How do you stay more curious? Why should you?Curiosity is for finding food, safety, shelter, belonging, and efficacy.Curiosity is also for avoiding danger.Curiosity is an essential and deeply required life skill. Are you employing that very primal skill in the very best of ways?Are you being curious about new ideas? Or are you eager to confirm your bias?Are you being curious about the “why behind the what”? Or are you passively aggressively advancing your agenda?Do you really care how I am? Or are you just making a greeting and don’t really want to know the answer?Better employing and leveraging curiosity enables us to be more effective at what we get to do - serving others.How might we serve our audiences better? How might we help them realize more value from our experience?What if my son tried project-based learning as opposed to compliance-based learning? (oh, the irony and quip in that question!)Why does my employer not engage in pay transparency?Why did my followers like this song vs that song?It’s an easy call to action - being more curious. And if you’re thinking that it’s so easy to do, then ask yourself, “How might I be and stay more curious?”

It’s one of those days.When the pit of your stomach feels restless, your eyes feel tired, and your mind is thirsting to learn more… but not focus. When sleep feels welcomed.Today, I’m choosing to listen to my body, but not listen too hard.My mind might choose to deflect responsibilities, my stomach may crave nutrient-deficient food, my brain may push me to be reckless. How do I listen?Risk mitigation.I spent a year or so in Customer Success. The field of CS, what Customer Success is often known as, is all about showing customers the value of their investment while being on the lookout to risk - something that might cause the customer not to renew their subscription. When you identify risk, you need to come up with a plan to mitigate it.Well… warping back to the present… my plan is simple.Let stakeholders know that what got done today, what will get done tomorrow, and that I’m available on my phone if they need me - ringer’s on.So why does this matter for you?Because you should listen to your body, mitigate the risks, and take care of you.Nobody pays you enough not to.

“Here’s what you get to do today…“I remember that phrasing used by my kindergarten teachers. I also remember how phrasing tasks and exploration that way made me feel - excited. What if we woke up each day and said, “here’s what I get to do…"?What if our leaders welcomed us each week and said, “here’s what we get to do this week…"?What if we told our audiences, “here’s what you get to do with me for the next hour…"?How much more exciting would life be if we lived it as curious explorers versus as a cog in the machine?

Deborah Meier played a major role in the formation of Central Park East - a school focused on questions.What makes CPE schools different, according to Meier, is that students are “interested in what [they] don’t know, not just what [they] do know.“To make that happen, Meier developed and implemented 5 Habits of Mind. They’re listed below.How do we know what’s true or false? What evidence counts?How might this look if we stepped into other shoes, or looked at it from a different direction?Is there a pattern? Have we seen something like this before?What if it were different?Why does this matter?Here’s why I’m sharing this with you… I believe these habits of mind can be adopted by you and you can use them every day.If you’re managing a project, team, or a process:How do you know that the data you have collected is true and valid?How might the data and metrics look if you stepped into the customer’s shoes, or your team’s shoes?Are you seeing a pattern? Is there seasonality?What if the circumstances were different? How might different circumstances change the outcome?Why does it matter?If you’re an entrepreneur, you could ask the same question.If you’re a musician, these questions are even more important to you.How do I know that the numbers of followers I have is meaningful, accurate, and valid?How might that data look from the perspective of a promoter? Does my data tell the right story?Is there a pattern? Are you seeing you’re getting more followers after every promotion?How might different performance venues or set lists alter your outcomes?Why does it matter?There are so many ways we can think about the world around us. Sometimes a prompt or a guide helps.It works for kindergartners ;-)

When you step back to notice, you see things others might not see - and it’s hard to “unsee” it.But once you notice, interact, and think about it you have the choice to do something about it. Do you point it out? Do you change it? Do you quietly accept it?I noticed that people tend to say “too funny” in a casual way when they’re done with a topic or half paying attention. They’re not reacting to something funny, they’re acknowledge that I think it’s funny and they’re okay moving on. That’s fine.I also notice that I tend to get restless when I’m doing something I don’t like - and that restlessness is experienced in the back of my neck or in my legs. Once I started noticing it, I got to decide what to do with it. In one instance, I put down a book; and in another, I decided to push through.When you step back to notice the world around you, what do you see? What makes you restless? What makes you question? You can’t make change happen unless you see the big picture.You can’t change the big picture until you stop to see what’s around you as if you’ve never seen it before.Now that you see it, what if you could do something about it?

As a kid, I wanted to be an architect. More specifically, I wanted to be an architect designing homes in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright.I told my mom. (My mom loves architecture - and Frank Lloyd Wright)My mom signed me up for an architecture course for kids at a local community college. I learned about different classical styles of architecture and some basic ideas about drafting. Then, I started drafting my own ideas.I created floor plans, exteriors, and I tried to do landscaping - I was awful at that.One time I showed my mom what I produced and she asked, “Well where are you going to put the plumbing? How are you going to run electricity?“As a kid, how was I supposed to know? I wasn’t. But, at that moment, I was given the choice to find out.You can create space for curiosity by giving people what they need to be curious - a question. And not just any question, a question that requires a journey.I never became an architect. But much of what I learned about design and drafting complimented my passion for music composition and engraving which complimented my work as a recruiter which complimented my work designing digital customer experience which complimented…You get the point.Never underestimate the value you can bringing someone by asking a generous question. The one that motivates them to start their journey.

You thought about it, you considered it from every angle, you inverted the problem, you did everything you possibly could - and you got it wrong.

It happens.

All you need to do is focus on living tomorrow a little bit better than today.That’s all we can ask of you.

That’s all you can ask of yourself.

Step back and see the world like a child - ask why and seek to understand fully.Everything is related, and everything has a function.Try to understand the big idea.“The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert. Such a mind is open to all possibilities and can see things as they are.In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the experts there are few.” - Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s MindAdopt the beginner’s mindset and tap into your childlike curiosity.See yourself as an exploring mapping new lands and experiencing new ideas all the while asking, “what’s this?”

At any time, those closest to you could vanish from this existence. You too. In fact, that could be said for everything in front of us - this computer, your connection to the internet, this blog, your desk, your phone - everything.With everything’s state being subject to fate, how might you deeply enjoy yourself in the present without being anxious?Anxiousness is the friction that comes from your brain living in the future but your body lives in the present; like some 4th dimensional space-time shift that science fiction storytellers share with us.Being present is where your mind and your body are in the same temporal space - now.If all that is true, then the way to enjoy our subject-to-fate existence is to the be present - to deeply appreciate and enjoy now.How to enjoy the present?Paradoxically, acknowledge that the present could be taken from you at any time.When I tell myself that I could die at any moment, I become more focused and I become more calm. I focus hard on doing my best work.When I tell myself that the person in front of me could leave this universe at any second, I become more focused on that person. I want to be with them. I want to listen to them, seek to understand them, and share that I love them before I leave.When I sleep, I remind myself that I lived and did the best I could, and if I should wake up tomorrow I’ll do better. I find that gives me a sense of calm and relaxation before going to bed, and I wake up deeply thankful to do it again.Morbid?Realistic.Confronting our humanity and mortality is a human and realistic thing to do. When we realize that we (and our friends) are not immortal, we start to appreciate ourselves (and them) that much more.“Whatever can happen today can happen at any time.” - Seneca

Schedule 30 minutes during the day this week to do something other than work.Consider this…Humans are outside creatures.Play (read: not working or sleeping) is an important part what we get to do as humans.The most beautiful parts of our waking hours are during the day.So why not invest time during the workday to be a human? To play.What you get:Better health. Who doesn’t want better health?More productivity. Taking time to do something other than work actually allows your mind time to think! Who doesn’t want to be more productive?Total control of your world. The only thing you truly own is the present - right now. Who doesn’t want total control? (the recovering lawyers who read this blog will jump at this opportunity.)Give yourself time.