Step Five: Mastering the Power of Inquiry with Dr. Natalie Nixon

This episode is step five in the 10-Step Toolkit to Having Critical Conversations and features Dr. Natalie Nixon, a creativity strategist and keynote speaker. She is valued for her accessible expertise in creativity, the future of work, and innovation. Natalie has been named among the top women keynote speakers by Real Leaders and BigSpeak and has features in Forbes, Fast Company, and INC. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation and Intuition at Work, and her firm, Figure 8 Thinking, was named among the top women-led innovation firms by Core 77.

 In this episode, we discuss:

• the influence of inquiry on innovation and creativity different question typologies  
• how the power of inquiry distinguishes the rule-makers from the rule-followers
• tangible tools to enhance your inquiry skills

If you have any questions or comments you would like addressed in the  Q&A with Dr. Nixon, please email whatsjustpod@gmail.com. Don't forget to follow Whatsjust on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and subscribe to the weekly newsletter to get details on where and when the Live Q&A is happening! 

And, as always, please review, subscribe, and share with everyone you know :)

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Timestamps:

00:00 The Power of Silence and Inquiry

00:28 Introducing Critical Conversations Podcast

01:12 Step Five: Mastering the Art of Asking Questions

01:28 Spotlight on Dr. Natalie Nixon: Creativity and Inquiry

02:05 Exploring Inquiry with Dr. Nixon

04:05 Personal Reflections on Inquiry and Relationships

05:35 Embracing Ambiguity and the Unknown

07:35 The Role of Questions in Expanding Creativity

12:19 Inquiry as a Tool for Connection and Empathy

17:29 Cultural Contexts and the Art of Asking

21:56 Silence, Confidence, and the Inquiry Process

40:03 Practical Steps to Cultivate Inquiry

51:55 Wrapping Up and Looking Ahead

Transcript

  Silence is not something we are very comfortable with in general in our society, which kind of is aligned with our, our inability to slow down that. paradigm of being afraid or being reluctant to  meet a question with silence.  Some of the smartest people I've learned from have been people who, with a nice smile on their face, have said, I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that. Welcome 

to Critical Conversations, a podcast for lifelong learners who like to get deep. I'm Abbie Henson, a qualitative criminologist searching for ideas on how to become a more cohesive, healthy, and compassionate society. If you've found yourself wanting to have thought provoking, deep, and sometimes difficult conversations but just didn't feel well equipped, This podcast is for you.

This season provides a 10 step toolkit for having critical conversations guided by my interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, and more let's learn together.  Welcome to step five of the 10 step toolkit to having a critical conversation. So far, we've learned to become self aware, address our biases, become curious and create safety in conflict.

Now we learn to ask questions. Our guest today is Dr. Natalie Nixon, a creativity strategist and keynote speaker valued for her accessible expertise on creativity, the future of work, and innovation. Natalie has been named among the top women keynote speakers by Real Leaders and Big Speak and has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and INC.

She's the author of the award winning book, The Creativity Leap. Unleash curiosity, improvisation, and intuition at work. And her firm, Figure Eight Thinking, was named among the top women led innovation firms by Core77. In today's episode, Dr. Nixon describes the power of inquiry and discusses how asking questions is a necessary skill for success in relationships, work, and personal growth.

I hope you guys enjoy our critical conversation. Now let's get into it.  As the founder of Figure Eight Thinking, When I try to help individuals and companies build their creative capacity, inquiry is a fundamental,  foundational principle to that, and I actually  formalized it through a framework I built called the three I's.

The three I's are inquiry, improvisation, and intuition. And they, I structured it that way to help people do what I call toggling between wonder and rigor to solve problems, which is the crux of creativity. It's that, that, that going back and forth between wonder and rigor, but how do you do that on a consistent, sustainable basis?

It's through implementing the three eyes and the inquiry piece is. really the salient seed of all great creative acts of, of, of asking, well, why not? And what if, and I wonder. Yeah. Yeah. So just for listeners on a very basic level, can you just define what inquiry is?  Inquiry is a method of exploration  that  comes from  observing and admitting ignorance. 

And I think that's one of the hardest pieces of it is the admission of ignorance. You You said in one of your interviews I was watching, you were speaking about how often we are  trying to get an answer, or we're looking for an answer, and sometimes there isn't an answer.  And that really resonated with me because  I've been  in this journey of exploring.

I'm, I'm someone who doesn't want children. I'm 99. 9 percent sure. And so I've been asking myself repeatedly, even though I'm in a long term serious relationship, you know, as someone who doesn't want a family, what is the point of a monogamous, serious long term relationship? And I was talking to my friend about this and she was like, What if you don't need to know? 

Like, what if you can just enjoy it and not necessarily need to know why or what the point is? And I was like, whoa.  Releasing an answer is hard and just being in the process rather than the seeking of the answer and I've been really leaning into that and it's actually alleviated a lot of stress around just the seeking process.

And so I'm wondering for you, you know, are there times where either personally or in when you're working with companies that you see this seeking of an answer and how can we better release that? That intention. I love the way you frame that. I, I think you're, you're spot on. There is so much that can be gained from that surrender of releasing the answer.

The way I,  I think about releasing the answers, the way you put it is it's about embracing ambiguity, which in our society, we are horrible at, and a lot of it has to do with the way we've been educated.  Most of us have been educated in a way to solve for the answer. What is the answer? In fact, the way we get to advance is not through mastery, which means that you may have failed many, many times before you master something.

The way we advance and progress, is by filling in the dots, you know, filling in the blank. What is the right answer? So we value certainty over ambiguity. And what, what you've just framed is a beautiful way, another way of thinking about, you know, what if we just surrender to the ambiguity? What if we released, As you see, I wrote that down, but I want to release the answer.

And I certainly see it in a lot of our  corporate environments in our, in our structured work environments where we are needing to have a clarity. On conditions that have never been clear. And when I look like one of the conditions is like market conditions, right? Market conditions have never been clear.

We can never  predict them because markets are made of humans.  And I love how behavioral economics finally, like the seventies and eighties, it got us to wrap our arms around this fact that because markets are made of humans, they're inconsistent, they're imperfect. Perfect. They're not predictive. So a lot of what I see in organizations is  it's a, it's a mind reset that is required to embrace the process over the answer to embrace ambiguity.

Overcertainty. And that is not something that happens overnight. It's about exercising a different muscle. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the important points too, and we are told it's question and answer, question and answer. And some people may think that, well, if you're not seeking an answer, then what's the point of the question.

And I'm curious how you would respond to that. So one. Right. One purpose of asking a question is to get an answer. And another purpose of asking a question is to be totally exploratory. There's so much that we can discern about a person by the quality of the questions that they ask. even more than the answers that they kind of just spin out.

And I like, I've said in other conversations that questions are inputs into a system and the system could be what's for dinner, the system,  not what's for dinner, but excuse me, cooking dinner, the system could be a new marketing strategy, the system could be  Uh, voting, you know, the more diverse the inputs, the more innovative the output, the more diverse the questions, the more innovative the not the answers.

But the possible scenarios that you can then begin to play around with the sometimes for me asking questions is it's it's the really essential beginning point of understanding what the possibilities are. And part of my background and training has been in design thinking. Actually, the first book  ever.

At my name attached to the book I edited called strategic design thinking, and I wrote a chapter about service design or the incredible contributors from industry and from academia. And one of the principles of design thinking is that we should be spending 80 percent of our time on a project and problem definition.

Which is to say, do we even ask the right question before we go running down this rabbit hole? So what if we, you know, erred more on the side of,  of exploring the questions to be asked versus just scurrying to get the answer? Yeah. One of the things that you said that I really needed to sit with for a minute was you said that asking a question is a way of thinking.

And I think that that is so true and in that release of answer it's like, we don't often think with an answer. a purposeful outcome, right? Like thinking is just part of our daily process of  processing things that are happening to us and  exploring things and kind of reliving things and predicting things.

And it's just, it's part of. you know, how we function and what separates us from other animals is our cognitive function and ability. And so  just to think of how asking questions is simply just an exercise in thinking rather than a strategic You know, step one to an outcome. It's not a step one, two to an outcome, as you said.

And also, I just wanted to clarify you credit where credit's due. Warren Berger is who said asking questions is a way of thinking, which I, you know, and he's wrote many wonderful books about curiosity. He considers himself a questionologist, notably the book of beautiful questions. But I think that if we.

And Warren Bird believes this as well. We should be we do need to take a step back and teach people how to ask questions. We don't actually even know the distinctions and all the types of questions. I call it a taxonomy of questions that we typically, especially in more formal working environments on team projects.

We start with what I call convergent questions. What, when, who. Where maybe we start with why rather than starting with the big expansive divergent questions like why, what if, you know, how might we, and because you'll always have to whittle down, edit down based on limitations and time and budget and resources, but just practicing.

Asking questions is, is really important to the process as well because I don't think we have enough practice doing it. Yeah. And so later on in the podcast, we'll get into some of the more tangible ways to teach listeners how to do that. But I'm first wondering, we've been kind of talking about inquiry in this more bit macro way.

So I'm wondering how you think inquiry is an important component of having a critical conversation, either with one other person or a group of other people. Um, how can inquiry be used to connect? How can inquiry be used to deepen a relationship? How can inquiry be used for understanding others? on a more personal or intimate level. 

I think one of the greatest gifts of inquiry, when we practice it and we use it well, is that it takes the focus off of ourselves. It requires you to try to understand what's in front of you and to admit that you're not quite understanding it and to figure out all sorts of different ways  To get clarity on it through asking questions.

And so one of the things as a recipient of a question that happens for us is that we feel seen, we feel, we begin to feel heard. And there are so many leaders who talk about empathy, which I've been relieved to see a lot of leaders talk about empathy, but. The precursor to empathy is curiosity. You can't empathize with the soul until you have been able to frame a question about not just In the words of who, please help me with this.

I forget the coauthor, of course, Oprah Winfrey is one of the, but the doctor, Bruce Perry. Yeah. Yeah. Who's so wise. His work is all about, don't ask somebody, why do you like that? You know, why did you do that? But it's like, what happened to you? And when you understand the experience of somebody, you really begin to have these, Oh, okay.

Man, now that really makes sense to me. And you, and the other thing about asking questions to build connection is that it takes time. You have to be willing to sit with answers that you may not be comfortable with. You have to be willing to go back to the drawing board and rephrase a question that didn't quite come out correctly.

And it requires, The time to nurture that conversation. I just realized that  the question I was asking about my relationship was the convergent question of what is the purpose? And then my friend asked the divergent, what if you let it go? I love that. Which only came through that conversation. Right. And I think, you know, that's the,  the interesting component too, right.

Is that.  An answer to a question can be another question.  And that kind of  is an expanding experience rather than the narrowing towards the answer, right? If you're, if you're answering with a question, you're continuing to just expand the view that you're taking in the information, which I can see how that would influence creativity and innovation, because you're really broadening the scope of possibility.

Right. Yeah. Questions broaden the scope of possibility. Absolutely. So  I like that you have said that asking questions is a discipline and a skill,  because I think that It's, there's an assumption that we just know how to do these things, but that's not true. And I think your training in cultural anthropology, my training in sociology, similarly, you have to learn how to ask the right kinds of questions that are often more open ended, that are more divergent in terms of the what if and the why.

And, and it, not only is it It's training your ability to ask questions, but it's also training your ability to be curious and excited about hearing rather than kind of manipulating the question to get back to the self.  Thinking about it as a discipline and a skill, you know, something that's funny and really frustrating for me is I'm from the East Coast.

I'm from New York city. And so my training, but also just being in that space, I think I learned how to ask a lot of questions and my partner is from the Midwest and he asks very little questions.  And I've asked him about that. And he's like, well, I was taught that asking questions is prying.  And so I'm curious for how to train and hone the skill of asking questions.

First, how to frame it in a more positive way, and if there's a distinction between inquiry and prying, and how to make sure you're on kind of the right side of that. And then  Yeah, how to just how to do it. I think that is such an interesting and important observation, the cultural context for inquiry and what it brings up for me are a couple of things.

One,  In a lot of traditional African American households, the way children are raised is to not ask too many questions, not to stem curiosity, but as a protective measure, because in the broader society often that gets coded very differently and it can be a little dangerous. Secondly, so that's another kind of cultural Spin on that, but, but also what it brings up for me is the need to be discerning the need to be emotionally intelligent so that you can pick up physical cues and visual cues  that might be non verbal.

If your path of inquiry is starting to feel By the other person disruptive and like prying, it's so important to be able to not just keep plowing ahead, but to under, but to be sensitive to that because there is cultural context and just, you know, I started out our conversation, Abigail talking about two very different types of schools.

I went to between kindergarten through sixth grade. I then went to. a private elite Quaker prep school in Philadelphia from 7th through 12th grade. And one of the hardest parts about adapting to that culture of learning is that I went from being so good at filling out the worksheet and giving the teacher what they wanted in a public school environment, all of a sudden, Being in this environment where it was like, ask a better question, beg forgiveness, not permission, yell out the answer.

Oh, it doesn't matter if it's wrong. Let's, let's, let's unpack that. Let's like explore that. What's another way we could have been looking at? And I was just like, what? Wait a minute. You're not supposed to, you know, it was like, like the kind of decorum that I, that had been ingrained in me was kind of out the window.

And it was the, the value again, was on.  The process the value was on  I essentially was being at now educated with a group of people who are going to be expected to make the rules right previous to that I was being educated with a group of people we were we were being trained. if even educated, to  stay in our lane and play by the rules, right?

So that's another example of cultures of inquiry that show up in our educational environments. And for me, having been through three very distinctive sorts of schools by the time I was 17 years old, it was a real education for me to  And of course I didn't have the words and language back then, but I was taking it all in.

I was taking all of that in. That's so interesting. And also very important to bring up the cultural piece because I think something that I am like humbling myself to is that as a sociologist and as someone who is trained, I kind of have this belief that  I can sit with anyone and ask any question and know how to do it well and know how to do it right and get the right kind of response or create a comfortable setting and realizing that there is a time and a place and a person.

And there's a way to ask a question, like you might have just different wording for different kinds of people really getting at the same, you know, topic, but understanding that awareness is so important for inquiry, because inquiry is not just, you know, blurred out a question. It's taking everything into consideration because you are by.

By asking a question, you are asking someone to engage with you in a more vulnerable way, often, right? Like, you are asking them to  sit in thought, which can be a vulnerable place. And I think one of the skills, too, that I would love for you to speak on as well is, in the inquiry process, the importance of silence. 

And I think that is something that we also need to train,  being comfortable with asking a question and then sitting in silence and allowing someone to  think about it. And often we're like scrambling to fill the space and trying to reword the question and making sure they understood it and all that, but really embracing the inquiry process and its component of silence that often is present.

You are so right. The silence, silence is not something we are very comfortable with in general in our society, which kind of is aligned with our, our inability to slow down our hesitancy with pausing.  It all goes hand in hand. And when you were explaining  that paradigm of being afraid or being reluctant to  meet a question with silence.

The  auxiliary thought to that is  a response could be, I'm not sure about that. Can I think about that some more and get back to you? Like, there's this feeling you have to, you have to have an answer. You, there has to be immediacy versus. The allowance to ponder, which is kind of a, I didn't mean to say auxiliary.

I mean, I think I meant to say like corollary to that is, is to be able to respond, um, not sure. Let me, can I think about that? But, but no, I actually, I think there's two separate answers. And one is, I don't know, I'm not sure about that. Right. Which is the admittance of doubt, the admittance of ignorance.

Another response is. Maybe you do have a seed of a thought, but you don't have to act on it right away. So to respond, can I think about that some more, uh, and get back to you, right? So those are always options. And  some of the smartest people I've learned from have been people who With a nice smile on their face have said, I don't know.

I don't know the answer to that. And I I'm like, wow, that came out so easily  and they seem so smart and there's, they still seem smart because of their grace to be able to say, Oh no. That's a good question though. I don't know the answer to that. There's so much I've learned from, from friends and colleagues and teachers who do that well.

Yeah. And it's funny that as you were saying that in my head, I was like, wow, what a power move, you know, like, such a power move to say, let me, I'll get back to you. Cause  yeah, exactly. Like in that invitation of the inquiry, you're kind of accepting. expecting a certain kind of response or at least a certain kind of conversation and to have that kind of jar you in a way where it's unexpected and you're like Oh, and then you can kind of I think it furthers your  I think about it, right, because then if you were asking because you genuinely didn't know or didn't have a response and they don't know, then it can kind of work in collaboration then and be like, well, maybe we can explore this together, or maybe we can think about how to approach this together, which is another way to connect through inquiry as well.

Yeah, the collaboration, the invitation to collaborate, the opportunity to collaborate absolutely could be a next step. Um, I'm thinking about a woman named Lara Hodgson, who is the CEO of a fintech company called now, which accelerates  Payments to small business owners. And she has this great quote, be more curious than search.

Oh, no, no, no, no, not more curious. Sorry. So that's somebody else.  No, that that's my friend, Carla silver, who is the co founder of leadership and design. Their tagline is to be more curious than certain. I love that one. Laura Hodgson has said the importance of noticing more than knowing, right? Don't you love that?

To notice more than, what are you noticing about yourself? What are you noticing about the situation? Which is all about observation. It can lead back to self inquiry. So notice versus no is also a real powerful framing too. Yeah. So this whole season is a 10 step toolkit to having a critical conversation.

And the episodes leading up to this episode are  becoming self aware and learning your implicit biases and all these things that go into that noticing to then inform how to ask a question. Because I think as we were saying.  It's so much more than just the ask. There's so much more that goes into it. And so for our listeners,  you know, if you can reflect back on the training that you received and the messaging you received, what do you think are some of the key components to.

Learning to ask a good question and what what constitutes a good question so much of learning to ask a good question as you've already said happens before the verbalization. So it happens to what am I seeing?  What do I observe?  What am I feeling? I mean, how many, how, how, how many times have you, Abigail, and how many of your listeners, I know this has happened to me, where  you may be in a group conversation, or maybe a classroom situation, or  some sort of forum where  you all of a sudden feel, I have to ask this question, I need to ask this question, right?

So paying attention to the feels, right? Paying attention to what you observe all starts before verbalization. If you're able to, there's the research behind the,  the, if it's not just an informal,  you know, coming together, there's the research that you can do to help inform  what's another way into understanding based on what I already understand, right?

Those are all kinds of threads that can be pulled in. So it's all of these tacit.  Drivers that are really important to pull together, uh, before the asking of the question and,  you know,  there are like, if you want, we can kind of map out again, like the types of questions, but I would say the ways that I think are the most spacious.

And safest ways to ask a question start with phrases like, I'm curious about. They also start with phrases like,  I wonder, like, I don't think there's really anything bad that could happen after the phrase, I wonder. Certainly there are bad things that could happen after the phrase, I wonder, but I wonder just again, opens up that, that spaciousness and it's an invitation to dream, which we don't get a chance to do enough of.

I think another precursor is also.  Asking yourself about the intention of the question you want to ask. And it doesn't have to be like, I'm sure listeners are like, wow, that's a lot to go into just asking one question,  but like, once this muscle is.  All kind of instantaneous, right? Like you're taking it all in, in a moment and it's all kind of being processed and then you can ask.

It's not like you have to sit for 10 minutes thinking about these things while people are waiting for you to ask a question. But I do think it is important to self reflect and. To ask yourself, well, why do I want to ask this question? Cause I, I often like as someone, and I'll like be straight up as someone who has been trained in asking questions and critical thinking, I find myself sometimes, especially in my relationship, when I want my partner to see.

see something, I know how to ask a guiding question to get them to see the thing, rather than, you know, like, and so I have to check myself and be like, okay,  why,  rather than asking the leading question, can I just, Say the thing, you know, like rather than fronting like I'm actually curious.  And so I think there's a, there's a time and place for a question where  there should be some authenticity behind the curiosity. 

Yeah, there definitely needs to be authenticity. There needs to be,  again, in those nanoseconds, am I just now talking, asking myself, just to hear myself speak, which is never a good thing. And, you know, not everything needs to be a question, but again,  you do need to think about how something would land  differently if it's a well planned question versus if it's an assertion.

And on the other hand, sometimes assertions can be, you know, welcome breaths of fresh air that just bring a lot of succinctness and clarity to where I'm coming from, what I need, what I'm interested in. Yeah, there's something you say about how it's best to integrate the divergent and convergent questions. 

And so how do you see that integration process happening?  And just for our listeners, The, just to reiterate, the divergent is the why, what if, I wonder, and the convergent is the what, where, when.  And who. And I call how questions hybrid questions, because how can be very, very diverse. Convergent, like how are we going to get this done, which actually  could be a bit of a messy answer.

It's very situational. It's understanding  what's my intention. What's the goal? What, what, what do we, what are we trying to arrive at? I tend to think if, if the situation is about Okay. You know, starting at the beginning of a process and it's exploratory starting at the big, expansive, divergent questions is a, is a beautiful place to start and then  segueing into, you know, peppering that with, when did you most feel, you know, what, what if, what if we didn't have to do X and then you get into a conversation about that and, you know, when, when's the last time that happened?

Or anyone come to mind, who's a good example of that, right? So it helps to give some meat to the bones or maybe bones to the meat. I don't know. And it helps to just layer the information that we're gathering by weaving in and out of diversion and conversion. One of the reasons why my business is called figure eight thinking is because the motion of a figure eight.

That an ice skater makes. And I, I was never an ice skater. I mean, I skate for fun, but never at all trained or anything. But what I like about the figure eight is number one, it's very kinesthetic. Number two, it denotes the building out and then coming back in, revisiting, building out and revisiting. And the number eight as an infinity sign also connotes the infinite number of ways one can be creative and one can be innovative.

The infinite number, you know, to our conversation right here, the infinite number of ways one can set out on a path of inquiry. So that requires you to do these ebbs and flows of diversion, conversion, diversion, and it just is a much more interesting conversation that way too, I think. Yeah, I love that. I love that and thinking about the context of a critical conversation.

And  I think so often when we go what we perceive as like into battle into a discussion with someone who maybe holds different views than us or who we don't necessarily think we align with, I think we often are coming in with those convergent questions of like, well, what, what, when, why, you know, really, or not why, but like prying, prying in that way of like, trying to, uh, like with the intention of undoing their position.

Whereas  if the intention of going into that kind of critical conversation, you're taking that more divergent, well, can you explain to me. your position on this or how you got there or why you think these ways. And what if you considered these kinds of things or what if I considered these kinds of things and what would that look like if we came together?

And so I think that I like the weaving because I like what you're saying about like, and I, I don't know which it would be bones to meet or meet to bones, but I do see it as like these kind of like. You're taking the divergent questions, which is expansive, and then kind of like breathing it in with the convergent and expanding and converging and expanding and converging in a way that  is massaging these concepts, right?

It's like massaging these ideas out into a way that can be understandable to both people and kind of like, yeah, like working through those knots in a very You know, gentle,  not deep tissue, but just like a shiatsu  massage, you know, like a Swedish massage. Yeah, exactly.  Yeah. I, yeah, I like that. It does. It does.

And massage hopefully ultimately gives us ease.  And so, yeah, the ebb and flow, the going back and weaving in and out between the divergent and convergent definitely can massage the issue so that, you know, hopefully it gets to understanding. Yeah. Not necessarily agreement. Sure. But understanding. Sure. And I think that's a really important distinction.

Like, I think that we  Something a couple of my other guests have spoken about who are in conflict resolution have said  that it's actually important to have differences of opinion.  And I feel like I've always thought of difference as divisive and problematic. And actually to have differences in opinion is really expansive and curates innovation because you have, Differing opinions that are then coming together to kind of  challenge each other to then ultimately get to an outcome.

But I, so I like that, that distinction between understanding and agreement. I think that's really important.  It is. It is. It's, it's, it's, um, and to be okay with, I mean, understanding is actually in the state of our world right now. Understanding would be a huge achievement. So it's, it's, it's, it's not easy to get to understanding.

It takes a lot of work. Yeah, I think the other thing too, and we kind of touched on this, is, you know, when you're asking a question, you're kind of, you're reaching out, right? Like, it is a connecting tool inherently. You're not just telling someone something and disconnected. You are engaging Intimately with them by asking you're like feeding them a thread that connects you to them.

And it takes some level of confidence to open that connection, right? It takes some level of vulnerability and confidence because you don't know what they're about to say. You don't know how they're going to answer. And so you're leaving yourself vulnerable to hear something that you may not expect or anything like that, that may challenge you.

And so, uh,  Realize recognizing that  asking questions also is not only requires confidence, but can build confidence because.  You also often there's an exchange, right? So you ask a question, there's often a question back, which again, takes some confidence to, to be like,  Oh man, they're about to ask me a question.

What if I don't know? And then boom, you think of Natalie Nixon and you're like, I can just say, I don't know. You think of this conversation and you're like, and that's a power move. It's not like it doesn't put me, it doesn't make me small to not know. Like that actually is.  a really great way to,  to connect by, yeah, yes, giving it's a great way to connect.

And, um, I'm a big fan of etymology of words. I mean, when you were talking about the confidence that it, that it builds and bridges, If you think about what the word, the breakdown of the word confident con is with Fido, Fido is, is faith. So when you are, you know, bridging these conversations with questions, you, you're these acts of faith that there'll be understanding that they will allow them to be vulnerable.

That even when I don't know, or I don't understand. The answer, I don't know what to expect, what, what will happen next? And that those are all acts of faith. That's what confidence, confidence comes because you're faithful and you're next step.  Oh my God. I love that. That's a great, yeah, cool. That's very cool.

Okay. So tangible steps to learning to ask a question  we mentioned and  I think one of the things that we're getting at too is that in order to be a curious mind of others, it really requires curiosity of self, right? Like to ask really good questions of others, you have to be asking yourself, like what you were saying of all the precursors that are necessary before asking a question, we're all questions of self.

So you're still asking questions. It's just. Of self rather than others. So,  okay. So we said, you know, taking, taking it all in, understanding the body language, understanding the cultural competencies that are necessary to gather how someone might interpret a question, taking in the space, whether it's an appropriate question for the space that you're in or the relationship depth that you have.

And then what are some of the other tangible steps? I want to, I want to give you the floor. Well, I think we also talked about, just on a real practical level, if it, if it's that sort of occasion and situations, but also, also we said it's very situational. We talked about how whenever it makes sense, there's research that can be done in advance.

Um, You know, I, I just think don't, don't underestimate the role of intuition and, and having these conversations of not necessarily, you can change your mind. There may be questions that  were on the tip of your tongue that you decide to hold back on and that's okay. But it's a very organic visceral process when you.

are really engaged in a meaningful conversation. That's critical. That is, is, is fundamentally built on, on asking good questions. And I would even go back, you know, that part you mentioned earlier about silence. And I referenced going to a Quaker school for high school and Quaker, and Quakerism. There, uh, is the, the, the means of worship is called meeting for worship and it happens in a very simple room with really hard wooden benches,  little flimsy, um, cushions to sit on.

And you're in silence. And in Quaker schools, little kids go through mini forges. It might be only 10 or 15 minutes when they're tiny. Through middle school, through high school, which if I recall was like 30 or 40 minutes we would be sitting in silence. And what the Quakers believed was that  If the spirit of God moved you, you would start to tremble.

That's how they got the word quake Quakers. And you would stand up and you would share, uh, the thought or a question or a pondering. I'm probably wrong about this, but I feel like we'd have to fact check this, but I, I feel like the Quakers have these principles and I think they're guided by questions actually, but I may be misremembering  this, but I'm saying not to say. 

Is that silence is really powerful. It's really powerful to not just rush  onto your next question when someone is just giving you a response, but to sit with it, it's okay to sit in your own silence before you ask a question. So I think those are actually other really practical tools to keep in mind and asking questions.

And, and, and also just, just practicing. There's so many ways you can practice asking questions at the Uh, a convenience store at a gas station, you happen to see the person delivers your mail and asking a question of them. There's so many ordinary encounters we have throughout the day, which are prime opportunities to practice asking questions. 

I love that. I also think  on like a, maybe  less intimidating possibly, it also might be really intimidating for some people, but the idea of Giving yourself like five minutes a day of just sitting in silence and kind of centering the intention around allowing questions to come up and then writing those questions down and just kind of letting them go but just I think I remember I was seeing a therapist who was centered on mindfulness and meditation and I had just moved here four years ago and things were like chaotic and I felt like I was being mindful like I was journaling and I was like having moments of chill time but really I was just like watching ASMR videos and I Realize that I had been constantly stimulated.

And the only time that I was really in silence was when I was sleeping. And I had a call with her cause she was based in Philly and I moved out here and I had a call with her and she was like, let's just sit for five minutes and close your eyes.  And I, in that moment, I was like, hold on. Holy shit, like I have been running, I have been running like mad, even in the moments that I thought I was relaxed, I was still like hyper stimulated, and I think a lot of us operate that way, when, and even when we think we're relaxing, we're like, reading or watching something or doing yoga or something that's keeping our brains active in a way that is great, but also sometimes we just need to sit.

And I think to give ourselves that time to sit again with the intention of inquiry of kind of like, what am I thinking about? You know, like where am I today? And just exploring questions in a way and like writing them down, but also not Having the intimidation maybe of having to find an answer to the questions that are coming up in that moment, but just sitting with them, putting them on paper and kind of letting them go might be an interesting way to, again, learn to flex that muscle of inquiry. 

I was smiling as you started to talk about having five minutes a day to do nothing, because I have on my desk a sand timer that's five minutes. And I like to use it instead of like putting my timer on for five minutes because it's simpler and it's analog. And I'm a big proponent of taking daydream breaks,  not for the purposes of focusing and meditation because meditation is very different exercise than daydreaming.

It's the permission to let your mind wander. And I don't have any evidence for this, but it's my perspective that  giving yourself the time and space to go blank and, oh, there's this ant crawling on the window or look how this leaf is just slowly falling down from the tree.  Who knows what. What space you now have made later for, for better questions to emerge.

So for me, it's not even about the silence to, to intentionally ask a question, think about questions, but just to give our mind that space in that breathing room so that  new questions will emerge. Oh my God. I'm obsessed with that. I literally said to my friend, like, One of the intentions of my 2024 was to daydream more because I realized that I wasn't giving my space, myself space to daydream.

I love that you just said that and yeah, that is such an important, I, I like the distinction too between like the intention of meditation and like the active, way of trying to clear the mind and, and that's a great practice and important, but this is very different and I love what you're describing and I think it could be really powerful for a lot of people. 

And, and to see it as productive, you know, and, but, but also maybe being okay with it not Totally as productive. But also being okay with it not being productive. I think that's one of the people's fears is like my, my day is so busy, like, what am I, what, I'm just gonna sit and daydream for five minutes?

It's like, well, let's ask questions around that. Why are you so resistant?  And what does that mean about our society? And like, maybe just try it.  Well. I'm smiling again because I'm writing a book right now. My next book is a provocation on productivity through the lenses of movement, thought, and rest. And I call it the motor framework, MTR.

And the question I'm exploring is what if it turns out our most productive selves are not when we're churning through email or on zoom, but when we step away. And we engage in motor activity that where we are as humans were designed to move or engage in deeper thought and we can actually rest and what different neural synapses does those sorts of activities spark so that when we return to the work at hand, we actually are more productive that productivity.

Isn't siloed away only space called the office or at the desk. The productivity is actually happening at rest. And it's not busyness. It's not one more thing to add to your to do list. It's just a hack to help  for wellbeing, to help with more generative, cultivation of work. Well, we're going to have to have another interview after that book is done. 

I would love that.  Comes out in 2025. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for this. This was great. I like to end all of my interviews just kind of off topic, but what are the three things in the world, whether it's a show, a podcast, a book, something in the media, what are the three things keeping your attention right now? 

Oh my gosh. I just finished watching the Netflix series Griselda. Oh, I've been hearing about this. Yeah, I, I, about, it's a biopic about the,  the narco maven Griselda Blanco, who was a very  powerful woman and also highly problematic leader. Her leadership style went a little off by the end, but it's really a feminist triumph  Women in leadership.

It was so phenomenal to see a Latina actress like Sofia  Vergara, Mr. That's her last name, who for years was kind of like the chattel of our time, who was kind of boxed into this comedic role and to see her just so phenomenally played this dramatic role was just awesome. So that, so that I loved, I am really into ballroom dance.

Um, so that's very top of mind for me and just dance always. I study hip hop and I'm, I have a membership to a great, uh, hip hop dance community called dance fit here in Philly and what else is top of mind for me, I guess, this book, just, just, just read, just being very upset. I'm doing lots of interviews right now.

And, and just, you know, in the back of my mind, it's like how my,  We build a business case for motor activity. What, what would make companies understand that by designing more space and time for movement, thought and rest, it significantly can add to the bottom line and, and bump up productivity. Right. So those are the kinds of things that are very top of mind for me right now. 

Well, thank you so much and I will talk to you soon. Thank you. Really nice to meet you. 

Thank you so much for joining me in my Critical Conversation with Dr. Natalie Nixon. This was Step 5 in this season's 10 episode toolkit for having a good day. Critical conversation. I really appreciated the discussion on daydreaming. This is something that I really want to get better at implementing because in the few times that I have done this for just five minutes, it feels like a full body reset.

Just time to call my breath, relax, take everything in just kind of have a reset of processing everything that I've been experiencing. So I definitely want to get better at that. I love the idea of an analog. Sand timer. I'm going to have to get me one. And I also thought it was really interesting  speaking on the power of inquiry and her experiences in the two different educational settings, talking about how in the first setting, when she was told not to ask questions, she explained how that was a group of people being trained to be rule followers, where in her education, being told to ask.

She was being trained to be a rule maker, and that is the power of inquiry. To know how to ask questions in a way that's commanding and incites innovation. Yeah, I really liked this conversation a lot. So I really hope that you enjoyed it. I'm going to be doing a Q& A with Natalie following the release of this episode, so be sure to follow What's Just on all social platforms to stay up to date on when that'll be taking place so that you can get your questions and comments in the mix.

Links to all the socials can be found in the show notes. Also, don't forget to subscribe, share, and please leave a review and we'll be back next week with step six, learning to listen. So stay critical, stay connected, and I'll see you next time.