Hello and welcome,
And today's word is curiosity.
Have you ever watched a child going through life using all their senses to discover what's going on around them?
Touching,
Feeling,
Smelling,
Tasting,
Asking lots of questions.
And yet as we get older,
It seems that the more we know,
The less we feel we need to know.
And it's such a pity because curiosity is something that keeps very,
Very alive.
It's fantastic in business.
And really,
When I meet people who have curiosity,
They seem to just enjoy life a lot more and keep that energy with them.
So it's a really,
Really fascinating point that it is one of the most important words for living your best life.
And that's not to mention the importance of curiosity if you are a leader.
That's a whole other story,
Another very important area to be seen as curious in the workplace.
But sticking now with living our best life,
Let's think now about a few statistics I've been seeing around curiosity.
For example,
The Harvard Business Review suggests that curiosity actually enhances your adaptability,
But equally your resilience in the workplace and in life.
Because the minute something comes up,
A problem,
An issue,
A project,
A hurdle in life,
We get curious,
We start to think outside of the box.
How could I do this differently?
How might somebody else handle this problem?
And that mindset is incredibly powerful.
Curiosity has also been proven to activate the brain's reward system.
That means releasing dopamine and making learning a really pleasurable experience.
So if you're wondering,
If you're slogging through a piece of information or a knowledge base that you need to go through for your work or in life in general,
You need to learn a new skill,
Then curiosity can really be a mind shift,
Which is just very,
Very valuable for us to have.
Or we say like,
What if I could get curious about this topic rather than condemn it?
What if I could start to get curious rather than feeling negative?
Notice how we're not going from feeling negative to feeling positive.
We're going from feeling perhaps negative to now feeling curious.
That's a stepping stone.
And you may well find that off the back of that,
You start feeling more positive about a situation.
And what about the thought that curious people tend to have higher levels of emotional intelligence and problem-solving skills?
There's an interesting one to be thinking about as well as you go through your week.
So I'm going to leave you with three ideas for you to bring more curiosity into your life this week or even just today.
And one of those is to ask questions more.
Ask one new question daily and research the answer yourself.
You don't have to be asking another person this question.
Ask yourself this question and then research and find the answer yourself initially,
I would say.
And after that,
You may find that you have people around you who have similar interests.
That's fine.
But for the moment,
Keep your curiosity sort of within,
Train that brain within you to ask the question and find the answer.
The other thing I'd like to suggest would be to read a book or watch a documentary on a subject outside of your comfort zone.
So perhaps if you are somebody who believes in eating meat,
Perhaps you want to really delve into the mindset of somebody who's vegan or the opposite way around.
If you're somebody who's vegetarian or vegan,
Let's find out why people do eat meat and what kind of mindset comes with that.
What are the benefits?
Educate yourself in what you believe you don't believe in.
It can be really very fascinating.
And the third thing I'd like to recommend to you today or invite you to do is to strike up a conversation with someone whose experiences differ from yours and see what that conversation brings to your life.
Now,
That person could be a stranger sitting in a bus stop.
You never know.
So be open and again,
Be curious about who that person could be.
It doesn't have to be the first person that jumps into your mind.
I'm going to leave as always with a quote of the day,
And that is from Albert Einstein today.
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
