Marc Champagne has written a beautiful book “Personal Socrates” published by Baronfig in the US. The book is a collection of powerful self-interogations - questions to prompt better thinking - wrapped in personal biographies of well-known individuals, for whom each particular question was meaningful or prompted them to move through a period of difficulty, set back or existential challenge. Marc partnered with Baronfig, a publishing company focused on producing thoughtfully crafted journals and notebooks in pursuit of their mission “[T]o champion thinkers around the world through inspiration and imagination.” The book is beautifully crafted and one of those volumes which are as kinesthetically appealling as they are thought-provoking. Indeed celebrating thought-provocation is the whole point of the collection.
Due to prohibitive shipping costs, I had the book delivered to my hotel on my current trip to the US and in the very few spaces in my schedule have been consuming it and making it my own, using the time cramped in uncomfortable seats, trying desperately to avoid the awful food options so readily available to travellers at airports (and failing regularly) prior to or on US domestic flights to think about how well or badly I have used questions to change the direction of my life or deepen my understanding of myself in it.
My copy of Personal Socrates with a flower given to me by my host’s three year old granddaughter yesterday to ‘take home to my family’..
Personal Socrates is built around a core belief: each of us is at any point in our journey, one good question away from a different life. Marc’s own question, prompted by a business failure which saw him stuck in city he no longer wanted to be in, a young family whose provision he had placed in jeopardy and semi-paralysed by the shame, guilt and fear that entrepreneurial disaster brings with it more often than not, was “What do I want for my life?”. Of good questions he writes that they
“Force us to think, and to think hard. A great question leads to other questions and ultimately to the answers we are seeking. It takes work, consistency and motivation to stay the course; but when we do, the opportunities are exponential for us and everyone around us.”
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