The Curiosity Mindset and How It Transforms Daily Life
When I was a kid, one of the things that I used to do for fun was play with two magnets and watch how they would attract or repel each other depending on the side that was placed together. I wish I could tell you the curiosity from that experience led me down a path of becoming an engineer, but that is not where this story is going.
The interesting thing about curiosity is that there is a science behind it. Basically, when something is new or surprises you, your brain asks does it care about learning more and if the answer is no, it stops there. That is what happened with the magnets. I thought it was a lot of fun and interesting but that is where my curiosity ended. I didn't become an engineer or a scientist.
The opposite happens when your brain says yes, I want to learn more. You start to ask questions, read more on the topic, maybe take a course on it, or search out an expert in the field. Your curiosity could be wanting to learn about astronomy, or understanding different bird sounds, or maybe a hobby of rebuilding classic cars.
For me, one of the topics I am now very curious about is my own daily performance, and how the impacts of being tired, getting sick, and afternoon energy crashes prevent sustained performance over time.
That curiosity began and developed over time based on a few intersecting inflection points. The first was my son Matthew, who was an extremely fussy kid had a diet change while we were on vacation and his demeanor changed for the positive. My wife and I realized that food had a major impact on his personality, and we dug into as much research as we could. By learning more, we started to also modify our diets slowly. I didn't go from eating those famous 2 tone store bought cookies to eating brussels sprouts overnight, but it did happen over time.
The second inflection point was trying to improve my performance in sales. I got to a point in my career where I had learned many of the sales strategies (I know you can always learn more, but the basic concepts are the same). Since I wasn't the type A, typical sales personality, I felt I needed to create my advantage by being at the top of my game each day, both mentally and physically.
The last intersecting point was a health scare that happened to me about 10 years ago. I had a complication to a routine surgery that put me in the ICU for 11 days. Following the recovery, I knew I needed to be more diligent about my health. Before the event, I used to walk 3 or so times per week each morning but for other mornings, the walks would be replaced with a really long hot shower. In my mind, that was what was going to wake me up. Today, I walk 6-7 times a week and usually go for a few strolls as well in the afternoon and evening, typically after a meal with the benefit of having more mental clarity and creativity in the morning and not experiencing the energy crash in the afternoon.
It wasn't just walking that I became curious about. I became curious how actions that I would take would result in a positive or negative outcome. I would learn about a topic, and then test it out. For example, I tested out my work productivity by working less. Yup, instead of working 7:30am to 6:00pm and then from 8:00pm-10:00pm, I started working from about 8:00am to 6:00/6:30pm. I found I was more productive during the work hours, and I had the added benefit of spending more dedicated time with my family. This also reduced stress and increased my creativity.
Other areas of curiosity and performance included not working on vacations, the lights in my office, getting up from my desk during the workday (especially with now being glued to a video conference platform), the impacts of sugar, salt, fiber, protein, and sleep testing out different patterns of the times to go to bed and wake up, snooze, etc.
Here is where the curiosity really took a front seat. During my initial conversation with my now olive oil distributor, we spoke about the benefits of olive oil, specifically some of the olive oils that have a very high polyphenol count like Azienda Agricola Le Tre Colonne 1000+ Olisir. While I am not a medical doctor and would encourage you to do your own research, polyphenols can help reduce inflammation in the body. This led me to ultimately give it a try but I didn't initially try it to reduce inflammation. I took it to help with focus as that was one of the other stated benefits. After 2 weeks of taking a tablespoon a day, I didn't feel any improvement in my focus and was ready to give up, but I get the benefit of feeling about 10 years younger as my body felt so much looser. I even did a TEDx Talk on it called How Drinking Olive Oil and Curiosity Changed My Life.
Here is the great thing about curiosity, and my view on how it works. There is no option for failure. Yup, you heard that right. It's not like a fad diet or a crazy exercise routine where you try it for 2 weeks and then give up, feeling bad because the approach itself isn't sustainable. Being curious is a test and learn approach. Let's use morning exercise as an example. Again, it doesn't mean being a gym rat but maybe just doing a morning walk or exercise routine. You start your routine and you start to feel better each day you do it but by day 4, life got in the way and you don't exercise that day. And then day 5 rolls around and you miss that day too. I don't view this as a failure of your routine, but now two different data points for you to make an informed decision to your curiosity. Days 1-3, you walked and felt good. Days 4 and 5 you didn't and felt not as energetic. Now you know that if you want to feel good, you need to build in a morning walk. It's a simple example but curiosity is always about learning, testing, failing, and modifying. The great thing is you keep getting more data points to take action on. Plus you get to learn something new and that is always a great thing.
What are you curious about? Leave a message in the comments.
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