You might expect this article covers questions like “What is the meaning of life?” or “What is my purpose?” It doesn’t.

Those are better questions for a college philosophy class, or a deep discussion with friends after a few drinks.

The questions I cover here are life-changing because they can change the direction of your decisions on a daily basis. Small changes over time lead to a massively better life down the road.

These questions, and the corresponding answers create a compound effect . They are questions I ask myself constantly, and have also used them with clients over the years.

At first, they’re not easy to answer. In fact, they will probably make you feel uncomfortable. But, over time, they’ll shift the way you see the world, your part in it, and your perception of the power you hold to make your life better and easier.

Your Daily Dialogue

On my walk to the gym, I often pass by a guy who, based on his behavior, I believe is addicted to meth. On one hand, I feel sorry for the guy. If his issue is meth, that’s pretty hard to break free from. What grabs my attention is the wild, vocal, enthusiastic conversations he has…with himself.

People walking by might see his behavior as weird, but it isn’t much different from anyone else. We all talk to ourselves, just not out loud (well, most of the time it isn’t out loud).

The average person has between 12,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. Most of the thoughts are part of an ongoing, one way lecture in their heads…They judge, complain, excuse, blame, and should all over themselves.

Actually, that’s how most conversations play out with other people today, too. Lots talking and telling others what to think. Very few questions and even less listening to the answers...but I digress.

I’ve found one or more of the following questions get me out of the one-way lecture in my head, and into a two-way conversation and solution for whatever situation I’m in.

Question 1: What If I’m Wrong?

The perfect question for checking your ego and controlling your emotions.

This question isn’t an easy one to answer. Before you ask this of someone else, I suggest you wrestle with it yourself first.

The reality is, you’re probably wrong about more of your beliefs than you are right. I am too.

There’s very little in life for which we can have absolute certainty. If people contemplated this question before posting online, their posts and comments would be dramatically different.

So many people seem so certain of their beliefs. If you challenge them or disagree, they unfriend, dislike or even attack you.

When did this happen? When did people become so childish in their thinking that they became convinced the rest of the world needed to see everything the same way they did?

At the time of this writing, the appointing of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was the top news story.

I tuned into some of the story, and also observed how people reacted to both sides of the allegations of sexual misconduct.

If you're out of the loop, or reading this at a time where the story is part of the history books, you can quickly catch up on this Wikipedia page.

I saw so many emotional outrages on both sides. Personally, I felt I'd be a fool to have an opinion on the matter. Here's why: I wasn’t there. That's obvious. But here are some other reasons.

Based on my life experiences, education, media and people I listen to, and my unconscious beliefs, I come into any controversial topic with certain biases.

Those biases cause me to interpret the information I’m exposed to differently than someone else with different experiences, living in a different environment. I could even take my anger and frustration from some past experience and place it on someone here and now that had nothing to do with it.

Those biases have even more influence over me when I'm emotionally-charged.

Then,