The Power of Curiosity

If you aren’t subscribed to my twice-monthly Wild About Work ™ e-mail newsletter, here’s a taste of an audiosnack from the issue I sent out last week (if you’d like to receive the newsletter, you can subscribe here).Title: The Power of Curiosity

Length: 2 minutes 24 seconds
File size: 2.2 MBJust in case the speed of your connection leaves something to be desired, here’s the written transcript…

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Were you ever a kid? If you were, then you have probably experienced one of the key ingredients in living a stimulating, interesting, fascinating life. What’s that, you ask? Curiosity!

Next time you’re around small children, watch how they engage the world around them. It’s inspiring. It really is. There’s a new discovery around every corner, and everything is wondrous and new.

Here’s a question for you. On a scale of one to ten, how curious are you? How often do you take a look around you and say, “Hmmm. I wonder…?” I wonder how. I wonder why. I wonder when. If you’re like many adults, you’ve probably lost a lot of that sense of curiosity and wonder along the way.

And that’s a shame, because curiosity keeps life fresh. And not only does it keep life fresh, it keeps it rich with potential and possibility.

I think there are a couple things that get in the way of the reinvigorating potential of curiosity. The first is the dreaded rut. We drive the same road to the same job and work on the same things with the same people. We watch the same TV, and have the same conversations. One day of life blends into another, and it all starts to look a bit monochromatic. It dulls the senses and we forget that the world offers a rainbow of colors to experience.

Another obstacle to tapping into the richness of curiosity is the fact that, as we grow older, we start to build more rigid perceptions of “the way things are.” We’ve been there done that, and we start to believe that we know what’s what. With a perspective like that, what’s the point of curiosity? We already know it!

That’s dangerous territory, because it inherently closes doors. There’s a Zen Buddhist concept called Beginner’s Mind. One of the quotes in today’s newsletter sums it up beautifully. “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Take a look around you. Where is there potential for curiosity? What do you want to know more about? What assumptions are you making that you can explore with fresh eyes? How might someone else see your world?

The more curiosity you can bring to your life, the more energy you’ll feel, and the more possibilities you’ll discover.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

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