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Category: Inspiration

10 questions to ask at a dinner party (instead of “What do you do?”)

You’ve invited twelve of your closest friends over to your place for dinner — except no one knows anyone else, and they’re all from different parts of your life: work, parenting group, school, bowling club, gym class.

You’ve hired a chef and set the table. Now…how do you get people to talk?

“What do you do?” is an easy question. Overused, expected.

Here are 10 other questions you can ask, straight off the tables of Project Exponential dinners:

  1. Grand Central Station has room for a new restaurant in the basement. What should we recommend?
  2. The Embassy has asked us to suggest a week-long itinerary for a group of influential foreigners who want to visit America. No one speaks the same language. Where should we take them? What should we do?
  3. We’ve been commissioned to orchestrate vending machines that will be placed in high-traffic tourist areas like Times Square, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Sea World. What’s inside?
  4. The U.S. Department of Education wants us to design a course that will become part of all high school curricula. What do we teach?
  5. How do you encourage risk-taking and entrepreneurial thinking among a team that is afraid to break the rules?
  6. We’ve been given access to a 3D printer and can print ONE THING to be distributed worldwide. What is the thing?
  7. If we were to write one book that everyone here [at your dinner party] could contribute to, what would it be?
  8. The mayor wants us to develop a ride-sharing program that encourages interaction among residents and visitors. Ideas?
  9. Apple wants us to throw their next company party. Is there a theme? Who do we invite?
  10. What one problem do you presently wish you could solve?

If you’d like, you can write questions on cards and pass them around the table. If you’re feeling really ambitious, separate your guests into teams beforehand and group individuals with complementary skills. Let me know what happens.

Be here now.

Chances are high you’re doing your best to complete several different tasks as you read these words. Would would happen if, for today alone, you commit to performing each responsibility individually and mindfully?
Slowing our actions can bring forth surprising new perspectives on performance and efficiency. More is not always best.

What connects us

Understanding that first and foremost, the life you want to create for yourself, the type of person you want to become, the parts of yourself you’re most excited to develop will attract individuals who will help you get there.

Realizing that true, authentic connection is expansive. The right relationship discovered at the right time can help you soar, find freedom, create, and see a limitless future.

Recognizing that relationships are catalysts for growth and independence — for supporting both reckless abandon and providing the foundation to carry the wisdom that comes from experience, failure, frustration, pain.

Acknowledging that your highest highs and lowest lows are probably different than mine; the value lies in sharing and discovering what these experiences were like for each of us.

Accepting that at your very worst, you are someone’s pride and joy. Knowing this helps reveal the very best parts of you.

That through the fog of confusion and longing, we can help each other find shared laughter and bouts of success, punctuated with gratitude and contentment along the way.

That our mutual appreciation for life — the ups and downs, the hard lessons and the easy ones — may or may not happen at the same time. Your up might be my down, but no matter, when we find ourselves on the same plane, we can share the lessons we learned and the tricks we used to get us through.

That the whole point is to create tribes, to build and create and be generous — to others and to ourselves.

Embracing that this is all really about compassion, about elevating each other and pushing one another to succeed by sharing our struggles and our wins.

We collaborate because our ideas become greater. Like a brilliant prism, the unique perspectives we each offer leads to undiscovered treasure.

It’s our gift to find it.

prism