i-TFTD #356: Be Strongly Curious

On Curiosity

-Ivone (Rochelle)

If you were asked what was your greatest strength, what would you reply? In the case of John F. Kennedy, he said "My curiosity." Now, that's an answer you wouldn't expect. And then there's Albert Einstein protesting, "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." And even Eleanor Roosevelt said, "I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity."

What's so great about curiosity? Actually, it's something we humans share with the entire animal kingdom. It's a necessary urge to find out about our environment, find food, to survive. But for humans, it's so much more. Curiosity leads you to explore new ways of doing things, solve problems, and investigate possibilities. It keeps the sense of wonder that you had as a child alive. When your curiosity is keen, you can grow and expand your life to fit your dreams.

Here's a fun exercise for you to try to show you what I mean. The next time you are faced with a problem or challenge, start off with the words "What if... ." Then allow yourself to think of the most absurd, unlikely, "way out" solutions you can. This helps you to think outside that proverbial box. And you just might surprise yourself by what you come up with!

To add more words to your curiosity arsenal, here's a poetic reminder from Rudyard Kipling:

I have six honest serving men

They taught me all I knew.

I call them Why and When and Where

And How and What and Who.

And don't worry that "Curiosity killed the cat…" Remember the rest of that proverb – "...but satisfaction brought him back"!

(Thanks to Prasad Pejawar for sharing this.)

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Curiosity is exercised by asking questions, an underrated ability highlighted more than once in i-TFTD. Curiosity, by definition, can only be towards things I don't know. The advice above related to finding out-of-the-box solutions is to have curiosity towards things I might not have thought of or liked to consider.

i-TFTD #228: On Choices

#228-1. The bad news is time flies. The good news is you are the pilot.
-Michael Altshuler

#228-2. The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
-Linus Pauling

#228-3. History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. The won because they refused to to become discouraged by their defeats.
-B C Forbes

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It is a simple but harsh truth that each of us has 24 hours and we choose to fill it with things that we value at the moment. Even when we say, "I have no choice but to do this..." what we mean is that I am giving this (or the person wanting this) a higher priority than some other things I wish to do.

In the world of creative/lateral thinking, quantity leads to quality. Most of our genius is undiscovered because of mental laziness.

Getting discouraged or feeling demotivated is also a choice we make. Simply starting to use positive words and phrases to describe situations itself helps in a big way. Try it.

i-TFTD #215: Thoughts on Thinking

#215-1. Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
-John Kenneth Galbraith

#215-2. People like to imagine that because all our mechanical equipment moves so much faster, that we are thinking faster, too.
-Christopher Morley

#215-3. It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
-Rollo May

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Thinking deeply or differently does not easily come without effort. We are slaves of "default" patterns, formed at an early age. It seems to suffice for most of us in today's ultra-multitasking lifestyle.

Edward de Bono, though famous for propagating lateral thinking, has also done a lot of work in teaching better thinking of all types. K.R. Ravi has written a very readable and useful book called, "Thinking About Thinking" where he has debunked many typical remarks we make, showing the illogical thought processes behind them.

i-TFTD #103: Women's Day Special

March 8 was Women's Day. Some of my favourite quotes by women:

#103-1. Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

#103-2. Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do.
-Lucille Ball

#103-3. Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
-Cythina Nelms

#103-4. The next thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.
-Mary Pettibone Poole

#103-5. You can look at a person's attitude and know what kind of thinking is prevalent in his life... It's better to be positive and wrong than negative and right!
-Joyce Meyer

#103-6. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
-Marie Curie

#103-7. We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.
-Phyllis Diller

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The 3rd, 5th and 6th are profound. We can apply the last one at the organization, too. We send our juniors to assertiveness training and creativity workshops, but by the time they are seniors, how come they learn not to speak up or think innovatively? The price of maturity? Could I retain an external image of maturity and still be enthusiastic and unconventional? Russell has some good advice on this that has been helpful for me.

RG

i-TFTD #40

#40-1. People in any organization will tend to treat new concepts and ideas as follows: 5% will accept immediately, 25% will lean towards acceptance, 60% will wait and see if it seems okay, 10% will never accept anything.

-Anon

#40-2. What gets measured gets done; what gets recognized gets done even better.
-Anon

#40-3. There are two types of people who can tell you the truth about yourself: an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.

-Anon

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The 5% early adopters tend to get ignored but they along with the 25% "almost-adopters" must be nurtured as evangelizers, who can help in converting the cautious 60%. The 10% nay-sayers tend to get too much attention, they must be largely ignored, only their impact has to be contained.

More and more research is proving that managers and parents are being too stingy with praise and recognition.

I like the learning value implied in the third quote. We could train ourselves to glimpse the truth brought out by an angry enemy.