{"id":113899,"date":"2023-09-22T16:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=113899"},"modified":"2023-09-27T13:09:36","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T17:09:36","slug":"fundamental-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"The 4 Fundamental Questions: Why, Why Not, What if, and How"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Are you always that one person in the room who&#8217;s asking all the questions? Should you be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em>A More Beautiful Question<\/em>, author and journalist Warren Berger highlights four fundamental questions: Why, Why not, What if, and How. He calls them &#8220;beautiful questions&#8221; and contends that they form the basis of larger questions that can help you succeed in life both professionally and personally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more to relearn how to raise the questions you almost certainly asked all the time as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-1-why\">#1: Why?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first of the four fundamental questions is <em>&#8220;why?<\/em>\u201d.<em> <\/em>Berger says this is the first type of question you should ask when you\u2019re faced with a difficult or unfamiliar situation. Despite their simplicity, \u201cwhy\u201d questions have the power to help you understand complicated issues and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/challenge-your-assumptions\/\">challenge your assumptions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, most people simply accept that they need to sleep. However, when somebody thought to ask <em>why <\/em>people need to sleep, it created an entirely new branch of science dedicated to answering that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">#2: Why Not?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as important as <em>\u201cwhy?\u201d<\/em> is its counterpart, <em>\u201cwhy not?\u201d<\/em> <strong>Berger says that asking this fundamental question leads you to try out new ideas and experiment with possible solutions. <\/strong>However, the real power of <em>\u201cwhy not?\u201d<\/em> is that it challenges your assumptions about what\u2019s possible and what\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To continue the previous example of sleep science, one experiment started with the question, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20180118-the-boy-who-stayed-awake-for-11-days\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Why not go without sleep and see what happens?<\/a>\u201d This question challenges the assumption that sleep is necessary in the first place. It turned out that sleep <em>is <\/em>necessary, but even that information is something scientists wouldn\u2019t have known for sure without asking an appropriate \u201cwhy not?\u201d question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">#3: What If?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The third fundamental question is \u201c<em>what if?<\/em>\u201d Berger says this question helps you break out of your usual patterns of thinking; and, in doing so, you either come up with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/there-are-no-new-ideas\/\">novel ideas<\/a> or combine old ideas into something new. In other words, <strong>asking \u201cwhat if?\u201d can help you make connections between thoughts that you haven\u2019t connected before.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, the rideshare app <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investopedia.com\/articles\/personal-finance\/111015\/story-uber.asp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Uber came from just such a \u201cwhat if?\u201d question<\/a>. Cofounders Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick got stranded in a snowstorm in Paris, and they wondered: \u201cWhat if you could use your phone to secure a ride?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: One major reason \u201cwhat if?\u201d questions spur your creativity is that they often present you with situations that you\u2019ve never encountered before, meaning that you have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/forbescoachescouncil\/2018\/05\/16\/the-genius-of-asking-what-if-questions\/?sh=9ef157d22ef0#:~:text=With%20a%20%E2%80%9Cwhat%20if%3F%E2%80%9D%20question%2C%20your%20brain%20usually%20holds%20no%20previous%20precedent%2C%20paradigm%20or%20example%20to%20rely%20upon%20for%20an%20acceptable%20answer%2C\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">no previous experiences to draw on<\/a>. Therefore, instead of searching through your memories for an appropriate answer, you\u2019re forced to consider new possibilities or look for ways that your existing knowledge could apply to that new situation.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">#4: How?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To turn a creative idea into reality, you need to answer the fourth and final fundamental question: \u201c<em>how?<\/em>\u201d<em> <\/em><\/strong>Berger says this is the most difficult step\u2014fully answering \u201c<em>how?<\/em>\u201d<em> <\/em>often requires patience and commitment to your idea because the answers tend to be much more complicated than they seem at first.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Continuing the example of Uber, the co-founders had come up with a new concept: using a phone to secure a ride. However, that concept on its own was worthless\u2014founding the rideshare company that made them billionaires first required them to answer <em>how <\/em>they were going to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, that answer (a relatively simple smartphone app) led to numerous other questions, as Berger says is likely to happen: For instance, <em>how <\/em>would they compensate the drivers? <em>How <\/em>could they make riding with strangers as safe as possible? <em>How <\/em>would they outcompete local taxi services? Fully answering these \u201c<em>how?<\/em>\u201d<em> <\/em>questions led Camp and Kalanick to found one of the world\u2019s most successful startup companies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you always that one person in the room who&#8217;s asking all the questions? Should you be? In A More Beautiful Question, author and journalist Warren Berger highlights four fundamental questions: Why, Why not, What if, and How. He calls them &#8220;beautiful questions&#8221; and contends that they form the basis of larger questions that can help you succeed in life both professionally and personally. Read more to relearn how to raise the questions you almost certainly asked all the time as a child.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":90415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,43,30],"tags":[1271],"class_list":["post-113899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","category-self-improvement","category-work","tag-a-more-beautiful-question","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The 4 Fundamental Questions: Why, Why Not, What if, and How - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Warren Berger calls them &quot;beautiful questions.&quot; Relearn the magic of asking the fundamental questions you likely always asked as a child.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 4 Fundamental Questions: Why, Why Not, What if, and How\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Warren Berger calls them &quot;beautiful questions.&quot; Relearn the magic of asking the fundamental questions you likely always asked as a child.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-22T20:35:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-27T17:09:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/woman-with-question-marks.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elizabeth Whitworth\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elizabeth Whitworth\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d2928cf6c11a69ced1491d6a5b74fb13\"},\"headline\":\"The 4 Fundamental Questions: Why, Why Not, What if, and How\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-09-22T20:35:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-27T17:09:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\"},\"wordCount\":631,\"commentCount\":1,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/woman-with-question-marks.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"A More Beautiful Question\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Psychology\",\"Self-Improvement\",\"Work\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/fundamental-questions\/\",\"name\":\"The 4 Fundamental Questions: Why, Why Not, What if, and How - 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