It's Not "Cute"
I attended an online workshop recently that was aimed at entrepreneurs and small business growth.
Honestly, I have to tell you, I had some reservations about attending.
It was being hosted by one of the people I think of as “the angry dudes”— you know, those “motivational speakers” who often have a few good nuggets, but they’re buried under a hill of yelling and drill-sergeant-esque bravado?
I don’t judge— different people get reached in different ways and these guys have the followings to prove that their delivery is how plenty of people need to get the info, so…cool.
It was free and I thought, why not see what this guy has to say— you never know where breakthroughs might come from, after all.
I’m one of those “if you’re not early, you’re late” folks, so I was signed in and ready to rumble a good five minutes early.
There was some general small talk happening and I was just observing from the background until one of the other attendees, an aspiring “angry dude” I realized quickly, wanted to know what I teach.
“Curiosity,” I replied.
Blank stare followed by a snort followed by an eye roll and, “Curiosity? Well, that’s cute.”
I just smiled. Oh, it’s on.
“And you?” I asked.
“How to have the grit it takes to succeed at LIFE.” I’ll just let you imagine his tone of voice and posture.
“And what do you feel is at the root of grit and success?” See, I can be polite.
“Learning how to get back up when life knocks you down.” The Zoom call was filling up and a few people nodded at this answer.
“What do you feel is the key to doing that?” I smiled again. He didn’t even see me coming.
“You’ve gotta learn from your failures. You’ve gotta know the right questions to ask and how to ask them,” he sat back and crossed his arms.
“Oh, I see. So what you’re saying is that you believe that in order to recover from setbacks, you need to engage curiosity in order to learn, grow, and move forward?”
He slowly nodded and I smiled sweetly.
“Yeah, me too— that’s what I teach.”
Look, I get it.
When I say “embrace curiosity” it can conjure images of meandering through a bookstore, flipping through some coffee table book of 13th century viking mastheads out of the vague and randomly passing interest of convenience.
Or, you know, going down the Google rabbit hole.
But while I fully believe that kind of thing has its place, that’s not what I mean most of the time.
Curiosity is a foundational skill.
That means that it's a skill that other skills get built on top of.
It underlies empathy: first we get curious about the experiences of others and then we get curious about how we would feel in those experiences and then we are able to extend compassion and understanding.
It underlies resiliency: first we get curious about what happened and then we ask what there is to learn and then we ask how we can use that knowledge to move forward in a different way.
It underlies nearly every single skill necessary for an enriched life of growth, connection, relationship, success, and meaning.
I know that sounds like a tall order, but it’s not.
When you peel back the layers of any daring leader, author, artist, teacher, entrepreneur, athlete, parent, partner, and so on, it seems we always find a common core of curiosity.
Sometimes that curiosity is fierce.
It drives us to ask, “Why is the world like this? Who said it must be this way? How can it change? How can I change it? What is that change worth to me?”
Sometimes that curiosity is a gentle nudge.
It’s the tickle in the back of our minds that asks, “But what if I just tried? And is my soul not beautiful as well? Am I not also worthy of such love? What is this that I’m feeling? What if I just sit with this for a moment?”
Sometimes that curiosity is dogged.
It’s the offered hand up that cocks its head to one side as you flail on the ground and wonders, “What if I tried this approach instead? What if I looked at it from this perspective? Was I asking the right questions? What did I just learn? Who am I in the process of becoming?”
Curiosity is a skill.
And like all skills, it requires practice to create muscle memory.
It’s always available to us.
And there are tools that can help us access it when it feels difficult to find.
Early-bird pricing for March’s Say The Word retreat Beliefs and Misbeliefs: Inspecting Our Foundations ends this Saturday.
I hope you’ll join me as we practice using our curiosity to examine some of what we believe about ourselves, our lives, our communities, and our world with compassion.
Beliefs & Misbeliefs: Inspecting Our Foundations
March 13, 2021
11am-3pm EST
$79 early-bird pricing through February 13, 2021 (that’s in just a few days!)
Curiosity is a lot of things, but “cute” is rarely one of them.
It is an essential part of the foundation upon which we build connected, examined, enriched, meaningful lives and relationships.
Let’s practice it together.