Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

When you think about this, how does it affect or influence your
everyday life?
How does it affect your job?
Where are you in this story?
She asks a roomful of people to form two lines facing each other. Everyone
gets a question and has sixty seconds to answer.
What labels do you use to describe yourself, or do you use no labels?
Are your labels different from labels others use?
What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?
She asks a group to sit in a circle.
What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever experienced?
If you were to sit down for lunch with your nineteen-year-old self,
who would you see?
What percentage of you is your dark side?
“We create a structured framework around the question,” Debbie explained,
in order to build relationships, provoke conversation, develop leadership, and
create bridges between communities. At a time of increasing diversity in
America, and as everything seems to get more complex, Debbie argues that
leadership starts with an ability to ask and to listen, to bridge differences and
build community. She’s betting the future on it.
“The question as a tool is the core of everything we do,” she says.
Poems of Humanity

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David Isay, like Debbie Bial and Sandra Day O’Connor, is also investing in the
future. Isay is creator of StoryCorps, a project that millions of listeners hear on
podcasts, NPR, and online. StoryCorps invites ordinary citizens to interview one
another. Parents, children, husbands, wives, friends, and partners produce
remarkable conversations that evoke a rich and enduring spoken mosaic of
American life. StoryCorp’s declares that its mission is to “preserve and share
humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a
more just and compassionate world.”
Forty-minute interviews get edited to three minutes. Each interview is
intensely personal in its own way: A mother forgives the man who murdered her
son and says she hopes to see him graduate from college; a military veteran asks
his wife “What made you stick around?” as he wrestled with rage and alcohol
driven by his post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); a man with Down syndrome
answers his mother’s questions about growing up with a curse he now calls a
gift.
The appointment with a microphone, Isay told me, creates time and license
to ask about subjects that normally get buried or dismissed. StoryCorps offers a
list of “Great Questions” to get the conversations started.
What was the happiest moment of your life?
Was there a time when you didn’t like me?
What makes us such good friends?
StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife Center at the
Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future
generations.
Isay told me that many of these conversations become “poems of humanity.”
He’s right. Each story speaks in its distinct cadence, offering a unique journey to
an individual’s life story. The poetry happens because someone asked.
Always Asking
It was inspiring to hear from these people who work so hard to advance the
culture of curiosity. It is a message educators try to convey to students every
chance we get: A successful education is one that only gets you started. It’s not
the questions you’ve answered, but the ones you have yet to ask that will lead to
discovery, ensure your place in the world, and help you succeed at a time of

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rapid change.
I tried to do my part over the years and when my kids were young, though I
encountered some predictable resistance. I had a reputation for mealtime
interviewing. I asked about school, homework, sports, friends, weekend plans—
all the activities that kids are into and parents want to know about. I thought I
was being a good dad, projecting my interest in my kids and their friends,
encouraging them to tell stories and share with the family. But my questions
could cause fifteen-year-old eyes to roll. My son would say, “Dad, it’s
dinnertime. Stop being a reporter.” I defended myself, of course, and asked
again.