John C. Maxwell, in his book Thinking for a Change, poses a simple premise – to do well in life, we must first think well. Drawing on the words and deeds of many of the world's greatest leaders, his book helps us assess our thinking styles and guides us to new ones. Here’s an excerpt lifted from the book –

Benno Müller-Hill, A professor of genetics at Cologne University, tells of an incident he recalls from his days at school, when, one morning his physics teacher set up a telescope in the schoolyard so that the students could observe a particular planet and its moons. 

Müller-Hill recalls being the last in a line of 40 children waiting to peer through the telescope. The first student approached the device and looked through the eyepiece; but when asked by the teacher if he could see anything, the student replied in the negative, noting that he was shortsighted. 

Following an explanation from the teacher on how to focus the lens, the student finally proclaim that he could see the planet and its moons. One after the other, the students walked up to the telescope, peered through the eyepiece and saw what they were supposed to see — that is, until the second from last student who looked through and promptly declared he could not see anything at all.

“You fool,” shouted the teacher. “You have to adjust the lens.” The student tried again, but to no avail. “I still see nothing at all. It’s all black,” he said. 

At that point the now infuriated teacher got up and went over the telescope himself. Peering briefly through the eyepiece, he then looked up with a bemused expression on his face. The lens cap was still affixed to the end of the telescope. None of the students had seen anything at all!

Many people tend to adopt the behavior of others almost automatically; they simply believe that it would be smarter to do what others are doing. Progress dies when we stop asking questions. When it comes to advancing knowledge, the first step in the journey is the asking of the question. What questions have you asked recently?