If you want to learn something, stop asking questions

Why asking more often leads to learning less

Having an intense curiosity and asking lots of questions are considered synonymous nowadays.

‘Be curious; ask questions’ is what we hear from proper geniuses like Voltaire¹, Socrates², and Einstein³.

Don’t get me wrong, I love questions. They can be engaging, thought-provoking, and even transformational. But, like anything powerful, they can be overused. Equating curiosity with a flood of questions may look like the path to learning, but in reality, it often shuts down true understanding.

If you think you’re learning a lot by asking tons of questions, you're not. Actually, questions are not a sign of curiosity at all. They are a sign that you're not really listening.

Learning the hard way

I’ve always considered myself to be extremely curious.

I was that nosy kid making his parents’ guests uncomfortable at the dinner table because he couldn’t shut up. ‘Yes, but why?’ ‘How come?’ ‘How does that work?’ On and on and on.

Even as an adult, I’ve been described as someone who has ‘never left the why-phase,’ believing that the key to unlocking knowledge is to ask as many questions as possible.

At the time I didn’t understand why, but even back then I could feel that people felt uncomfortable talking to me. And despite the avalanche of questions, I often left conversations feeling unfulfilled, like I had missed something. Sometimes I even noticed people intentionally hold back, offering only surface-level responses.

I remember a time when I was so eager to understand a friend's career change that I bombarded her with questions: ‘Why did you leave your job? Why now? What are you going to do next? Have you looked at other opportunities? Aren't you worried about the risks?’

As she grew increasingly quiet, her enthusiasm for telling me her story quickly faded until she finally cut me off and said ‘you ask a lot of questions, don't you?’ and walked away.

I had inadvertently hurt our relationship and I was none the wiser.

What I didn’t know back then was that if learning is the goal, asking questions isn't the best way to go about this.

Not only because you’re scaring people off, but you’re also stepping on their words (and thoughts). When you do this, you miss out on all the insights, stories, and knowledge they might actually have to offer.

Questions have the ability to cut us off from deeper insights by pushing the conversation in a direction we think we want, rather than where the conversation could naturally go.

I started to realize that being curious isn’t equal to asking questions and that learning isn’t always served by asking more of them.

Asking less = learning more

When I began my coach training, everything changed.

I remember sitting across from a client, resisting the urge to fill the silence with another question. Instead, I nodded, offered a simple, ‘hmm’ and stayed silent. The few seconds that passed felt more like minutes, but what happened next was incredible.

He took a deep breath and began to open up, sharing thoughts and feelings he hadn’t expressed before. Thinking out loud uncovered insights that surprised him and me. Anything I could have asked would have prevented him from going this deep.

By the end of the session, he thanked me multiple times for giving him the space to explore and express. I realized that by holding back my questions, I had allowed his own insights to emerge. And they were ultimately more valuable to my own understanding as well.

This shift in how I looked at questions didn't just enhance my coaching practice, it almost instantly transformed my personal relationships too.

Friends commented on how our conversations felt more meaningful and how I was ‘such a good listener’. On top of that, I found myself learning things I never would have thought to ask about. 

Three curiosities

During my coach training, my ‘Motivational Interviewing’ teacher deepened my understanding of curiosity even further. He discerned two types of curiosity, a selfish and a selfless one.

You can be curious purely for your own benefit, bring your own agenda, and simply ‘collect’ what you want to know from someone. This tends to look a lot like an interrogation. By asking a lot of questions, you make sure you get the info you're after.

He called this ‘voyeuristic curiosity’ because it’s all about you and what you want to extract from the conversation, often leaving the other person feeling used or unheard.

You can also be curious on behalf of the person you're communicating with. Listening with a deep and present attention, tuning into what they’re saying (and not saying).

Asking questions can still be part of this, but they will sound, feel, and present very differently. They are meant to spark something in the other person, open up possibilities, and make them explore their own thoughts on a deeper level.

Since this second type is all about the other person, he called this ‘serving curiosity’, where you are still very curious but you’re channeling your curiosity into supporting their self-discovery and insight.

Let’s say you’re talking to a friend about their recent trip, instead of ‘voyeuristically’ asking: ‘Where did you go and what did you see?’, you could ask ‘What part of the trip had the most impact on you?’ instantly turning it into a ‘serving’ curiosity.

But even if you’re not interested in serving others like a coach would, and you’re purely curious for your own learning’s sake, asking a thousand questions is still a reliable way to shoot yourself in the foot. By overloading conversations with questions, you’ll radically reduce the space for genuine insights and miss what people will naturally reveal.

Luckily, it’s quite possible to strike a balance between the two, creating a third kind of curiosity—reflective curiosity.

Reflective curiosity

This is where you balance your desire to learn with a genuine openness to whatever the other person might share, allowing their thoughts to unfold without imposing your own agenda (even if you have one).

For example:

When talking to a colleague about a project they’re passionate and visibly fired up about, instead of asking a question like ‘Who came up with this idea?’ or ‘What do you think your competitors are doing differently?’, imagine just listening and reflecting back: ‘It sounds like this project really excites you’. I bet you they will smile, and tell you more about their motivations and share insights you couldn’t have anticipated.

By giving people the space to explore their own thoughts, you will learn things you might not have expected.

Curiosity and learning isn’t just about gathering facts and getting your questions answered, it’s about providing other people the space so you (both) can gain a deeper understanding.

When we’re just collecting information, and prioritize questioning over listening, we miss the chance for this kind of learning.

Reflective curiosity isn't about asking more questions; it's about the opposite. Embracing silence, listening deeply, and being fully present in the conversation. It's about creating a space for others to share insights you might not even know to ask about.

The following parable really cemented this point for me: 

‘A Cup of Tea’ (from ‘Zen Flesh, Zen Bones’ by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki)

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868–1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. ‘It is overfull. No more will go in!’

‘Like this cup,’ Nan-in said, ‘you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’

Just like the professor, when we fill conversations with our own questions, we're too full to receive new insights. By emptying our cup—listening without agenda—we make space for genuine understanding.

How curious are you?

Are you a compulsive questioner like I was?

Take the following quiz and find out. Answer the following questions to see if you might be suffering from ‘questionitis’—the uncontrollable urge to ask too many questions.

1. When someone starts telling you a story, what's your immediate reaction?

A) Sit back, listen, and enjoy the narrative unfold.

B) Nod politely while mentally preparing your list of follow-up questions.

C) Interrupt with, ‘Wait, but why did you do that? What happened next? Who was there?’

2. During a conversation, you find silences to be:

A) A natural part of dialogue, offering space for reflection.

B) Slightly awkward but manageable.

C) Unbearable! Must...fill...silence...with...questions!

3. How do your friends typically describe your conversational style?

A) ‘You're such a good listener!’

B) ‘You're really curious, aren't you?!’

C) ‘Talking to you feels like being put on the stand.’

4. After a chat with someone, you usually feel:

A) Connected and enlightened by their perspectives.

B) Informed but sensing there's more beneath the surface.

C) Frustrated that you didn't get all the answers you wanted.

Mostly A's: You’re a reflective curiosity natural. You know how to balance listening with thoughtful engagement. Keep doing what you're doing.

Mostly B's: You’re an inquisitive person. You're curious and enjoy learning, but there's room to dial back the questions. Try embracing a bit more silence and see where the conversation takes you.

Mostly C's: You might be a master interrogator and your enthusiasm is admirable. But it might be overwhelming to others and hurting your learning. Time to consider a new approach?

Empty your cup

Whatever your score, it’s helpful to examine the way you ask questions and see if they’re helping or hurting you.

I'm still an extremely curious person, but by letting go of the urge to ask incessant questions and by ‘emptying my cup’ instead, I found a way to optimize my learning, without imposing my agenda or missing out on the most valuable insights.

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¹ Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. — Voltaire

² Wisdom begins in wonder, and wonder grows by asking questions. — Socrates

³ The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. — Albert Einstein