George Wright III opens this episode of The Daily Mastermind with a simple but challenging observation: most people drift through life letting outside forces, whether the news, their job, their relationships, or their environment, direct their thoughts for them. If you want a different life, you have to take control of what you think about. That starts with asking the right questions.
In this episode, George introduces a seven-question framework drawn from the life handbook of his late business partner and longtime mentor, Robert Stuburg. These questions are deceptively straightforward. But working through them honestly, and with enough depth and detail to make them actionable, is what separates people who grow into their potential from people who stay stuck.
Why Your Thoughts Determine Your Direction
George shares a core principle from Robert Stuburg's work: we grow into our expectations. And those expectations originate from your most common thoughts. With tens of thousands of thoughts cycling through your mind each day, the question is whether those thoughts are moving you toward your goals or pulling you off course.
If your thoughts are occupied with your boss's priorities, other people's agendas, or the constant noise of outside media, you are not directing your life. Someone else is. George's message is direct: be the one who is in control of your thoughts.
The Opening Question: What's on Your Mind?
The first question is the entry point into the whole process. What is on your mind right now? Not what you think you should be focused on, but what is actually occupying your mental space in this moment.
This sounds easy, but most people stop there. George pushes you to go deeper with the expansion question: what else is on your mind? That second layer often holds the thoughts you have been ignoring or avoiding, the ones that may actually matter most.
The Focusing and Target Questions
Once you have surfaced what is on your mind, the third question asks you to prioritize: what is the most important thing you could be thinking about right now? This is the focusing question, and it cuts through the noise by demanding that you rank what actually matters.
Question four is the target question: exactly what do you want? Not in vague terms, but specifically. What do you want your life to look like? George credits the precision of this question as essential, because vague wants produce vague results. You have to match your unique talents and abilities to the real opportunities in your life, and that requires knowing with clarity what you are aiming for.
Guidance, Action, and Growth
The fifth question shifts your focus outward: how can you obtain help in getting what you want? George notes that this is a question most people never think to ask. They try to figure everything out alone rather than leveraging resources, mentors, or communities already available to them.
Question six is the action question: what is the best thing you could be doing right now? Knowing what you want and even having a mentor is not enough. You have to convert that direction into focused action. This question closes the gap between intention and execution.
The seventh question is what George calls the growth question: what are you learning by examining your thoughts, and how can that learning help you level up? Growth is not just about doing more. It is about understanding what your thinking process reveals about where you are, and using that insight to move to the next level.
The devil is in the detail. After all, your thoughts do create your life.
Why Simple Questions Are Not Easy
George is clear that the simplicity of these seven questions does not make them easy. The value is not in reading the list. It is in sitting with each question long enough to produce the depth of thought, the strategies, and the specific tactics that make change real.
Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life.
That Steve Jobs quote, shared by George at the top of the episode, applies to every one of these seven questions. If your thoughts are perpetually organized around other people's goals and other people's visions, you are spending your most valuable resource, your time and mental energy, on something that will never fully be yours.
Action Steps
- Write down your answers to all seven questions in order, starting with "What is on my mind?" and pressing into each level before moving to the next.
- After answering the expansion question ("What else is on my mind?"), identify the item on that list that you have been avoiding and examine why.
- Use the target question ("Exactly what do I want?") to write a concrete, specific outcome, not a feeling or a general direction, but a result you can measure.
- Audit your daily inputs: news, social media, conversations. Ask yourself whether each one is directing your thoughts toward your goals or away from them.
- Pick one mentor, resource, or community that can help you get what you want, and reach out this week. That is the guidance question made actionable.
George closes the episode by planting a seed for the next session: pay attention to what your thoughts are right now, because that is where the work begins. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.