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Using questions to help others find true inspiration and get down to the root of problems.

Transcription

Independence Day games.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

We’ve got independence day coming up here in the States, here is what the US flag currently consists of 50 stars that may be changing soon, you never know that they’re going to add another, God only knows, take another one away.

But I want to welcome you back to the show.

I want to talk about a game that you can play and this is one I love playing. I’ve probably discussed doing this during the holidays and it’s really fun.

If you’re seeing people you don’t normally see or talking with people you don’t normally get to talk with, whether that be friends or family. Sit down and ask your friends, your family questions. And this is always fun, especially if you’re a business owner, if you’re an entrepreneur of any type, or if you’re an executive, if you’re one of the people in charge, let’s say you’re Head of Marketing for your company, or something of that sort, or your the CEO, and your mind probably thinks quite a bit differently than the average person.

I’m guessing you probably have an idea of where you’re going in life and you’ve got dreams and hopes and all these things that you’re you’re looking forward to.

A whole lot of your business is in trying to get to know who your customer is a little better. And if it’s not part of your business, it’s something you should be doing.

I don’t even care if you’re not in charge of it. If you’re in charge of anything in your business, you need to start seeing it from the customer perspective.

You probably have more than one customer.

We’ve talked about that before, too.

I don’t mean just more than one customer, I mean more than one type of customer, you probably have uniquely very distinct different types of people who you’re playing towards, and they may not always be a traditional customer.

But I digress, let’s pull back from that for a second.

The average person walking around doesn’t think that way. They don’t think about other people that much. They’re usually focused on their own issues, their own problems. They’re oftentimes not looking that far ahead into the future. They’re not thinking about what’s coming next.

And so it’s fun, it always causes a stir in a good way. If you handle it right, they’ll do it in a good way.

It causes interesting, very interesting conversations to pop up.

You’ll find that some people have ideas that you never would have thought that they would have had.

Here’s the line of question. And for one thing, just spending time asking people questions, it’ll make you a better person. Because it gives you a chance to sit back and just listen to people.

If you’re anything like me, you’d rather talk than listen. But it’s good to learn how to sit back and listen. Just doing that is gonna make your holiday a little bit more happier.

Also, if you can ask them about where they’re going in life, what they see their future as being where do they see themselves in the next five years?

Do they think they’re still gonna be living in the same place doing the same thing, work in the same job?

Do they figure they’ll probably be driving the same cars doing all that stuff, or do they see anything beyond that?

And how soon do they see it, is it five years, is it 10 years, is it 20 years down the road?

Where do they see themselves?

I think a whole lot of the issues with the United States today, if you’re looking at a lot of the problems that people are having in terms of, oh, just a lot of the issues with the economy, the lack of the lack of initiative to work, and so forth.

A lot of this comes back to a lack of inspiration for people.

I think a lot of people say it’s laziness, it’s really a lack of inspiration, that people don’t really see the job as taking them anywhere. If I’m getting a paycheck for doing nothing, I might as well not be doing I might as well not even be acting like I’m doing that, you know, I’ve been there.

I’ve had government jobs and I’ve had private sector jobs that were it felt like you weren’t getting anything done, right?

And I think a lot of people feel that way going to and from work, they feel very non-essential. And they had the government telling them they were not essential these last couple years.

So why not just sit back and get a paycheck, and things are gonna get really rough and crazy with inflation, if we just keep pumping money out there everywhere, and I’m not gonna get into the politics of it or anything.

But I think true inspiration comes from taking perspective and thinking about where you’d rather like to be than where you are right now. Not that you shouldn’t be grateful.

We’ve talked a lot about that before, you should be grateful for where you are.

But in a sense, you do have to sit back and say, okay, but where would I rather be?

Or where can I make a difference in the world, and how can I go about doing that?

It starts with questions, because those are the questions that most people aren’t going to ask them.

So ask tough questions in a friendly, casual way, and see what you come back with.

I’d love to hear your results if you happen to try this out.

It doesn’t have to be Independence Day for you to do this, doesn’t have to be the fourth of July, it could be any time of the year.

It could be you know, it could be around the dinner table, or it could be around the lunch table at work. But start asking questions, start tossing things out there and see where other people land.

I think you’ll be surprised both in a good way, in a bad way. And then we can maybe come to some solutions as we get over the long, but it starts with a question.

So hopefully that’s helpful to you. This is all part of the process, within the third one of the three tiers of BrianJPombo.com is what I call being Relationship Reliant.

You got to get good at communicating with people. Because if you realize that all business and all progress is made one person at a time via relationships.

So that’s a huge piece of it. Hopefully, that’s helpful.

Go check out my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business if you’d like other ways to be able to improve your business both on a personal level and on a broad, big picture level.

So you get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

We’ll be back here tomorrow night.

In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.