Be Curious, They Said

But what if you've forgotten how?

We talk a lot about the importance of curiosity in innovation and in leadership. “Lean into your curiosity!” “Be more curious than absolutely correct.”

As kids, curiosity came naturally to us. We wondered about things and we voiced those wonders out loud. “If fingers have tips but not toes, why do we say tiptoes but not tipfinger?”* “What does my arm taste like?” “How do we know we aren’t just characters in a book someone is reading?”

*Asked by a real kid we know.

At some point, that curiosity starts to leach out of most of us and we stop voicing the wonders out loud. There are a number of reasons for this, but that is not what this piece is about.

This is about tactics to “lean into curiosity” for those of us who have forgotten/are soverybusy. So we’ve put a short starter list below. We kept it short because well, we’re already not being curious because we’re so busy, so we didn’t want it to feel like another bunch of stuff to do.

Since this is not an exhaustive list, we’d love to hear from our Substack follower communities what their ideas are. Post them on this piece please!

1. Find some questions you can answer and ask. Sure, you can try making some up, but if your “making things up” muscle is atrophied, questions are actually all around you. Here’s one I saw on Linked In the other day that I love: “What is the color that makes you feel most alive? And why?” Really pause to answer that question. Then ask two other people.
We also came across this fun list of “check in” questions from the Brave New Work team. These questions can be used in lots of different situations, not just check-ins. We are already planning to use them around the Thanksgiving table this year!

2. Read something different from your norm. We’re biased towards books, but honestly, anything you can read that gets you out of your head and into another place/time/mindset can really help spark curiosity.

3. Work it like a muscle. If it means scheduling “curiosity breaks” into your day – go ahead! There is a reason everyone’s favorite subject in school was recess (and lunch). We still eat lunch once we are adults, but what happened to recess? We are never too old for recess. Here’s an article from one of our favorite curiosity gurus, Jeff Wetzler on how to “microdose” curiosity: Yes, You Can Increase Your Curiosity, Here’s How | Psychology Today.

So go ahead and ask the weird question. Wonder why we call it a “building” when it’s already built? Taste your arm if you must. Just maybe skip that one at Thanksgiving.