Ask the right question!

Life is more about asking the right questions and not providing the right answers.

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” — Eugene Ionesco

Too often in life, we just follow a certain path without questioning it. It sometimes feels like life is all about answering questions whether it is in school, university, or on the job. However, life is more complex and you should always allow yourself to question the current path that you are on. Step back. Don’t get blinded by competition.

We as a society often fall into the trap of optimizing obsolete things — things that should not exist. If designing takes to long, you may scrap it and start from the very beginning. The design needs to be modified to accelerate progress.

Elon Musk is using this simple method when developing new SpaceX rockets like the Starship. Elon explains in a recent interview that very often engineers are getting stuck with one design and are optimizing on it instead of replacing the whole with more efficiency. It is important to always question the constraints of the requirements. Therefore, SpaceX engineers are required to understand every single part of the rocket to integrate every component seamlessly. The innovation lays more in complex integration than disruption.

You have to realize that the answer is the easy part, and the question is the hard part!