We spend our whole lives thinking, or at least we think we do. After all, what is thinking? What’s the actual process of thinking? What do we do when we’re thinking?

Well, what we actually do when we are thinking (or think we are, stay with me here) is we ask questions ! You can really see how the world breaks down into two camps from the questions people ask themselves….

For instance, If you want to lose weight and you can’t seem to, you might ask the question? Why can’t I lose weight? Then your brain will tell you “because you’re a fat pig that’s too lazy to exercise, that’s why!” So you go round again in the same old familiar circle, trying to lose weight, not really doing it, and feeling bad about it.

I’ve used the weight example because it’s one that we’re all pretty familiar with, but it could be anything: forming a new relationship, opening another shop, getting great staff…

So, given that our brains are programmed to give us the answers to the questions we ask them, (and quite brutally usually – lets face it, we all talk to ourselves much more viciously than we’d let anyone else talk to us!)

What can we do with this information? Well, the really interesting thing here is that if you want to move forward and out of the cycle of dispiriting answers, then you’ve got to start asking better questions!

So, to go back to our old fat analogy. If, instead of asking “Why can’t I lose weight?”, we had asked “What can I do to lose weight?”, we’d have got an answer something along the lines of: Exercise; eat sensibly; have a goal to aim for; a reason to be setting out to lose the weight; a losing weight partner; a trip of a lifetime as a reward etc. So, our brains know the answer to the questions, if we just ask the right questions.

So, now then - Recession ! Now that’s a word that’s pretty much guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of full grown men and women.

Instead of us fearing the recession (and that does seem to be the national psyche at the moment) with everyone running around asking how can this be happening to me? What about my job? What will become of me?

How about we ask the question “What’s good about this recession?”

I think the answer will be along the lines of – Opportunity, a new way of looking at your business, using our brains to work out how to respond, instead of just doing the same old things we’ve always done. Shedding stock, moving resources that we should have moved a long time ago, coming out of lines that never really worked for us, but we were attached to, looking at new markets as an opportunity rather than another thing we have to do and a host of other things waiting to be explored.

Retail is changing, shops are changing, jobs are changing, technology is changing - heck, life is changing! So why would any of us think it should somehow stay the same…? If you want to move on, then you’ve got to take something on…!

In the words of Bruce Springsteen, “these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back!”

Another great speaker that I’ve admired for years, Jim Rohn famously said “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better!” - which is fabulous advice at a time like this…. So the questions we could be usefully asking ourselves are things like : What have I learnt recently? What new skills or training have I invested in? How can I develop my marketing? How can I widen my horizons and get really excited about the future?

So if you want a better answer – Ask a better question?