Asking Deeper Questions

If you’re looking to cultivate more depth, intimacy, and connection in your relationships, it’s within your control.

If you have superficial relationships is because you tolerate it, or maybe even manifest it.

The beautiful part is, when you take 100% ownership everything is your fault (which means you can fix it) and everything is earned based on merit (as a testament to your hard work).

Relationship expert Matthew Hussey says that we can quickly breakthrough the mundane and ignite more meaningful conversations when guide the discussion toward these three things: Values, beliefs, and experiences. The reason these categories are so powerful and connecting is because it requires that you add more context, and in doing so share more personal information about yourself.

First are values. This is what you care about and what matters to you. When you get people reflecting on what matters to them, and understand how different values are expressed in different situations, you get to peak into their inner workings that aren’t readily visible. This allows you to appreciate the person more and see where they’re coming from.

Next are beliefs. Our beliefs are latent in everything we do, influencing our every thought, action, and reaction. Often unconscious, conversation about beliefs helps people to get really introspective. During this self-discovery they more naturally share details about themselves that they wouldn’t think to share. Meanwhile, you get to learn more about what makes them who they are.

And last are experiences. This one is more obvious and it’s a common topic of conversation. But there are more advanced levels of asking about experiences. It’s not just what happened, but how did it change them? What else did that influence or shift in their life? Often we can talk about experiences as the entry point to having deeper conversations about beliefs and values.

To make this more actionable, let me give you one question you can ask to help dive deeper into conversation.

Relating to values, you can ask “Why is that important to you?”.

Relating to beliefs, you can ask “Why do you think that?”.

And relating to experiences, you can ask “How has this changed you?”

Cheers to having better conversations, asking better questions, and living more connected lives!