The Only Question That Actually Matters

Last week, I went to my daughter’s 4th grade science fair. And, yes, it was basically exactly what a TV-show version of an elementary school science fair would look like. There was a room full of tri-fold poster boards, a bunch of 10-year-olds standing proudly next to their experiments, and a group of parents wandering around trying to look engaged while asking very polite questions. Honestly, the only thing missing was the paper mache volcano (which I’ll definitely be making my daughter do next year).

Overall, the experiments were… great… in the way 4th grade experiments are great. Nobody was curing cancer or redefining physics. Instead, I was looking at lots of projects about baking, pickling, dissolving, and growing things. What happens if you add more baking powder to cookies? Which vegetable pickles the fastest? That sort of thing.

But what really stood out to me wasn’t the experiments. It was the questions.

Every parent, myself included, was doing the same thing. Walking up to a table, smiling, and asking something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s interesting… what do you think would happen if you tried this instead?” or “Why do you think that turned out the way it did?”

They were perfectly reasonable questions, but, as I was making my way around the room, I found myself thinking: If I’m going to do this… shouldn’t I ask a question that actually matters?

The question I ultimately chose is a question I’ve been relying on since I learned it my freshman year of college in, of all places, my Writing 101 class. Every time the professor gave us feedback on our essays, no matter how well-written they were, she would always get frustrated and force us to answer:

“So what?”At the time, it felt almost dismissive. You’d spend hours working on something, trying to make a point, organizing your thoughts, crafting your argument… and her response would be, essentially, okay… but why does this matter? However, over time, I realized she wasn’t asking that question to minimize our work. She was asking to help us understand why our work actually mattered.

She was teaching us how it’s not enough to notice something, or analyze something, or even explain something. None of that creates value on its own. The value comes from connecting our work to things that actually matter in the world.

Without that connection, you’re not really communicating anything meaningful. You’re just… saying things.

That idea stuck with me. And, apparently, it followed me into a 4th grade science fair.

Instead of asking the usual, superficial questions to all my daughter’s classmates, I started asking a different one. After each student explained their experiment, I’d say something like, “That’s really interesting… so how are you going to take what you learned and use it in the world going forward?”

The responses were exactly what you’d expect from a bunch of fourth graders. In other words, mostly blank stares, nervous laughs, and some very creative attempts to answer a question they clearly had not been asked before.

My daughter, for what it’s worth, wasn’t thrilled.

“Daddyyyyyy… stoooooop…”

And, to be fair, that’s probably the correct response when your father decides to turn a 4th grade science fair into a philosophical exercise. But, awkward as it was, I couldn’t help thinking this is exactly the kind of question we should all get more comfortable asking.

For those kids, the experiment itself didn’t really matter…

And, for the freshman year version of me, the essay didn’t matter…

For my current students, the grade doesn’t matter…

At your job, how your boss responds to your presentation, whether the customers make a purchase, and even if you got passed over for a promotion after your annual review… none of it matters.

Or rather, none of that matters on its own.

What matters is what you do with those things. What do you learn from them? How are you going to apply them? How are they going to change the way you think, act, or move forward?

And I’m sharing this story of my daughter’s science fair because it’s a great reminder that the “So what?” is the thing we all tend to skip. We do the work, we have the experience, something good or bad happens, and then we move on without ever asking the one question that actually creates value: So what?And it’s not our fault we don’t ask. It’s what we were taught… all the way back in elementary school. We were taught to focus on the “what,” but rarely do we get reminded to think about the “why?”

Just remember, “why?” is much more important than “what?” The “why?” is how you turn everything in life — the successes and the failures — from things that happen to you into things that help you create meaningful value.

A helpful reframing for those moments where failure feels possible.When something happens — especially something frustrating, confusing, or disappointing — you’ll naturally find yourself getting stuck reacting to the surface-level outcome.

When that happens, try asking:

Reflecting on our experiences is where the most important learning happens.After you’ve had some distance from an experience — good or bad — that’s usually the best time to go back and interrogate the outcomes more directly.

Try asking:

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