Questions

[00:00:03] Hey everyone, this is Voice with Warikoo, with my name is Ankur Warikoo.

[00:00:07] In this English podcast series, I cover a lot of things.

[00:00:11] Career, relationships, personal finance, success, failure and frankly anything else that comes into the mind at times.

[00:00:19] Every week Thursday, on your favorite podcast platform, a new episode, Voice with Warikoo.

[00:00:29] So the other day I came across this really interesting tweet

[00:00:32] by this lady called Tamara Winter.

[00:00:37] And her tweet was that she loves asking people what do they have unreasonably high standards for?

[00:00:51] Which is why their personal standards are very high.

[00:00:58] And that's what she likes asking people because this is a very interesting question.

[00:01:03] If you get an answer, you will know about that person.

[00:01:07] If you don't get an answer, you will also know about that person.

[00:01:12] And they have two personal answers.

[00:01:14] One is that lighting is the ultimate interior designing hack.

[00:01:26] You can change everything about the room if you can change lighting.

[00:01:33] And you can create a completely different experience.

[00:01:38] The interesting point of view and I would imagine that they have very unreasonably high standards around the lighting of a room.

[00:01:45] Then Paul Graham Namak is a very influential person.

[00:01:50] He's an entrepreneur, he's the founder of Y Combinator.

[00:01:55] When you were talking about him, he was concise.

[00:01:57] So how long can you say things in less words and simply accurately?

[00:02:04] And that is what he optimized for.

[00:02:07] I thought a lot about this question.

[00:02:08] What are the things that I have very unreasonably high standards for?

[00:02:16] And my answer is quality of questions.

[00:02:20] Your questions are quality.

[00:02:23] And I'll tell you why that is.

[00:02:25] I've been running Webveda for the last three and a half years, which is my education startup.

[00:02:31] And every course that we have on Webveda, we have a live monthly class.

[00:02:38] Class is not actually a Q&A session, which is where the students who've gone through the course, they can come and ask questions.

[00:02:46] And I or any other instructor of that course, they come live and we have this back and forth of question and answer.

[00:02:54] It is shocking to me how poor the quality of questions are in general.

[00:03:03] When people ask questions, they are living in their own world.

[00:03:09] And they feel that when they ask questions, the question around context in their mind will automatically be known to the other person.

[00:03:21] I'll give you an example.

[00:03:23] Take charge of your money. This is one of the courses we run.

[00:03:26] It's a life class and they will be, I kid you not, a question that will say, how do I start investing?

[00:03:37] This is the question.

[00:03:40] And this question is such a lazy, stupid question

[00:03:46] that the answer to this question can never be found by any person.

[00:03:52] I have said this many times in my life and I will keep saying that your quality of life is based on the quality of your questions.

[00:04:00] If you ask a cheap question, you will get a cheap answer and your life will be the same.

[00:04:06] If you ask a good, good question, you will get a good answer and your quality of life will be better.

[00:04:14] So if you ask someone, when you have got a chance, someone's time, someone's attention, how do I start investing?

[00:04:24] So where do people start?

[00:04:27] The problem is, friends, don't you have money to invest?

[00:04:31] Don't you have the knowledge of where to invest?

[00:04:34] Have you been caught up in that you invested and couldn't go on?

[00:04:38] Have you never invested in life?

[00:04:41] Or have you changed what you have done?

[00:04:42] Have you changed what you have done?

[00:04:43] The more context you give, the more you explain where you are coming from,

[00:04:50] the more clarity the other person will get that your question is really what.

[00:04:55] So if you say that I am 24 years old and earn 25,000 rupees a month,

[00:05:01] out of which 15,000 rupees is my monthly expense,

[00:05:04] I want to invest the remaining 10,000 rupees.

[00:05:06] I want to invest, but I have never invested in the stock market.

[00:05:10] I am afraid of taking risks.

[00:05:13] People say that money is lost or lost in the stock market.

[00:05:18] So how do I face this fear?

[00:05:23] How do I increase the amount of money I want to invest in the month?

[00:05:28] Can you imagine the quality of answer you would get for this kind of question?

[00:05:32] As against how can I start investing?

[00:05:37] Then, another thing.

[00:05:39] Take charge of your time, which is our most successful course.

[00:05:42] Let me give you an example of that.

[00:05:44] Students will come and ask,

[00:05:47] I procrastinate a lot.

[00:05:50] Help me.

[00:05:52] This is their question.

[00:05:55] Now where do I start?

[00:05:58] I start with your life, your childhood,

[00:06:00] your mental emotional state,

[00:06:04] your financial state.

[00:06:06] What is your age?

[00:06:08] What do you do?

[00:06:09] Who is in your family?

[00:06:11] When you procrastinate,

[00:06:12] who do you procrastinate?

[00:06:14] Do you do everything?

[00:06:16] There are a lot of DMs on Instagram.

[00:06:22] I get a lot of emails.

[00:06:24] And I only talk about questions.

[00:06:27] Because you get clarity when you ask questions.

[00:06:30] If someone asks me about my life,

[00:06:33] I will ask them questions.

[00:06:35] I cannot give them a solution.

[00:06:37] I don't know about their life,

[00:06:40] nor do I know about them.

[00:06:42] So it will be foolish for me to give an answer

[00:06:45] that has worked for me.

[00:06:46] Which may not work for them.

[00:06:49] I ask them questions.

[00:06:50] When they answer questions,

[00:06:52] and then they follow on questions,

[00:06:55] they instantly know what their quality of problem is.

[00:06:59] And what I can tell you with conviction is,

[00:07:03] a lot of people don't know what the problem is.

[00:07:08] People only want a solution.

[00:07:10] But they don't want to identify the problem.

[00:07:14] So people will say,

[00:07:15] I don't like my job. Help me.

[00:07:18] And my question will be,

[00:07:21] what do you not like about your job?

[00:07:24] I don't know.

[00:07:26] I write IDK for the agency.

[00:07:29] IDK.

[00:07:31] I just don't feel happy.

[00:07:34] It's not exciting.

[00:07:36] What is not exciting?

[00:07:38] Is the work not exciting?

[00:07:40] Are your colleagues not exciting?

[00:07:42] Is the workload not exciting?

[00:07:44] Is your manager not exciting?

[00:07:46] Are the hours not exciting?

[00:07:48] Is the money not exciting?

[00:07:50] Is the industry not exciting?

[00:07:51] What is not exciting?

[00:07:54] The higher you try to be,

[00:07:58] the more you will get answers.

[00:08:02] The more specific you are,

[00:08:06] the better you will get.

[00:08:08] So my answer to Tamara Winters' tweet,

[00:08:13] what do you have unreasonably high standards for

[00:08:16] is quality of questions.

[00:08:21] You improve your quality of questions.

[00:08:24] You'll improve your life.

[00:08:25] All the best.