When you think of Plato, likely the first word that comes to mind, if it isn't "huh?," is virtue. Me, the first thing I think of is Meno. In the Meno, Plato demonstrates that man already possesses all knowledge, he just needs to be prompted to remember it.  He proves this by showing that a random slave boy picked out of the crowd could solve a complex mathematical problem because the answer was inside of him all along.

I was reminded of Meno while chatting with a client for the first time after the completion of a big project we worked on together. Apparently, the client beamed, I had been the reason this guy's business has now turned around. I actually don't agree with him. I think he turned it around himself.  And if you listen to him tell the story, you'd agree with me.

The way he tells it, during the project, I had "beat him up" in meeting after meeting, asking "...and why are we doing that?" over and over (I am pretty persistent) until he finally burst out with the fact that he was making decisions based on his ego rather than his business and that he knew that wasn't the best course of action.

Once he gave up his idea of how things should be, the project took off because he knew what needed to be done. So you see, I just asked a few questions (or actually, it seems, just one question...repeatedly). He was the one who had the answer.

Now that I have the luxury of not being a publicist anymore, all I do is drive around from meeting to meeting. And at all those meetings, I feel like all I do is ask people questions about their problems in a way that makes them tell me what they need to do to be more successful. I leave and they write me thank you notes saying, "We were so stoked when we left the meeting, THANKS!"

If Plato were around, we could have a beer and chuckle about how I didn't really do anything because they had the answers all along. I just asked the right questions.

If you wanna start asking yourself your own right questions, here is, I believe, the only tip and hint you need:

Tip: What does success look like to you?  A lot of people don't start here. They start with the problem and try to get to the answer.  I say start with the answer and then figure out what the problems are that keep you from being at the answer right now.

Hint: What is standing in the way of your success?  If you have a bunch of legitimate reasons why something hasn't happened yet, likely you either need to really face those legitimate reasons and figure out how to make them unlegitimate or you need to change your idea about what success is achievable.