A conversational YouTube interview between Ken Blanchard and Robert J. Strock about the practice of inquiry. Strock describes inquiry as an ongoing self-question—asking what's most important or essential right now—to guide behavior and manage emotions (e.g., anger, fear). Blanchard links this to Jim Steffen's time-management idea MIM ("most important now"), emphasizing presence and resisting multitasking.
Robert, I know the practice of inquiry is really important to you in the way you interact and deal with patients and people in general. Tell me a little bit about that.
Well, the way I'm using inquiry is that that we ask ourselves the question on an ongoing basis as to what's most important and what's most essential to me right now or this day or during this time period. And by having an inquiring intelligence that's really being used as an asset, it allows our cognitive mind, our mind to actually be interested in what's really good and what's really going to support our lives and support other people's lives. And so I found that to be a really useful tool to replace some of the just spontaneous desiring or that really many times as futile or reactivity or attending to our emotional states endlessly, where we're really asking, how am I going to care for myself, for example, while I am angry? How am I going to be supportive of life when I'm afraid? And so that practice is really very dear and central to the work that I do with clients. And it seems to also be one of those practices that would be God helps those that help themselves. And I'm wondering how you relate to both what I'm saying about inquiry or the whole idea that God would help those that help themselves.
There's a friend of mine, Jim Steffen, who has a time management program called Aligned Thinking. And the most central concept is what he calls mim, which is most important now. And the question he always says ask is, you're in the middle of something here. I've come up here to LA to be with you, is I am really going to get the most out of this moment if I decided this is the most important now. And he's helped me with my pleaser thing by saying, ken, if you say yes, and you're all of a sudden doing it, are you going to be able to separate yourself from all these other demands and all and get into the moment? Because it's in the moment that happiness is, and is this your mim? And I think it's so similar. And that's been very helpful to me because we've been talking on the phone and he's been walking me through his process. And I went, whoa, that's really important because people like to multitask at the same time. And I don't care how good you are, is you're not going to be in the moment when you're trying to do two or three things at the same time. So One of the things I'm delighted about us being together is I had no other agenda today. I knew that being with you was going to be special. No matter what we did, and therefore, how it unfolded, I didn't really care. But I wasn't concerned. I said to Marge, I'll be home, you know, because we're going somewhere tomorrow. But I'm really in my mim. And I think that sounds like what you're inquiring is trying to get people into their mim.
I think it is, too. Thank you.
