18 mei Curiosity is contagious,

Someone told me once; “Sometimes you don’t know when to give it a rest, do you?” And yes, he was right. I won’t give it a rest. It’s what I do. I’m way too fascinated. It almost feels like that Tom Cruise kind of vibe, I am on a mission .. Not knowing if it’s a possible or an impossible one. It has always struck me though, that being aware of the rules of the game is not as important as knowing when you can bend, break or manipulate those rules. Well, let’s stick to the bending and breaking, because I don’t really like manipulating that much.

The most underrated tool of persuasion is curiosity,

People tend to confuse persuasion with manipulating, and the other way around. So, I would like to emphasize that this article doesn’t come no where near a how-to-manipulate guidebook. What I want to discuss is that we all know that a natural response to disagreement is to attach what people think. At those moments of disagreement we take a step back, instead of forward. We cross our arms and hug our convictions even more tightly, instead of extending ones hand.

When advocacy closes minds,

Inquiry can open them. What the world needs is a more inventing alternative. Lots of people have written or spoken about this, multiple times. Lifehacks are sprinkled all over the world, like hidden eggs during Easter. But it still doesn’t sink in, it just won’t sink in.

Genuinely fascinated by how others think,

So .. When was the last time you were genuinely fascinated by someone? Mesmerized. Genuinely curious? Google search spilled out a list of the ’10 great habits of curious people’, in about 0.4 seconds. And except for the ‘naturally empathetic’ part, which I assume you have to be, everything seems quite logical, quite obvious. But on the other hand .. Obvious isn’t always simple, or so it seems.

Curiosity is the spark behind the spark,

Make time for curiosity, number 10 of the list. Each time I encourage employees, CEO’s or managers to ask more questions .. Their primary reaction is that they’re too busy. Questions induce delay, or at least, that’s what they assume. Too bad though, a missed opportunity, because curiosity goes hand in hand with asking questions. They are pretty much made for each other, and should live happily ever after.

When answers became more important than curious thoughts,

You will only be able to ask questions, relentlessly, if you aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know”. Willing to be wrong, Google says, is number 4 on the list. And that’s when our EGO comes into play. ‘Cause since primary school answers became more important than curious thoughts or questions. You had to perform. Become smart, smarter than you actually looked.

TRY. Otherwise you will never know.

“I would like to make small talk, but our lives have very little in common right now”, was a frequent thought I had during my twenties. I wasn’t able to connect deeply with dominant persons, or that’s how they were described – the D-DISC personality types | color RED. Especially when they were much older than me. I always tried to avoid an episode of unnecessary humilitation, didn’t want to look stupid. I was much younger, incapable of sustaining any interest and scared to tell them I just didn’t know what they were talking about.

But what if I had?

What if I had told them I didn’t knew much about certain topics, yet, but that I was curious?

You don’t need to have a special talent. You just have to be able to say that you are passionately curious.