Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Islamic Life Coach School Podcast
Ask Better Questions
Imagine a world where the quality of your life is not determined by external conditions, but by the quality of questions you ask about those conditions.
Intrigued?
Join us as we explore this profound concept, uncovering how the power of asking the right questions shapes your emotions, actions, and ultimately, your results.
Cartesian question method, a powerful technique that could revolutionize the quality of questions you ask yourself.
As we journey through this episode, we also discuss the importance of becoming aware of the questions we ask and the emotional energy behind them. Y
From debunking negative assumptions to celebrating the magic of metacognition, this enlightening journey promises to change the way you perceive and ask questions, guiding you towards a more fulfilling life.
So, tune in and enrich your life by asking better questions
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Welcome to Islamic Life Coach 4 Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognisably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Uttar. Hello, hello everyone. Please send blessings upon all of you.
Speaker 1:Alhamdulillah, I am so thankful for this opportunity to speak to all of you. I spent some time preparing for the podcast and then the 20 minutes that I spent with you are the highlight of my week. My intention here is your mental and emotional well-being, and you guys reciprocate that with your time and attention. This podcast is being downloaded in countries and never thought I would be able to reach, like Gabon, west Africa, cyprus, mauritania, brunei, bulgaria, finland, ireland. Alhamdulillah, all I do is continue to renew my intention, put my effort in and use my skills to give you the weekly topics.
Speaker 1:I try to keep this podcast timeless and relevant. The cultural and the time references I make will, of course, change, but the message behind each episode does not change, because these are universal principles, something to draw from, no matter where you are in your life and what culture you live in and what time you're in. I listen to all the podcasts I publish all the time because I need reminders on all of the goodness that is in these episodes. The brain is really good at filing information in the background, so not every piece of information that you need is always available. That's why I come to these reminders. Even though I create these podcasts, I keep coming back until I've created a habitual change. Also, consider leaving a review so that other people can find this message. You can leave a message on any podcast platform of your choice that you listen to, and if you have to listen to an episode again and again or listen to it in different situations, do that. Take notes, answer questions by writing them down, and don't hesitate to go deeper into this study. Whatever your mode of learning is, honour it. Make space to create changes in your habits, which is more than just information gathering.
Speaker 1:Not such incredible topic happens to be the subject of today's podcast, and that is the art of asking powerful questions. We grow up believing, based on popular conditioning, that the quality of our lives depends on the external conditions, when, in reality, the quality of our life only depends on the quality of the questions we ask about these conditions. Life's worth is much more profound than the superficial reality of circumstances that the brain presents. Standard of living is dependent on the questions we ask about these circumstances because the questions we ask, no matter how rhetorical they sound, are still targets for the brain to reach. Just, the brain is a meaning assigning machine. Even a question, when asked rhetorically, the brain gets to work in answering it, even if it is at the subconscious level. And, like I always say, all thoughts, subconscious or not, lead to emotions, actions and results. It's just that they remain outside of our awareness. These thoughts are still creating results. We just happen to be calling them facts, something that's uncontrollable, just because they're not in our conscious mind.
Speaker 1:Some examples of bad questions are why does this always happen to me? Why am I always so frustrated? What is it about me that magnetizes problems? Is there something fundamentally wrong with me? The answer you get for asking these questions isn't something good, because the way they are asked, there is an inherent negative assumption. So the answer that your subconscious mind generates to these questions is also negative. For example, why does this always happen to me? Because I'm broken? Why am I so frustrated? Because I'm inherently pre-programmed like this. What is it about me that magnetizes problems? Because I attract chaos. Is there something fundamentally wrong with me? Yes, the answer is yes. The more painful the answer, the farther out of awareness it will be, but it will be present. Mind can only work with references, so if you refer it to a seemingly unanswerable question, it is still answering it. It's just suppressing the answer because of the pain it creates on an emotional level. And don't be fooled for a second that you're always just kidding with these questions. You don't really believe them. The fact that you're asking them is reason enough for your mind to generate an answer for you, and the effect of the answer gets stored as a body memory, as a habitual emotion. There are a ton of examples of poor quality questions that you might be asking. Why does this problem always find me? Why are people so challenging? Why are we living in such difficult times? Why does the same issue keep coming up for me?
Speaker 1:The brain quietly answers all of these questions in the background and it tells you all of this is happening because the world is a horrible place and you limit your actions from this subconscious belief of world being a horrible place. The world is neutral. The world is what you make it to be. The world is always 50-50. If you ask why people in the world so challenging, and the answer is something along the lines of because the world is a horrible place. No matter how unaware you remain of this answer, this thought will induce feelings of morbidity, isolation, fear, dread, and you will find yourself paralyzed, unable to move forward, unable to create any good outcomes, all the while believing that the world is a horrible place, factually, like it is a circumstance when it is only a thought on repeat. Other examples of bad questions are like why are people so rude? When is he going to learn to respect me? Poor quality questions about things, people, circumstances in the world only generate judgment. They don't offer any actual solution. Maybe the world is a horrible place, but it is also a nice place, peaceful, filled with goodness and love. Unless you ask questions about that, you will only see the negative 50%.
Speaker 1:The basic skill to up-level the quality of the questions that you're asking is the Cartesian question method. This is when you turn the original question on its head. The Cartesian questions go something like this what will happen if I do this? What will happen if I don't do this? What won't happen if I do this? What won't happen if I don't do this? Cartesian questions are used to help with decision making, but I use them to come out of the trap that my brain sometimes creates when it gets stuck in the loop of asking poor quality questions. So if your recurrent question is why am I always so frustrated? The Cartesian questions will sound something like this what will happen if I do get frustrated? What will happen if I don't get frustrated? What won't happen if I do get frustrated? And the last one, which is a brain twister because it's a double negative what won't happen if I don't get frustrated? Answering this last question is really eye-opening because you really have to clarify to yourself the answer and it makes your brain jump through hoops to find the answer. It's hard to heal from things that you don't talk about, and poor quality questions keep those things hidden, while good quality questions bring them to surface. So Cartesian questions are one way to create different instructions for your brain, a way for your brain to start asking different questions.
Speaker 1:Other extremely powerful method to up-level your questions is to simply be aware of the low quality question. As soon as you become aware, you can just interrupt yourself mentally from asking that question, and that shift in thinking comes with a profound, positive shift in emotions. Spend more time in metacognition. Spend more time in thinking about your thinking rather than doing the thinking. This is what gives you a better chance of becoming aware of yourself and when you're asking an unfruitful question, so that you can stop the train of thought before the brain has a chance to generate an answer for you and before the body starts to feel the heavy emotion related to that answer. This awareness simply interrupts old patterns of thoughts and is super powerful. So one way to upgrade your question asking skills is to turn them around on their head using the technique like the Cartesian questions. Other technique is to spend more and more time thinking about what questions you're asking yourself.
Speaker 1:And the third, my favorite technique is what energy or emotion are you coming to the question with? There is this energy of why is the world so challenging, which comes with the pre-assumed answer of because world is a horrible place. And then there is this energy of why is the world so challenging? There is no pre-assumption, just curiosity about the answer Coming to the question that your brain is presenting to you, but changing the emotions related to it. Hmm, why is the world challenging? Is it so I can grow stronger? Is it because my challenges make me a unique person? Or is it because each challenge leaves me slightly stronger than before. This is how powerful emotions are. This is why the mind and body is an inherent pair. You can see how. You didn't even change the language. Why is the world so challenging Versus? Why is the world so challenging?
Speaker 1:Changing your approach to the same question and it will be more rewarding to you than asking the question that is already loaded with negative, pre-supposed answers. If you're going to ask a question, ask for the sake of it to be answered. Ask with open emotions of curiosity, awe, wonderment, fascination, inspiration, marvel, intrigue, amazement. Changing the emotion behind the question is my favorite technique, because this is the most profound level of change you can create for yourself. If you practice asking questions like this, it will then carry over a body memory of open emotions and next time your mind goes to ask a low quality question, your body will remind your brain to ask it to be answered, to ask it from a positive energy, not so that you can, low key, continue to feel bad about yourself. And when you find yourself asking a question from any of the above positive, open, abundant emotions and you don't have an answer, feel free to create more questions as an answer, just to remember that answer to such difficult questions isn't always immediately available to the brain, but you do have immediate access to more high quality questions, and that will sound something like this Original question why am I always so frustrated?
Speaker 1:Original question asked from open emotions of curiosity and creativity why am I always so frustrated? And opening up to more higher quality questions like what's causing these repeated patterns of frustration? What can I do to help my frustration? Who am I going to be without this frustration? How am I adding or taking away from the solution to this problem? Do I have options other than feeling frustration? And then there are questions like what is wrong with me when there is where there is no actual good outcome? If you don't find the answer, then you're frustrated, and if you do find the answer, then you prove to yourself exactly what's wrong with you. Either way, there's no good outcome. So the moral of the story is don't ask bad questions.
Speaker 1:My favorite favorite questions are something along the lines of how did I act in this situation? Do I need to change anything about myself to improve it? And then questions that I ask in my leadership positions what can I do to address this confusion? What change can be implemented to prevent this misunderstanding in the future. How can I inspire more people towards a positive change? What can I do to make it easier for people to believe in their higher values? And then there's a question I asked, the answer to which is the creation of this podcast, which is how can I help people understand how powerful questions are? Trust me, when I sat down to create this podcast, I had no idea what I was going to do.
Speaker 1:My brain totally offered. What makes you think that you can inspire people? Such a paralyzing question. Lower brain is with you every moment of your life, just like it is with me. Shaytan's waswas are with all of us every moment to supplicate our progress. But you also have a much powerful force with you, and that is your higher brain, the power of your innate wisdom that is created by Allah, that is always available to you.
Speaker 1:Ask better questions and better quality answers will come to you, even if you're not aware of them. The way the right brain functions is that it answers questions in a piecemeal fashion At another time that seems completely unrelated to when the question was actually asked. You might find an answer on a billboard while you're on the highway, you might find it when you're in the shower or when you're relaxing, or when you're in a social situation having a conversation, so, from a loving, gentle place, become more aware of what quality questions you're asking and advance yourself to asking better quality questions. You do that when you're spending more time thinking about your thinking rather than mindlessly doing the questioning, or you do that by elevating the emotional energy behind these questions and just coming to each question with curiosity, without attachment to an answer. Inshaallah, with the elevation of the quality of the questions you ask, the quality of your life will also elevate With that.
Speaker 1:I pray to Allah swt. O Allah the most merciful, the most gracious, we come to you with open hearts, seeking your divine guidance. Please guide us away from destructive questions and guide us towards growth. Give us the wisdom to ask the best questions that will lead to our character refinement rather than pulling us into despair and stagnation. O Allah, as we are reminded of the whispers of the shaitan and the lower brain that aim to paralyze us, protect us from these forces and make us more and more aware of you alone, the ultimate power that you hold, the power that you have given us as an inherent wisdom, and increase it in a way that lets us live beyond the intelligence of the brain. O Allah, let us become aware of our high quality answers to the high quality questions and make that a reason to raise us in our ranks in this world and the next InshaAllah, please keep me in your doors. I will talk to you guys next time.