Here is a real-life example of how an affirmative, positive belief turned a seemingly impossible situation around for one person.

The Nazis stormed into the house of Stanislavsky Lech, who was Jewish, herded the entire family out at gunpoint, packed them into an overcrowded train, filled with the stench of death and despair, and sent them to Krakow.

Then, before his eyes, Lech saw his entire family shot. Somehow, he managed to live from one day to the next, in a numb, oblivious, zombie-like state. Impatiently, he awaited his own death. But one day, he realized that his own death was not an unavoidable truth. He could, in fact, do something about it: he could make an attempt to escape.

Once he had made his decision, he didn’t know how to execute it. He only knew one simple thing: his decision was irrevocable, and, somehow, he had to find a way to act on it.

As the weeks passed into months, he interrogated his fellow prisoners. “How can we escape?” he would ask. He became a nuisance, an irritation. “It’s hopeless,” they would echo. “Stop hurting yourself,” they would plead. Some would abuse him openly; others would turn away in silence.

In turn, he rejected their answers, their silences, and their overbearing despair. There has to be a way, he told himself, and I will find it. This is my revenge: by surviving I will prove that the Nazis aren’t invincible and that they don’t have complete control of our wills and that they can’t do what they like with us.

Each day he would run a dialogue through his head. “Today I choose to escape from this nightmare. I will not continue to be a victim. I will not accept these conditions. I am a man, with rights and dignity, and I will, so help me God, find a way to let the whole world know about what is going on here. I will escape. There is no doubt in my mind. How can I escape today, perhaps right now? There is a weakness in their security.

They cannot watch us every minute. There is something I need to find, and I will find it today, something that I have overlooked, something that will bring me freedom. There is a weak link here, somewhere. I will find it.”

The urgency of his question pounded on his heart and mind every waking moment, and it followed him into his dreams.

Then, one day, as dismal as any other, he saw what had been before him all along. The Nazis would let the corpses of naked men, women and children, shot because they were too weak to work in the labor camp, pile up on the ground before a truck would come and haul them away. With typical efficiency, the truck would only come when there were enough bodies to fill it up.

Hiding behind a bush, he stripped off all his clothes, and then dived into the mound of corpses. He lay still, pretending to be dead, the nauseating odor of death all around him.

He lay there for a day. More corpses were thrown on top of him. He did not flinch. Finally, the truck came. Rough hands pushed his inert body into the truck.

In the truck, many more hours of horror passed. Finally, his body was dumped into an open grave.

He waited until nightfall before climbing out.

The sweet smell of night, the fresh breeze, filled his lungs as he ran twenty-five miles to freedom.

Insist on your question and an answer will emerge.

Lech thought the unthinkable—how to escape from a maximum security death camp—and endured the unendurable—lying for hours with fetid corpses. In an extreme situation, he pushed his level of tolerance to an extreme. His only other choice was to waste away and finally get shot or gassed when he was too weak to work.

He survived for only one reason: he made a decision to survive and he stayed with that decision. The decision forced him to ask how. How can I escape? How can I escape today? How can I escape now? He asked an absolute question. He did not ask a relative question: Is it possible to escape?

His question forced him to expand his perception and to expand his belief in what was possible. It also forced him to act, with courage, with immediacy.

He asked himself a absolute question, a quality question, and he expected an answer from his creative mind. This quality question paved his way to freedom. It was a question that empowered his perception, his creativity, and his courage. He did not ask why questions. He did not ask speculative, discursive, vague questions. He asked how, and in asking how, he found what would work.

In your own life, you will never be pushed to such an extreme situation, but your own pressing needs, your long-standing frustrations, would benefit tremendously if you asked an absolute question, a high-quality how question. If you were to follow up this question with absolute commitment, patience, and discipline your perception would expand to allow more information into your mind. You will find a way to stretch your belief-system to allow more possibilities. You will find creative answers. And, of course, you will find the courage and conviction to follow through with your insights.

The right question will solve your problem. You are always asking questions and answering them; this is part of your internal dialogue, casually referred to as thinking.

But real thinking is asking a quality question and expecting an answer. It is sticking with the question until the right answer appears in consciousness.

To ask is to receive. One creates the other. If you ask good questions, you’ll receive good answers. If, for example, financial pressure is one of your issues, you might be tempted to ask, why am I so poor? The problem with this question is that you’ll find reasons to justify your poverty. If, instead, you ask, how can I become rich? you’ll look for ways to increase your skill, you’ll dig deep to find your talents, or you’ll learn ways to manage your money.

Above all, remind yourself of the famous words of playwright George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say ‘why?’ I dream of things that never were and say ‘why not?’”

“Questions,” noted Success Coach Anthony Robbins, “set off a processional effect that has an impact beyond our imaginations.”

When we question our limitations, we see how they’re only assumed limitations. When we question the nature of things, we birth science or art. And when we ask absolute, high-quality questions, we break down personal and collective barriers to comprehension, and we open up avenues to progressive action and fundamental change.