Are you curious - part II

Are you curious?  Part II

https://www.fastcompany.com/3045148/8-habits-of-curious-people

Yesterday, I started a two-day swing into being curious.  We got through the first four habits of curious people, let’s finish it today.

-1 Listen without judgment 

-2 Curious People ask a lot of questions

-3 Curious people seek for surprises.

-4 Curious people are fully present

-5  Curious people are willing to be wrong

The article has this comment: “The ability to shelve a sense of being right in favor of being open to the insights and opinions of others is a trait of curious people.”

Many times I have written about getting outside our comfort zone.  Being wrong is one way to do that. There is the story about the old tool manufacturing company, that for years had made drill bits.  The grandfather (who had started the business), finally passed away and the grandson became the owner/president. His first comment to his employees was “We are no longer in the drill bit business.”  That of course, took the employees by shock. He then added, “We are in the HOLE MAKING business”. That change of attitude took some thinking and insights of others. In addition to making drill bits, they moved into other ways of making holes - like with laser cutters.

Story: My grandfather was curious.  One day, he was curious about how the wasps had built a nest under the eaves of this garage.  He wanted to see what the internal structure was and how wasps functioned, so he knocked the nest down - only to find out that that made the wasps mad.  He didn’t learn about wasps nests that day, but he did learn about the nature of wasps whose nest had been knocked down. (And he learned how fast he could make it the house!!)

-6 Curious people make time for curiosity

Some businesses have taken a day to do their own thing (business-related of course).  Some call these “skunkworks”. The ideas might not ever fly, but they might work. Google has a reputation that encourages employees to think of new ideas.  Can you remember Google Glasses - where information like the person’s name would show up on the glasses as you met somebody? [After all, we all run into people that are familiar and we don’t remember their names or other information.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have “Erin Timmens” on our glasses (just where we could see) and maybe more information like married, plays the flute, has three children.]

-7 Curious people aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know”.

I often lapsed into the “I Don't Know” when teaching - especially with technologies.  Thank goodness, we have Google - who seems to know the answers!!!

-8 Curious people don’t let past hurts affect their future.

Seemingly Thomas Edison tried thousands of ideas before making the first successful light bulb.  

The article states ““The problem for many adults is that we stop being curious about new experiences and are instead focused on understanding what we’ve already been through,” he says.

This is especially true if we’ve been hurt in the past. Curious people, however, develop a strong base and are more apt to take risks”.  I am guessing that my grandfather learned from the wasps chasing him. Maybe the next time, he would spray (inundate) the wasp nest with a wasp killing insecticide before trying to understand how wasps build their nest.  Or, (his grandson's method) using Google to find a YouTube video on wasp nest building!!!

Back to my original question - are you curious?  Can you encourage curious thinking in your life?  

Hugs!!

Karen