10 Mighty One-Minute Questions You Can Use to Gain Perspective

Greetings from Sao Miguel Island in the Azores!

Read Time: 2 minutes 14 seconds.

Summer is a season that demands we slow down. Both to remember why we work, but also to remember how we can work better.

We can recharge for our year-end push. And we can rethink the best way to use those months.

“Slow is smooth. And smooth is fast.”

The fastest path to changing my perspective is changing my location. Even the most routine tasks now require examination and thought. How exactly do I say “Thank you” in Portuguese? How many Bolo Levados are too many in one day? Should I swim in this waterfall or the next one?

The disruption fires new synapses and also creates space. And in that space, we can spend time examining more significant questions.

So even if you can only change your location by hitting a coffee shop or bringing your laptop to the beach, here are 10 questions that might bring you renewed clarity.

10 Questions To Change Your Perspective

What hard but necessary conversation am I putting off?

It is easy to hope things will change without our intervention. They rarely do. Instead of just focusing on the discomfort, visualize how things could improve afterward.

Tip: Acknowledge it’s hard. Labeling it as such somehow makes it easier for everyone involved.

If you fired yourself today and took over your life from scratch, what would you stop doing? - Shane Parrish

I shared this with Marsden, and she said without hesitation, “Stop worrying.” The harder question behind this instinct is, “What stops you from making this change today?”

Imagine a life where you did this once each year. We often underestimate the power of subtraction.

If you had to eliminate all but the most essential activity, which one would remain?

I use this one for our business regularly. It helps me see what limiting assumptions I’ve attached to our approach. For example, our MGMT Accelerator program is the last we’d eliminate. So what if we could only do that? How would we achieve our mission?

The program runs twice a week for one month. But what if we did a 2-day intensive? That small change creates 10x more capacity.

What would your 80-year-old self say about your decisions today? - Sahil Bloom

This zoom forward can help us zoom out. If we assume we’ve lived our best possible life, will this decision matter? Will I be proud of the risk I took? Will I be happy to share this with my grandchildren?

Time and mortality provide a strong pull on our moral compass.