5 Power Questions So Revealing They Will Change Your Life

Seeking out great advice, as Wharton professor and best-selling author Adam Grant recently observed, is incredibly hard. Good advice that applies to everyone — exercise, read, work hard — is typically something everyone already knows. And the insights that will actually move the needle for you are likely to be highly tailored to your personality and situation. There are many handy tools, but few universals.

Universal answers are rare, true, but universal questions are not. Over the 15 years I’ve been writing about work, success, and happiness, I’ve consistently stumbled upon experts, research papers, or business leaders offering powerful questions that instantly illuminate the world or your biggest conundrums in startling, useful ways.

Perhaps these “power questions” are what philosopher Francis Bacon had in mind when he wrote, “a prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” Here are five such trajectory-altering questions that shed light on everything from your goals to your biggest challenges to your fellow humans.

1. A question to get a read on someone’s personality

The world is full of personality quizzes, from the goofy to the scientifically validated. Many offer useful insight or at least a fun conversational starting point. But what if you want to get a sense of someone’s personality and it’s not practical (or polite) or send them a multiple choice quiz? Are you left with nothing but old-fashioned observation and gut instinct?

Actually, no. Research out of Wake Forest University shows that if you want a quick and dirty — but still insightful — sense of someone’s personality you can just ask them: How common do you think X personality trait is in others?

The study revealed that how we see others tends to map closely on to our own traits. So someone who thinks most people are kind and generous will tend to be kind and generous herself. Remarkably, this even seems to work with negative personality traits that people often try to mask.

So if someone tells you the world is full of narcissists and manipulators, then be on guard. There’s a good chance they exhibit a high level of those toxic characteristics themselves. And if you tend to think everyone around you is a jerk and a fool, you might want to spend a little time looking in the mirror.

2. A question to define success

All the success advice in the world will get you exactly nowhere if you don’t define what you mean by success first.

This is true in business and in life. If your team spends six months expanding your product line when you really need to improve your margins, you will not feel successful at the end of the year. You can have millions of dollars in the bank and still be miserable if you realize you traded being there for your kid’s childhood for more dollars you didn’t need.

That’s why a pair of consultants recently offered a single question to help you define success so you don’t waste your time: If I was popping champagne on New Year’s Eve because I had just completed an outstanding year, what would I have accomplished?

“For over three decades, we’ve posed the same question to thousands of executives and board members globally,” report Bob Frisch and Cary Greene in an HBR article. “Their responses consistently reveal a striking truth: The vast majority of teams aren’t aligned on what constitutes success.”

What’s true in corporations is likely true of individual entrepreneurs too, so it’s worth pausing a minute to define your goals with their powerful (and fun) question.

3. A question to kill your stress

We’ve all heard the standard advice on how to reduce your stress — cut your hours, get a hobby, meditate. These are all excellent suggestions. They also involve significant, time-consuming change. According to Harvard research, it’s also possible to start beating your stress by asking yourself just one perspective-shifting question.

Whenever your mind is racing and you feel stress building up in your body, Harvard psychologist Susan David advises asking: What are two other ways to describe what I’m feeling?

This question forces you to get more specific about exactly what’s troubling you. So instead of saying “I’m stressed,” you might answer, “I’m a little bit disappointed in myself for not bringing home a higher paycheck and also scared about how that might affect my kids’ prospects in life.”

Psychologists call this more detailed understanding of your feelings “emotional granularity” and say finding this language helps you dig into the roots of your stress, feel less overwhelmed, and come up with potential ways to combat it. All that adds up to instant stress relief.

4. A question to evaluate an employee (or job)

Many companies invest considerable time and resources into end-of-year reviews. One CEO claims they can largely be replaced by a single question.

“Rather than go through an extensive, artificial 12-month performance analysis process to statistically determine how someone’s doing at the end of that crucial first year, we blow all that abstract blurriness away with one simple clarifying question. The manager simply asks themself: ‘With a full year behind me, knowing what I know now, would I hire this person again?’” reported 37signals co-founder and CEO Jason Fried on his blog.

Fried even says employees can use a version of the same question to evaluate their job: “Knowing what I know now, would I take this job again?” In the harsh light of these questions, it’s hard to hide whether or not a particular person is a good fit for the situation they find themselves in.

5. A question to spot a narcissist

Perhaps my favorite power question of them all is also the simplest. There have been endless words written about the different types of narcissists and manipulators out there and how to spot them. But science suggests if you want to know if someone is a toxic jerk you can just ask them, “Are you a narcissist?”

You might think no one in their right mind would answer yes, but studies show that straight up asking someone if they’re a narcissist is equally as effective as giving them a lengthy diagnostic questionnaire developed by psychologists. “This research suggests that narcissists aren’t afraid of admitting they’re egotistical, self-focused, and vain,” this funny explainer video on the research concludes.

Keep that in mind next time you have some concerns about a first date or a potential collaborator.

When you’re evaluating others, setting your path in life, or feeling overwhelmed by challenges, it’s hard to find off-the-shelf advice. Solutions are as varied as people and their circumstances. It’s easier to offer questions to help you guide your thinking and actions. Find the right question, and often the right answer becomes obvious.