Curiosity is NOT a vice
You may have heard your parents tell you when you were a child that curiosity is a vice. I imagine this expression is based on the idea that curiosity leads a person to meddle in other people’s affairs, discover secrets, or pry where they shouldn’t, which can harm themselves or others…
I want to show you that curiosity is an excellent quality. Actually even an essential quality in an increasingly uncertain world. A world where what we believed to be true yesterday may no longer be true tomorrow. A world where the knowledge acquired yesterday may no longer help us understand today’s world. A world where we must marvel at novelty, at the unknown. A world where we must be curious!
Curiosity is particularly essential for three indispensable things in a more uncertain world:
- Learning
- Innovation
- Discovery
So, I would like to show you how I use curiosity in my life to promote learning, innovation, and discovery:
- I experiment
- I read… books (to delve deep and not stay on the surface)
- I have Curiosity Meetings
I experiment
One of my General Operating Principles (the principles by which I want to act and react) is: I learn to learn, unlearn, and relearn.
Indeed, in a rapidly changing world, I want to be able to forget old knowledge that has become obsolete or irrelevant. I also want to be agile and easily embrace new ideas or tools that can improve my life or work.
Easier said than done? Indeed, it often requires me to accept experimenting with new things or new tools, even when a part of me resists (“It’s working fine as it is, why change?”)
For example, often when a new technology like ChatGPT appears, I have a part of myself, the futuristic part, that is super excited and wants to try everything right away (and write an article about it). And I have another part of myself (the “old-fart” part?) that is slower to start: “Another new thing, I’m fed up…”
So when I feel this resistance, I accept it. And then I consciously decide to overcome this resistance and try the new tool or approach. This often translates into me talking to myself: “Come on, that’s enough, get moving!” Or “Stop being the stubborn old guy, try it, you’ll see!”
I read books
In a world of instantaneity where one piece of information replaces another, it is increasingly difficult to take a step back.
Reading books both satisfies one’s curiosity in-depth and, above all, arouses curiosity for new subjects. Not the curiosity of an information butterfly that jumps from one tweet to another, but a curiosity that wants to understand the issues in depth.
In this article, I share my “information hygiene” in a chaotic world.
I have Curiosity Meetings
One of the moments where curiosity could seem most inappropriate, even impolite, turns out to be one of the moments where curiosity generates the most discoveries: meeting new people.
What I call Curiosity Meetings.
So, I have developed and been using a method that amazes me every time I use it. Even in cases that I thought would be difficult ones…
How to turn a boring dinner into unforgettable memories?
I am regularly surprised to see how it is possible to transform a lunch, a dinner, or a meeting that promised to be particularly boring into an exciting encounter with people whose incredible personal stories nobody suspected.
The person across from you is not boring. The question nobody asked them is what is missing.
All it takes is keeping a few open questions in mind, and asking two or three of them once the conversation has settled. I have gathered my full method and my two families of questions on a dedicated page: I never get bored at a dinner anymore.
Curiosity = Surprise
The beauty of curiosity is to evoke surprise. If you only get the answers you expect, you’re not showing curiosity.
When you get surprising answers or, even better, answers that disturb you, then you are truly curious.
And, of course, the secret is not just asking the right questions: it’s about listening carefully to the answers!
Bruno Marion is an expert in chaos theory applied to leadership and management. An international bilingual English-French keynote speaker, he works with executives and organizations in more than 40 countries. He is the author of Chaos, A User’s Guide and Not Everyone Will End Up with an Axe in the Forest.
