False dichotomies are undisciplined thought. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Builders of greatness are comfortable with paradox. They don’t oppress themselves with what we call the “Tyranny of the OR,” which pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both. Instead, they liberate themselves with the “Genius of the AND.” Undisciplined thinkers force debates into stark “Tyranny of the OR” choices; disciplined thinkers expand the conversation to create Genius of the AND solutions.

So here in one sentence (albeit dense) is what this life-restoring kind of question seems to do:

An incisive question, through a playful hypothetical construct, replaces an untrue limiting assumption with a true liberating one, and connects it to a desired outcome.

And here is why (even denser):

The key block to a desired outcome is an untrue limiting assumption lived as true that can be removed only by replacing it with a true liberating assumption inserted into a playful (because hypothetical) question using the subjunctive tense.

E.g. if you knew x, how would you do y? The mind can play inside that construct. And in playing, it embeds the new true assumption and decides on actions and/or changes its feelings. Everything. The brain likes to play, not obey. And the incisive question construct lets it do that. Playful because hypothetical. Wonderful to know.

The untrue assumptions we live as true. They interrupt our thinking on a regular basis. I didn’t use to see untrue assumptions as interruption. But, of course, they are. We can be thinking along, generating insights and possibilities and bold choices; and suddenly, just like that, we’re back where we started.

Assumptions have their most severe impact as the key blocks to human thinking. Untrue assumptions lived as true are what block us nearly always. And so we can bypass the usual question about blocks (‘What is stopping you?’) and head right for the key block by asking:

What might you be assuming that is stopping you?

If you knew’, is hypothetical. So the question has to start that way. And ‘how would you’ is hypothetical. So the question has to end that way. And in the middle has to be the truth: the true liberating assumption. It is not hypothetical.