Looking for Learning and Curating Curiosity
Last week on the podcast we talked about finding mentors in unlikely places, and I got to thinking that what happens when we do this is we're really gaining in that wisdom and insight and knowledge that they're sharing – even if the medium we are learning from them is unconventional.
So I started thinking about how we look for learning and curate curiosity in our life and in our leadership and that's what we're going to talk about today.
I want to talk about curating curiosity because so often, we're stuck in the grind of our everyday work and life that we forget that getting curious is really, really important for any process, and for any level of growth. Grab your cup of coffee and dig in with me, hopefully you’ll leave feeling curious to learn more!
But how do you find a good mentor? Tune in to today’s episode to find out!
On this episode you’ll hear…
Why getting curious is important for every level of growth and to accomplish most things that are new to us
The different ways you can cultivate curiosity to encourage more learning amidst a result driven world
Being cognizant of the things that we are giving up or aren’t pursuing because of what we have available to us via tech
Remembering there is value in doing things just for fun
Ready for more?
Listen in:
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** This is a raw, unedited transcript
Chaili Trentham 00:00
Last week on the podcast, I talked about finding mentors in unlikely places. So this is looking at mentors in your life and in your leadership who have impacted you in big ways. But you maybe don't have access to them to sit down and have a cup of coffee across a table with them. So you're learning and gaining their wisdom and insight through resources that they've put into the world, either through books or TED talks, could be something that a writer wrote into a show or a movie, and into a character that you connect with. It could be a speech that you heard somewhere from someone. But when we look for those mentors in unlikely places, what we're really gaining in that wisdom and insight and knowledge that they're sharing is learning. And so I started thinking about how do we look for learning and curate curiosity in our life and in our leadership. And that's what we're going to talk about today, we're talking about curating curiosity. Because so often, we're stuck in the grind. And we forget that getting curious is really, really important for any process, and for any level of growth. Now, you've heard me talk on the podcast about me, hi, chicks, and me, hi, founding father in the field of positive psychology, wrote the book on flow and defined flow and how we focus in on the things that we love and the skills that we're good at. And chicks and Mihai spent some time talking about her attention and focus as it gives way to flow. And he writes about how when we make intentional effort to give our attention to something so giving our attentional resources to a topic, and when we get curious about it, our focus will follow. He says curiosity and drive are in many ways, the yin and yang that need to be combined in order to achieve something new. And so we literally need curiosity in order to accomplish most things that are new to us. So that's my question for you today. What do you need to devote your attention to jurickson Mihai writes this there are literally millions of potentially interesting things in the world to see to do to learn about. But they don't become actually interesting. Until we devote attention to them. How many things are in front of you at any given moment? That could be really surprising, really interesting. really remarkable for you. But we just don't have the time. And so we stay on autopilot. And keep forward on our path. And we don't stray from it, right? So what would it look like if you actually got interested, and begin to put your attention in new places and spaces, or begin to look through the list of things in front of you in your life, and decide where you want to begin asking more questions? Now, some people are just more curious than others, we know this. These are question askers in your life, look at your life, who are the people who poke holes in your plans. Right, you're telling a friend about this amazing plan that you have for something or for your life or for dinner. And they're able to poke holes in it really quickly and deflate you a little bit. But it's really just a refinement skill of theirs, right? They're not doing it in a mean way. They're doing it in a way because they want to help, right? These are the same people who dig until they can help you get to the root of your problems. They're the therapists in our lives. But even if we're not all like that, even if we don't have that natural tendency to ask really, really great questions. We're not a natural, refiner, or discerner. There are ways to cultivate your curiosity that I want you to think about. So obviously, the most obvious way to cultivate curiosity, which is kind of that Kickstarter to big learning, is to start asking more questions. My kids have great questions all the time. Any parent can probably relate to this. And so we've been going through a couple of big storm cycles. And so my kids have great questions about rain. But for me, recalling the cycle of precipitation and evaporation that I learned in, I don't know, fifth grade, sixth grade, whatever that is, was really hard. So we looked it up together. We looked up what precipitation means and evaporation and how that whole process works. And we learned together and we got curious together. And that's where I realized sometimes I need to start asking more questions because I didn't necessarily need to know about the process of rain happening in that moment. But it was the learning process with my kids that was valuable. I guess grew up with one of those sets of encyclopedias that a guy sold to you by door knocking? Do you remember those? With Amazon Prime, this seems like a wild concept that a guy drove house to house, I grew up in a smaller town where it wasn't like you walked in neighborhoods, he drove between houses, with sets of encyclopedias in his car. And as crazy as that is, to me, now, I am so grateful that my parents caved and bought a set and that it sat in on our bookshelf, because I loved those things, I loved looking things up by topic, I had no idea about them. And I was so excited when I would open one up, and it had the picture to go along with it. And inspired a lot of learning as a kid, we're encouraged to explore ideas through book reports, and learning. It's a system that's set up to encourage curiosity, right. And as a kid, you're constantly soaking in the world around you, because you don't know a lot about it. But at some point, I learned the process of precipitation and evaporation and rainfall. And then I never thought about it again, I didn't put my attention there. And I lost some of that curiosity about it even in adulthood, the context we are in most, which is likely a work environment. For a lot of us we spend a lot of time every day and in our work environments, it's likely more focused on results and answers, right? We spend a lot less time in the design phase or navigating the whole process of getting those results. We're more focused on the finish line. But then that's why in this design thinking world that we're in, and we use a lot in leadership development, we encourage others to take a step back and be willing to ask more questions to get to the right question and stay longer in the process. Because we know that the final outcome or the result is temporary is still needs to be refined. Technology is moving so fast, we need the next iteration fairly quickly. And so when you are able to take a step back and look for the right questions, what would you find? To do that, we have to start by asking more questions, right. So then the second part of becoming more curious is finding new things. I was reading a book for fun a fiction book this past weekend. That brought up a great point. As society becomes more dependent on navigation, technology, and GPS, we as humans are losing that sense of direction. That was a primitive skill set from our hunting and gathering days. Think about that? How much do you rely on your maps app on your phone? That part of our brain is literally shrinking because we don't rely on it. And that blew my mind. And I was thinking what are the other things that we aren't pursuing? Because we rely on a device, a computer or a phone to do it for us? And so what parts of her brain are shrinking? What are the things that we're losing? Because I want to still have a good sense of direction in the future? I hope that my kids do too. And so how can you find new things, that pique your interest that stretches you into new environments. That makes you rely on a different way of doing things? What is something you want to know or need to do more about, or what is something that you've always hoped you would learn but don't have the opportunity right now. I was reading through a job description. And was reading through it because looking at it from a leadership development standpoint of what this person would need to grow in in order to do this job. But when I was reading through it, I noticed there was a requirement, a job requirement to know a certain methodology that I wasn't familiar with. But this job description is literally in my field. So you better believe that I spent a good hearty amount of time researching that methodology, finding out where it came from, how it influences the field, is it worth me learning more about what it was. But the same goes for the way we play and find hobbies. In an age when most of our hobbies are monetized, or most of our learning comes because we have to remember that there's value in doing things just for fun. And just because you find joy in the topic. So as you're finding new things, or as you're thinking about what do I do, because I just enjoy being in the learning process that's part of becoming a lifelong learner is knowing how to be in that process, regardless of what the topic is. And so how can you get more curious, through play through new things? It doesn't necessarily have to be through Do new projects so that you can get that next promotion? How can you learn for the sake of learning? So find new things and get curious about new things. And finally, what I want you to think about is inviting boredom into the equation. As you're thinking about ways to cultivate curiosity, how can you get bored? Or be bored instead of filling space with scrolling? How can you take time to read a whole book in a day? Because you aren't going to scroll and be on your phone? How do you create space just to think? How can you pick up meditations so that you can create that space? What are the ways that you can invite yourself to be bored? When we allow ourselves some blank space in our thoughts, there's always more opportunity to uncover questions that are unanswered. That's where I know some people don't like meditation, because they're like, my brain just starts going. And I'm not actually focused on the meditation, I'm focused on a million things running through my head that I could be doing right then. And here's the thing as a person who struggles with meditation in that same way, I would say that's not a bad thing. Where does your mind take you? And what questions are unanswered that you need to go seek out? To give your attentional resources to that's where we find places we want to focus when we have space to think. So what do you need to pay attention to right now? Because it's tickling me, I said, curiosity and attention go hand in hand. And where you give your attention, focus will follow. And Curiosity will come from that. So whether you're getting curious in your life or in your career, it's not just about who you're learning from, but also the learning itself that you want to gain and grow in. And just because everyone is reading a New York Times bestseller list book does not mean you'll read it and love it. And the same goes for learning. The best thing you can do in cultivating your curiosity is to find the questions that you're most interested in asking. Good luck with that. Cheers.