23 Jun 2025 · 12 min
In this podcast episode, Brendon Burchard argues that curiosity—expressed through asking questions—is a fundamental driver of personal growth, deeper relationships, societal understanding, and spiritual exploration. He shares personal anecdotes from his childhood in a small Montana town, a high‑school teacher who nurtured his inquisitiveness, and a conversation with Larry King, illustrating how curiosity fuels happiness, mental health, and longevity. Burchard outlines four domains where listeners can practice heightened curiosity: (1) within oneself, by regularly rating presence and probing emotions; (2) in social relationships, by leading conversations with thoughtful questions that deepen connection; (3) about society, by questioning systems, history, and institutions to avoid becoming passive cogs; and (4) in the spiritual realm, by confronting existential questions about purpose, God, and after‑life. He provides concrete example questions for each area and encourages listeners to adopt a habit of continual inquiry. The episode concludes with a brief promotion of his progressmode.com newsletter and the Ultra private group, inviting listeners to join a community focused on purposeful progress.
Chapters
It's through self exploration. And that always happens through questions, conscious or not, that we end up evolving. What questions could you ask yourself on a recurring basis? Today's topic is asking more questions. So often in life, we fall to the false belief that we know anything. And we end up struggling because we don't explore with great curiosity ourselves, other people, our world, the world beyond us. And so we tend to fall into a routine that starts to feel mundane, starts to feel same old, same old, and we miss the world around us, the world within us, the world above us. I remember growing up in a small town in Montana. And we'd hopped around a couple towns and my dad was kind of working his way up and had a good job. And one place we moved to for a short period of time when he was working, I believe with highway patrol at that stage was just a small little town, maybe just under 2,000 people, if I remember right. I was young, maybe third, fourth grade comes to mind, and I'd moved there from a bigger town. And I remember thinking, wow, there's not much to this town. People must have go crazy. Even as a young kid, I thought, wow, there's not much people here. But I met kids there who made that town extraordinarily huge. It was their ability to be curious, to learn every corner, every nook and cranny, every field, every bush, every tree, every empty lot. And they had made that little town bigger than I had made the big town I'd lived in previously. They had a discerning eye and a curiosity to learn more, to be able to ask the simple questions of what's around me. What's my town like? Where can I go today? It was just so interesting to see a different perspective. And I was talking with a friend one time there, and he would just ask me all these questions about myself and where I'd been, all these questions about everything. I thought about the kids at school, one of the most curious kids I'd ever met, and asked me all these questions. And I realized we happened to also be one of the happiest kids, one of the best studious kids at school and one of those mopular kids, all because he just seemed to have this trait of asking questions. And it was a good thing to learn that young. When I got into high school, I had Linda Blue, one of the great teachers of American education. She. She was a. And is a remarkable woman. She kept me in high school when I wanted to drop out. She gave me a chance to learn journalism and taught me to think Critically and all these things have always put me on a path, very young age of being curious. And as you read lots of books on success or psychology, you always tend to find curiosity tends to be a thing that keeps people pretty mentally healthy, keeps them focused and engaged at work or in life, and leads to longevity. When I later on got to meet one of the great communicators of all time and collaborate and do a course with him, the great late Larry King, the world's most famous and probably most accomplished broadcaster at the time, Larry. I was asking him one time and he was, I think just turning 80 years old. And I asked him how he had such a vibrant mind and so much excitement for what he was still doing. And he just said that curiosity was his secret. He just loved to ask questions and learn about people. So today, inspired by that, four areas you might ask more questions in. The first area you might ask more questions in is within yourself. I know that might sound clunky, but what I mean by that is to more consistently ask yourself questions about your life and about your internal world and the way you're experiencing life. But by asking questions about ourselves that we gain greater self awareness. And as we gain greater self awareness, inevitably we tend to live a more intentional and yes, happy life. So please think about this. What questions could you ask yourself, even on a recurring basis about your life if you were going to keep yourself on the path that you want to live on in your life? What are some recurring questions you could ask yourself? For example, one of the questions I always make sure I ask myself is, is how present am I right now on a scale of 1 to 10? I ask myself when I'm waiting in line, when I'm talking with my wife, when I'm doing a video, what level of presence and vibrancy am I right now on a scale of 1 to 10? I ask myself that question a lot of times when I feel confused, I say why do I feel confused? When I feel down, I ask what's causing me to feel down? How am I interpreting something right now? What am I thinking about? What's coming up? For me, it's through self exploration. And that always happens through questions, conscious or not, that we end up evolving. What questions could you ask yourself on a recurring basis? Second area I'd love you to ask more questions with is in your social relationships, your partner, your spouse, your friend, your team, those who you lead, love, serve. You know, I had a mentor one time, and this was a mentor in a book who meaning for me a lot of my great mentors in my life were characters I read in books or, you know, authors who I followed or learned from from their audio tapes or. Yes, audio tapes or CDs. Oh, yes, CDs, or digital audio programs. And I remember, let's see, one character was talking about the power of always asking three questions to the person you are speaking with before you share. I thought it was so powerful. And the person talked about how you could take one simple question of, you know, how's the weather? Which seems like a terrible first question, but then you could go deeper, how's the weather over there? Oh, good. Well, what have you done this week? Oh, that's cool. What are you enjoying the most in life? We went from first question, how's the weather? To third question, what are you enjoying the most in life? This is the power of conversationalists. They ask more questions than they lead with, with statements. And this is something that can change your life forever. Next time you talk with your child, ask them three questions first. Next time you talk with your partner or spouse, don't just say, how's it going, honey? They say, great. And that's the end of the conversation. Ask the next question. And as we learn to ask more questions of those around us, we create deeper bonds. And remember, one of the primary things we are all after in our life is connection with others. And not a superficial one, Depth. That depth comes from conversations. And the depth in conversations comes from the questions one another pose to each other. Next idea. Ask more questions about society. That might sound too broad, but it's not. Why is our society the way it is? If we don't ask that, then we never learn any history. We never learn any history. We're doomed not to repeat history. We're doomed to do worse than history. And so it's important to ask, why is our educational system the way it is? Why is our banking and finance system the way it is? Why is our political parties structured the way they are? When you're dealing with local ordinances, rules, taxes, why are they that way? Not that you have to know or understand everything, but asking common questions. I remember talking with somebody when I was in college who didn't understand that the potholes in the road were fixed and paid for by the city and through taxes. Just complained that the people who lived at that particular place on the street were somehow not taking care of the street and had no earthly. Had probably hit a million potholes in their life and never understood that there was a solution to this, that there were people who actually did this, even though it didn't seem like it at the time. I think the more dumb we are to how our society operates, the more we end up actually being cogs in the machine, the less able we are to understand macro movements in culture, in society, and yes, even history making. It's important when we see a trend in politics to understand where that trend comes from. It's one of those things where I know when I share this people, no, no, I don't need to understand all those things. Bren, that sounds pretty heady. I'm like, yeah, but I'll tell you what, if you really want to understand society, then maybe start by reading some of the great biographies of the great leaders of our time. Because in those biographies you see them work through, shift or shape the politics of their era. And a lot of those can give great insight to what we're facing today. If we could get people reading a little bit more in history, in civics, in understanding how our world or our politics work, good things would happen. What questions should we ask about our society right now? Those questions shape how we all experience the world. From why do we go to war? To why do we have homeless? To why do so many people struggle? These are important questions.
Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter.
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To progress mode.com last big question we might ask is in the realm of spirit. You know the questions that some people just never face about spirituality? Is there a God? What are your beliefs related to that? What happens before life and after life? How can we connect with something more soul deep as a human experience? What does that even mean? These types of questions happen to take us to another level of transcendence, meaning or connection about life. No matter what our beliefs are, exploring it deeply is one of the central human tasks. And so I hope that this just encourages you to ask more questions about yourself, your social relationships, your society spirit. Because as you get more curious, you really do open up. As you get more curious, you create more trust with others. As you get more curious, we can go beyond those troubles that we face today to actually asking better questions. And the better questions we ask, the more likely we are to solve the more difficult problems together.