me, have you ever been asked a question that really stumped you?”
“Have you ever been asked a question that embarrassed you, or have you ever
asked a question that turned out to be embarrassing for the person you're talking
with?”
Follow-up questions
“What kind of an impact did the question make on your life?”
“Sometime later, did you feel you gave the right answer?”
“If you were asked the same question today, would your answer be the same?”

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20
The Road Taken
It all begins with the black bag—my father's black physician's bag.
It's the kind that doctors rarely use today but were popular in the 1950s. It
is large and rectangular, with rounded corners, made of pebbled, matte
black leather. Inside are all sorts of mysterious packets and vials. Syringes,
even. It is full of cures that my father can pull out and use to fix people at
will. That black bag is alluring, powerful, magical. At age six I resolve that
I, too, will become a doctor.
Most of my family was in medicine. My father's father had also been a
doctor, a successful urologist. My mother had been a World War II nurse.
My oldest brother entered medical school when I was a senior in high
school.
In college I became pre-med. That means I had to sign up for calculus,
biology, and a raft of other science courses. For me, however, it was always
going to be a tough row to hoe. Getting into medical school—then as now
—was a very difficult challenge. You had to spend your four years of
college in the library. You needed top grades. (Getting good grades wasn't
the problem. It was getting them consistently in math and science!)
I didn't really care for those pre-med requirements. I found them dry.
They didn't grab my heart. Instead, I thrived in the courses I took on
literature, history, and languages.
But I gritted my teeth and dug in—those science courses were simply an
obstacle I had to jump over to get to my goal. After all, I had always wanted
to be a doctor. Everyone in my family had been or was going to be in
medicine. During my freshman year my other brother informed us that he,
too, was going to apply to medical school.
The pressure grew. Come hell or high water, I too would one day have a
black, pebbled-leather doctor's bag!

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During my sophomore year I see an ad in the college newspaper: “Career
Guidance Seminar. Learn to write an effective resume.”
I think, Why not? Perhaps it will help me get a good summer job. Having
attractive summer positions on my record will enhance my medical school
applications.
I don't realize it, but I'm arriving at a turning point. I mean one of those
really big forks in the road, the kind that happen only a few times in your
life. It's when you choose a spouse. Decide on a career. Debate whether or
not to accept a promotion and move halfway around the world.
In his poem “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost elegantly describes
what it feels like to face such a turning point. It's a beloved poem. He
describes coming to a fork in the road while strolling in a yellow wood. He
says that both roads have about equal quantities of leaves on them, although
one seems a bit less traveled. He has a dilemma: Which fork should he
take? Which choice is the right one?
Frost ends the poem with these lines:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The poem is about how difficult it is to make life-changing decisions. It's
about how close the choices seem to be to each other. And how, afterward,
we want to believe our choice was the right one for us.
At these forks, we must decide and commit!
I sign up for the career development workshop. For two days, we learn
how to write a resume. How to best highlight our prior experience and
education. We study interviewing techniques. How to network.
On the second afternoon, we are given the final assignment. “This is your
last exercise,” the instructor tells us.
“Take a sheet of paper. During the next hour, you are to write your
obituary. You are to write the article about your life that will appear in the
local newspapers after you die. How would you like it to read? What kind
of a life will it describe? Now, get started.”

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Some of us gasp. Our obituary? When you're 20 years old, you are
immortal. You are never going to die. Why this morbid exercise?
I begin writing. I describe an illustrious medical career. In my obituary, I
have been a prominent physician who held a professorship at a major
medical school (just like my father). I had also had a large clinical practice
(just like my father). And more. I imagine how proud my parents will have
been. The steady income. The accolades.
But after 20 minutes, I abruptly stop in mid-sentence. I feel a slight panic.
My heart is racing.
What am I writing? I put my pen down. I am thunderstruck.
What I really want to do is travel. To live abroad. To be an entrepreneur.
The prospect of years of medical training suddenly seems overwhelming.
Four years of taking courses that hold only moderate interest for me. Four
years of living in perpetual anxiety about getting into medical school. Then
four years of medical school itself. Afterwards, a residency of three to five
years. Later, perhaps a post-graduate fellowship.
I don't really want to study organic chemistry. I suddenly realize I'm
studying it for my father. For my grandfather. But not for me.
No, I want to learn foreign languages and study great novels. A voice in
me is shouting, “Are you really sure you want to become a doctor! You're
becoming a doctor for them, not for you! What about all that traveling you
want to do?”
A giddy resolve comes over me.
I cross out the first page, about becoming a prominent and respected
physician. I pause, and then start to write again. But this time, it's a different
story. A different future.
In my new obituary I have a career in international business. I am fluent
in four languages. I run businesses in Europe. I even write a couple of
business books. I travel the world. Teach some courses at a business school.
I sketch a radically different career trajectory. I also write about my
marriage and three children. And many interesting friends.
I'm only 20 years old. I'm writing my obituary. What I'm really writing is
my life's plan. A plan that excites me. My plan. Not my father's.
Years later, I misplaced that piece of paper. But I never forgot what I
wrote on it.

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The morning after the workshop is Sunday. I walk to the end of the
hallway in my dormitory. Put a dime in the pay phone. As usual, it's a
collect call—my weekly call to my father and mother.
“Dad, I have decided not to go to medical school.”
I wait for the disapproval, the lecturing tone, the advice intended to buck
me up. It never comes.
“I don't care whether or not you go to medical school. I am happy for you
to pursue whatever career you'd like.”
(I'm thinking: Did he say that? No! It's not possible!)
“Really?”
“Really. No one in the family feels you have to become a doctor.”
I am shocked. Flabbergasted. The telephone receiver is sliding out of my
hand. I exhale slowly, grinning from ear to ear. I want to hug my father.
You're probably wondering, “How did things turn out? What happened?”
I will tell you: Things turned out well. And virtually all of it happened just
as I wrote it in my obituary, at age 20.
To help someone reflect on what they'd truly like to do in their lives,
and how they'd like to be remembered by others, ask: “If you had to