As I contemplate the year ahead and the changes I’d like to bring about, I hereby by dub 2015 the “Year of the Question.” If I know anything after a half-century on this planet, it’s that we all live our lives in constant and continuous pursuit of answers to questions that occupy our minds—forever learning, forever in search of knowledge at many levels. Although we’re generally successful in answering the questions we ask, we often either don’t ask the right questions, or don’t give the right questions much thought.

Which begs the big question of what are the right questions? I think they are those that contribute to our ability to say “yes” with conviction to the one question we will all ask ourselves at some point in the future: “Have I made the most of what I have to offer the world?” It’s a question of impact and leads to the lifelong odyssey in pursuit of the underlying question: “What must I know and do to live a life of true impact?”

These questions put us in the most important of all frames of mind: learning. Lifelong learning, or “learnership,” to coin a term. It may be the softest skill known, but it’s also arguably the most critical.

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