7 questions to ask people ahead of you (if you want to accelerate your career):

There is only 1 shortcut in life:

Learning from those ahead of you on a path you want to take.

• Avoiding mistakes
• Breaking false beliefs
• Acquiring the correct skills
• Developing potent character traits

But don't ask to "pick their brain."

Ask these instead:

1. What is something most people think is important that I can skip entirely?

As a beginner, everything looks important.

But as you progress, you realize most things aren't.

So instead of wasting your effort in dozens of directions, ask this to figure out what to avoid.

2. What's something important to your daily routine you wish you started sooner?

The people ahead of you got to where they are with simple daily actions compounded over time.

So figure out what those actions are & build them into your days.

Then, stick to them for years.

3. What channels led to the building of your highest-quality relationships?

It's cliché, but you are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.

But finding the right people isn't easy—unless you know where to look.

So use this question to get some directions.

4. What is something you did differently than your peers 5 years ago that led to pushback, but served you in the long run?

If you do what everyone else does, you can expect to achieve what everyone else achieves (mediocrity).

Use this question to identify behaviors to shed.

5. What can I expect to struggle with along the way?

Growth is having problems today you would have begged to have had years ago.

So if you know which struggles are coming, you can:

• Prepare for them
• Conquer them
• Continue to grow

Which means unlocking new problems.

6. What is something you believed 5 years ago you had to "unlearn" to take the next step?

Progress comes from the constant cycle of:

• Identifying a bottleneck
• Removing that bottleneck

And most of the time, that bottleneck is a behavior or belief you have to "unlearn."

7. What's something you didn't pay enough attention to early on, then had to learn the hard way?

Early on, you're flying blind.

You don't even know what you don't know.

So the faster you can uncover these blind spots, the faster you can improve.

Boom—that's it.

This is your toolkit to ask high-quality questions when given the chance to talk to a mentor.

Don't waste their time "jumping on a quick call to pick their brain."

Instead, ask targeted questions they will be interested in thinking about.

Instant progress.

If you enjoyed these questions:

1. Follow me @dickiebush for more helpful actionable threads like this every Thursday

2. Hop back up to the top tweet to retweet it so you can find it later (and so others can see it too)

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