“…but I want to know what the people in the restroom thought of you taking pictures of the urinal?”

Hey, I was in Europe…people are much freer about such things

I’m thrilled to hear that your staff are embracing “The Two Questions” principle. I passionately believe that, when facing a challenge, knowing how to answer “what am I missing?” and “what am I making up?” can alter the trajectory of an individual’s life and an organization’s fortunes.

Thanks for the comment.

Great story, thanks for sharing it. There’s no doubt that many of us are way too quick to assume that, if there’s a simple solution, someone else would have already tried it. Turns out you and your wife were the first and so made a killing.

There’s an apocryphal story about NASA spending millions to develop a pen that would write in zero gravity. (Which would be like trying to write upside down back on planet earth.)

…Meanwhile the Russians, in a flash of the blindingly obvious, simply used a pencil.

While the incident makes for a great story, it’s not actually true. Apparently, both American and Russian astronauts were using pencils. However, there were concerns that, if a pencil lead broke, it might short out an electrical circuit.

The American inventor, Paul C.Fisher did create a pen that addressed these concerns. However, he paid all the development costs himself and the pens were used by both American and Russian astronauts.

That said, I had a similar problem (kind of) with a blotchy pen. I was underlining insightful sentences in a book (not about critical thinking I might add) and smearing ink all over the place. I tried different pens. However, because the book was printed on some kind of shiny, not very porous, paper that approach didn’t work.

My wife Krys, fed up with my whining, suggested I use a pencil. To make things more embarrassing, I knew the NASA urban legend…and Krys didn’t!

I found details of the NASA story at this urban legends website.

Thanks for your comment Doug.

Since your visit to our Hospice and Home Health team, we have utilized the “What am I missing?” and “What am I making up?” questions on an (almost) daily basis. Sometimes those questions are the answer to an employee who comes to me with a concern or an issue. Many of them are now to the point of saying “I know, what am I missing and what am I making up?”, before I can even get the first words out.