Questions open the mind, statements keep it closed

I always had an opinion. You could ask me about anything, and I’ll give you a statement of what I thought about it, even if I had zero knowledge about it. I was experiencing firsthand how “statements keep your mind closed.”

During a session with one of my mentors, he said, “questions open the mind, statements keep it closed.” and this hit really close to home. In that split second, I had a thousand thoughts race through my mind. I was the epitome of making statements and having opinions, so was my mind closed? I thought to myself, “No, I’m a very open minded person,” but then I thought, “Isn’t this exactly what a closed minded person would say?”

For the next few weeks, I consciously started not to make statements and rather change my statements to frame them as questions, and I started asking questions whenever and wherever I could. What did I notice? It didn’t take me long to realize how closed-minded I was. My habit of making statements had closed my mind off to new ideas, different viewpoints, and healthy discussions. When I made a statement, my mind stopped accepting new ideas and was adamant about proving what I stated was, in fact, accurate, even if it wasn’t.

I still struggle with this, but now I make a conscious effort always to ask more questions than I make statements. Questions have allowed me to learn so much more and make deeper relationships as questions allow you to show respect to the other person for the skills you are trying to learn from her rather than impose your viewpoint. Questions also give you the freedom to show vulnerabilities. It’s fine if you don’t know something, ask. This brings me to why I feel I used to make statements; I was afraid. I was afraid of what people will think if I say, I don’t know this, or ask questions rather than making statements. I was afraid of showing my vulnerabilities, and I was afraid of letting people in on my secret “that I don’t know everything.”

Building the habit of asking questions freed me. I started becoming more comfortable with the thought of people knowing I don’t know everything because that removed tremendous stress from my mind of acting to know everything and having an opinion on everything. I started taking criticism better, and I started learning a lot more in the process as people are more open to speaking their minds and viewpoints when asked questions rather than when they feel it’s a debate.

So a simple rule I have for myself is (which is attributed to Robert Kiyosaki, but don’t fact check me on this, as I haven’t actually verified it):

A question opens the mind, a statement keeps it closed.