What?: And Life's Other Essential Questions, Wait

Five + 1 questions in this book are useful tools to develop curiosity, better understanding, problem solving and aligning with your deeper purpose in life. Short and simple book that is worth reading.

How to live a beloved and effective and effecting life is the essence of these delicately told tales. Questions that are illuminated but personal tales serve as a fine vehicle to awaken our spirits and inform our lives and loves

Good questions (though basic for anyone who has had any success in life) and an entertaining speech that can found on You Tube. The book is easy to read but the additional filler to make it a book was not particularly interesting and only mildly amusing. At $12.99 for the Kindle version I thought it was tremendously overpriced considering the video of the commencement address is free and covered all the key points.

I very much enjoyed the book. It contained a lot of good “life” advice that is applicable in many different aspect of life’s journey. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone of any age. It's humorous and the author's life stories are very touching. I came away for the read (all in one sitting) with a great feeling about life's possibilities and how we can all make a difference. I highly recommend the book.

2.5 Stars

Five essential life questions are the theme for this mega short, commencement speech-cum book that addresses the art of asking the right questions in order to get the best answers.

The Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education might be well poised to consider how critical certain questions are to our ability to communicate, practice empathy, and generally connect with other human beings but his real life examples felt trite and overly sentimental. This book may have been a good idea to some but it needed a lot more work in order to make it viable.

Asking good questions is an interesting topic that should be further explored. In addition, it is a critical component of good communication skills and a precursor to listening well. This book serves as a useful reminder to always consider asking the best questions and to remain forever curious and engaged enough to ask in the first place.

However, the topic felt oversimplified in Ryan’s hands and this middle-aged Dean sharing his privileged life experiences and waxing on the utter awesomeness of his wife got in the way of his message. Still, applying these questions to your conversations and having a little fun with the process make reading this book worth your time.

BRB Rating: Read It (it’s a very quick read and will offer good questions to practice in your next conversation).

To help potential buyers of their purchase decision, I would like to quote from pg 133 as follows:-

I cannot guarantee, of course, that if you simply ask the five essential questions in this book that you will be able to answer "I did" to the bonus question "And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?". But I do think the question will help get you there, if you ask them regularly, because they can serve as a very useful guide to a fulfilling life. After all, the questions cover a lot of important territory:"
"Wait, what?" is at the root of all understanding.
"I wonder..?" is at the heart of all curiosity.
"Couldn't we at least...? is the beginning of all progress
"How can I help?" is at the base of all good relationships.
And "What truly matters?" helps get you to the heart of life.

In case you find the above engaging, and is interested in reading plenty of autobiography type anecdotes, this book is good for you. Otherwise, please give it a pass.

p.s. Below please find some favourite passages of mine for your reference.
Asking good questions is hard because it requires you to see past the easy answers and to focus instead on the difficult, the tricky, the mysterious, the awkward, and sometimes the painful. Pg14
Einstein said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, and his life depended on it, he would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. Pg15
Posing irresistible questions is an art worth cultivating. Pg15
When you act, you may make a mistake; when you speak, you may say the wrong thing. But it is much better to fail while daring greatly than to be a bystander, to borrow a line from Teddy Roosevelt. If you fail, often the worst thing that can happen is that you will have a funny story to tell. I have never heard a single funny story about failing to try. Because it helps break logjams, whether created by disagreement, fear, procrastination, or lethargy, and whether created by external obstacles or internal ones, the question “Couldn’t we at least…..?” sparks movement. It is the question that also recognizes that journeys are often long and uncertain, that problems will not be solved with one conversation, and that even the best efforts will not always work. At the same time, however, it is the question that recognizes you have to begin somewhere. It is the question that nudges you and others to the starting line. Pg82
“How can I help?” is an essential question. It is the question that forms the base of all good relationships. It is question that signals that you care. It signals a willingness to help. But it also signals respect, humility and the likelihood that, in the end, it is you who will be helped just as much. Pg102

James Ryan’s “Wait, What?” has great potential, and provides a bunch of important questions for people to ask. In fact, as a result of reading the book, I certainly plan to add “wait, what?” to my repertoire in order to help me improve my ties with others. But I think the critical question that’s missing is “why?”. In his quest to get others to probe their world more deeply (a great goal), Professor Ryan makes assumptions that, in and of themselves, need to be examined. For example, in both the “I Wonder…?” and the “Couldn’t We at Least…” chapters, he makes sweeping assumptions about the benefits of desegregation in schools. Taking for granted that schools should be mixed, he pontificates: “I wonder if we could create more integrated neighborhoods? I wonder if we could offer students options to attend schools out of their segregated neighborhoods? I wonder if at least some charter schools could focus on diversity as part of their mission?” Before suggesting these types of changes, which could lead to major disruptions in communities and in schools, shouldn’t Ryan have investigated why integration is important? Why should kids from one town get sent away from their family and friends to another part of town just to go to school? Why aren’t the schools in every neighborhood providing quality education? Why should kids whose families chose to move to great school districts get sent to the worst schools around? Why can’t parents choose where to send their kids? Why is the government, which is influenced by many factors other than what’s best for kids, making decisions that should be left in the hands of parents?
I enjoyed “Wait, What?” because of the easy going style, the stories, and the life advice that parents should give children about how to be a good friend, family member, and citizen. But I would not recommend the book as a tool to become an analytical thinker, since it’s missing the most critical question of them all.

Wait, What is not earth shattering nor does it contain a lot of new for me information. It is, however, honestly and warmly written and I found it to be encouraging and tender.

The five essential questions that Mr Ryan writes about are these:

"Wait, what? is at the root of all understanding.
I wonder...? is at the heart of all curiosity.
Couldn't we at least.... ? .. is the beginning of all progress.
How can I help? ... is at the base of all good relationships.
What truly matters? helps you get to the heart of life. "

He weaves his own stories into the telling, making the book more real and interesting. It's a two hour read but it might leave you thinking a bit about your own life.

Life's essential lessons can and should be easily remembered and passed on from one generation to the next. This slim book, from the Dean of Harvard's School of Education, captures all of that.

"What, what?!"
"I wonder why (or if)...?"
"Couldn't we just...?"
"How can I help?"
"What truly matters?"

If you can ASK these questions relentlessly, eventually you will get started on finding essential answers. The point of asking hard questions is admitting that you don't know the answers.

What is so striking about Ryan's book is how a gifted lawyer, scholar, education and leader uses questions to humanize himself, and all of us.

This zen-like book is more than a listicle: it has a core argument. Take the ego out of action. Socratic in the best sense of the word -- "I know one thing and that is that I know nothing" -- Ryan's book gets to the essence of a fully lived life. His elegant and powerful message is that the most meaningful action starts with humble inquiry. And while some of the questions are about knowing/thinking/understanding, they are meaningful because they are connected to living/engaging/acting.

The kicker for me is how Ryan tells the story through the eyes of his most cherished loved ones -- his wife, his four kids, his parents (both his birth mother and the couple that adopted and raised him), and one of his dearest friends. The last three of these have all passed away now. The book is an enjoyable and profound memorial to them.

A wonderful book. Quick and to the point but with enough anecdotes to illustrate what the author is talking about. The book does not suffer from the beat a dead horse problem that so many books do. It is interesting to note that the author has now been appointed as in-coming president of UVa. I think almost everyone could benefit from reading this book.

I really loved this book it was educational, humorous, had substance, It was a real story. I was engaged deeply
This was an excellent book, thank you Dean James E Ryan for your gift.
I put this up with one of my favorite books Vernon can read

Enjoyed it very much and the 5 essential questions allow a person to truly FOCUS and engage 110% with life, with the present moment and the future! A must read with ideas to inspire all of us to live life fully (and curiously)!

A beautiful and poignant reflection on how several simple but critical questions can produce insight, understanding, progress, meaning and even ultimate happiness. Ryan weaves together a series of hilarious and poignant stories from his own family to convey his surprisingly powerful message. I wanted to share the book with everyone I know. For a short read, this little book packs a big punch.

What a wonderful 138 pages. Read it straight through; you won't want to put it down. Ryan has produced an eminently readable, thought provoking book that blends common sense, insightful wisdom and humor into a guide for a happy, successful life.

Expensive relative to the depth of the content. Too many anecdotes. If I google the book before buying it I would have realized that I would pay $2 worth of anecdotes per question. Not worth it.

Good writing, but would rather spend my time reading something else