Instead of writing one of my regular book reviews, I thought I’d just recommend What Matters Now.  Seth Godin got around 80 smart and talented people to write a short essay (or do something else interesting and relevant)  about one big, important thing that they were passionate about.  You can download What Matters Now (by clicking the link to the left of this).  The essays essentially serve as springboards for you to take a look at each author/creator and follow the yellow linked road to see what you can see about each creator.

However, the concept is cool:  present short and compelling content to stimulate people to do good work (like this post full of tips about doing better work).

Seth left an open invitation to add a thought to the material that’s been included in the eBook.  Here’s what I would have submitted as a part of that project:

QUESTION

The sun rises and sets every day. We wake up, get ready for the day and go through our normal routine.  If we had to consciously think about every single task, routine, and step that we execute each day we’d never be able to leave the house.  Routine and consistency keeps us all sane and reasonably productive.

But there’s a problem with consistency and routine:  nothing changes.  Action reaches a certain level of excellence but it doesn’t significantly improve.  Ever.  Making the same commodity with perfect precision has value but… that commodity started out as something new, different, and useful before it became boring.

So where do great new things and positive change come from?

Obviously, a lot of change comes from need, when we know that we lack something important and we must fulfill that need.  We all have needs.  Maslow talked about that hierarchy of needs in great detail.  Necessity is the mother of invention.

But there’s another powerful way that great new things happen:  it starts with a question.  Someone somewhere comes up with a seemingly crazy idea that first emerges as a question, such as:

• What happens when peanut butter and chocolate when they are combined? (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups)
• What can I do with this seemingly useless adhesive? (Post-It notes)
• Why wouldn’t the average consumer want to carry the music of their choice with them everywhere? (everything from the Sony Walkman to the Discman to the iPod and beyond)
• Why doesn’t this work?  What is the problem? (incalculable solutions and opportunities)

Questions are very important.  Challenging the status quo, at least occasionally is important.  Finding the real problem, the root cause that creates the symptoms, is crucial.

We all want answers.  We need the right questions, too.

So, make sure that you are asking the right questions.  And take a look at What Matters Now, I think you’ll find it worthwhile.

Here’s another article that I found online which has a similar message to this post: Question Everything.

EDIT:  John Baldoni seems to agree with me.

Image by Marco Belluci

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