Month: August 2024
Thesaurus Diagram of Curiosity
One more click.
Curious Creatures
Introducing Gigi, Otto, Phinley and Sokrates.
This curious quartet gets along quite well and always continue to foster their relationship through many layers of empathy, compassion, awareness, and question asking.
Support humanity.
Empathic Curiosity
Empathic curiosity is a desire to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings.
Nurturing your empathic curiosity can help you connect more deeply with the people around you.
Specific Curiosity
Desire for a particular piece of information.
This is often blended with Perceptual Curiosity and where puzzles, trivia, and other playful curiosities are explored.
Diversive Curiosity
Attempt to seek stimulation from any source (to avoid boredom).
This is our first experience with curiosity.
The desire for change and novelty often grows into Perceptual or Epistemic Curiosity.
Epistemic Curiosity
Desire for knowledge.
This is what happens when Diversive Curiosity evolves and grows up.
Perceptual Curiosity
Desire aroused by novel, complex or incongruous things.
This type of curiosity is often reduced with exposure and often blended with Specific Curiosity where puzzles, trivia and other playful curiosities are explored.
Rules for Being Human During ‘the Happening’
There is no magic formula for how to be human and lead a fulfilling life, but there are certain rules that can help us make our way through ‘the Happening’. The rules for being human are not actually ancient Sanskrit rules, but a modern interpretation of Hindu philosophical teachings.
Rule 1: Your physical body is given to you for life
You may not like your body, but it is yours forever, so you must accept it as it is.
Rule 2: You will be taught endless lessons
No one knows all the secrets of life and the universe. Life is a constant learning experience, and every day is a new lesson. Being able to learn these lessons qualitatively is the key to gradually unlocking the secrets of life.
Rule 3: Treat your mistakes as lessons
Your growth and development is actually a series of mistakes, failures and missteps, so you must be prepared for them. Don’t get discouraged and take them as a given and inevitable. Or rather, as an invaluable lesson…many lessons. Laugh at your own failures and gain experience.
Rule 4: The lesson will be repeated until you learn it
Life lessons are repeated many times until you learn them. Obstacles will reappear again and again unless you learn from your actions. Recognize that you are not a victim of circumstance, and that everything that happens to you is your own doing. Blaming others for your own mistakes is denial. You alone are responsible for your actions.
Rule 5: The learning process never ends
Don’t be fooled: you will never stop learning as long as you live. There is no magic key to happiness, so instead of criticizing yourself and losing confidence, learn to adapt and change. Accept your shortcomings and be flexible, otherwise you’ll get stuck in a relentless cycle of your mistakes.
Rule 6: Be grateful for what you have
Yes, the grass in your neighbor’s yard may be fresher and greener, but you should be grateful for what you have. Learn to appreciate your own tangible and intangible things instead of comparing them to what other people have. Live in the present, not the future or the past, and you will be at peace and in harmony with yourself.
Rule 7: Others are a reflection of yourself
Depending on what you love or hate about yourself, you similarly love or hate something in others. Learn to be tolerant and accept the difference of all people. Be objective. If you are not able to do this, you will not be able to cope with life.
Rule 8: Only you control your own destiny.
When you are born, you are given all the resources you need to be happy and successful. But how you use them is entirely up to you. Take responsibility for your choices and let go of what doesn’t go your way. Don’t let your anger and negativity in – they will “corrupt” your thinking. Humans are adventurous creatures, and we all have the power to change our lives for the better.
Rule 9: All the answers are within you.
If you want to succeed in life, learn to trust your intuition. Trust that inner voice always gives you the right clues, just be able to hear it and understand it correctly.
What is Creative Destruction?
staycurious.org Presents: Available on YouTube! Subscribe, listen and learn!
In this podcast, we table the big P’s of 2020: prevalent protests, politics and pandemics. #alliteration
First, we dive into creative destruction. What exactly is it?
Secondly, we see how creative destruction has and will impact life as we know it, specifically the education industry.
Finally, we touch base on what this means for parents, students and everyone else impacted by the pandemic moving forward. The episode is raw, has a few errors, and was recorded in one take.
Listening time: 25 minutes
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Why Curiosity Matters, Why We Lose It And How To Get It Back
We all are born with curiosity.
Children ask why, how and when, among many other questions. However, as we grow, we shift from curious learning to knowing and, as an adult, we can reach a learning plateau. We feel good to get to a point of understanding and knowledge but begin to lose our curiosity. We find it easier to live as the expert who knows than the student who grows. Sure, sometimes we are forced to learn, but often the intentional work to dig in and stretch our perspectives and reach new depths of learning can slow as we tip from curiosity to knowing.
As the world shifts into Industry 4.0, curiosity and learning are essential. The speed of change creates constant innovations, thereby requiring the ability to learn and adapt. The person who knows and tells but lacks the humility to be curious, learn and grow will find themselves irrelevant and lacking critical skills and perspectives needed to thrive in the modern era.
To renew and develop your curiosity, let’s consider what shuts down curiosity, the benefits of curiosity and how to cultivate curiosity.
Curiosity Shutdowns
Two of the biggest factors in curiosity shutdowns are thinking we know everything already and having an unchecked ego.
Knowing
Curiosity is shut down when we think we know all the answers and need to be the expert. Instead of fostering a culture of curiosity, we foster competition to be experts. When we know, the learning is done.
Are you shutting down curiosity in yourself and those around you? Reflect on these questions:
• Would I rather mentor/teach or be the student?
• Do I fight to interrupt? Feel the need to correct information? Or simply wait to interject my knowledge into a conversation?
• Do I need to be right and struggle when made to feel wrong?
• Do I feel like I must be competent and know how to add value or be a useful contributor?
• Do I struggle when I do not know something (i.e., feel stupid, incompetent, etc.)?
• Do I focus more on what is going on for me than being curious about what others are thinking or experiencing?
• Do I have a genuine desire to learn from others and understand their perspective and worldview?
• Do I silently judge those who “don’t know”?
• Do I withhold information to be “the one who knows” while others struggle to learn or discover?
Ego
The ego wants to know, be competent and safe. We find safety when we know and have a level of power from knowing. Not knowing can make us feel vulnerable or small. This is what makes curiosity hard. Our ego is not curious. To become more curious, we must become aware of our ego and how it shuts down curiosity. Here are a few ways to overcome ego:
• See others as a mirror who have a new or different perspective to learn from.
• Be open to what you do not know. Enjoy asking questions to understand how others see the world.
• Create a safe space to be curious and ask any question. In this space, there are no bad questions and no need to be perfect.
• Be humble and acknowledge the brilliance of others. Seek to learn from them.
Benefits Of Curiosity
Rebuilding your curiosity and a culture of curiosity is difficult but worth it. Here are some benefits:
• An environment where curiosity is encouraged and allowed is a playground for creating new things, discovering new solutions and uncovering different and possibly better ways to do things. It gives people permission to fail and to learn when things don’t work out.
• Places where people feel unleashed to try things and be themselves are highly attractive. People feel happier and freer knowing they are not going to get in trouble for taking a risk. A space of freedom, joy, laughter and excitement attracts others who are also creative to the playground.
• When the brain can be curious and explore different ideas and avenues, it begins to make new connections. We see things that we did not see before. It has a snowball effect on brainstorming and expands our ideas.
Creating Curiosity
So, how do we cultivate more curiosity in ourselves and others? It starts with you and will flow to others. Here are a few practical ideas:
• Observe. Watch an animal explore their surroundings and you’ll see how they patiently sit and observe. Curiosity requires stillness and slowness, too. Use your senses to smell, touch, taste, etc. Move up close. Don’t try to observe everything from one spot or one perspective. Take time to be present in the environment. Curiosity requires study and wonder.
• Ask questions. Notice how many questions you ask versus how many you answer. Challenge yourself to ask two or three questions before sharing your thoughts. Take time to understand a few layers deeper and check assumptions before responding.
• Expand your sources. Make a habit of talking to others with different beliefs or listening to perspectives different than our own. It helps to generate natural questions and expand your understanding of different perspectives and thoughts. Recognize your biases and assumptions so that you can operate in an expansive open space rather than through a closed and narrow view of the world.
• Try something new. When we intentionally change things, it causes us to be more conscious of what we are doing. It leads us to ask questions like, “Is this the best approach?” It can be as simple as taking a different route to work or asking your direct report how they would solve a problem before offering up a solution. Change allows for the discovery of things you may have missed.
Have fun taking up childhood curiosity once again; relearn and rediscover the amazing world all around you.
Learn or die! It’s up to you.
Curiosity: The Neglected Trait That Drives Success
Exploring your curiosity can be incredibly good for your mind, with benefits for learning, creativity and even job enjoyment.
On 7 January 1918 at New York’s Hippodrome, the incredible illusionist Harry Houdini unveiled one of his most famous tricks – the vanishing elephant – in front of thousands of spectators.
The beast in question, Jennie, reportedly weighed 10,000 pounds (4,536kg). She raised her trunk in greeting, before a stagehand led her into a huge cabinet and closed the doors behind them. After a dramatic drum roll, the doors reopened – and the cabinet was now empty. To the thousands of spectators, it seemed that she had vanished into thin air.
How could Houdini have managed to hide such an enormous animal? No one at the time could provide a definitive explanation of what had happened, though there is one predominant theory.
I’ll tell you what that is before the end of the article, but you might want to avoid the temptation of skipping straight to that section – since a wealth of scientific research shows that allowing your curiosity to be piqued in this way can be incredibly good for your mind. Research shows that not knowing the answer to an intriguing puzzle can, for example, increase your creativity on subsequent tasks, as well as priming your brain for learning. Curiosity in the workplace, meanwhile, increases engagement and enjoyment of your job and reduces your risk of burnout.
It is little wonder, then, that scientists have now been looking for ways to cultivate more curiosity in our lives – and even simple interventions could reap enormous benefits.
Memory boosts
Given that the dictionary definition of curiosity is “the desire to know something”, it may be of little surprise that much research has concerned its benefits for education. Using questionnaires that ask people how much they desire new information and consider novel problems, various studies have shown that people’s curiosity can predict their academic success, independently of IQ.
The most recent research suggests that the benefits for learning may arise from changes at a neurological level. When we feel curious about a subject, the facts that we are studying become more deeply encoded, and more accessible when they are later needed.
The effects of curiosity on later recall were striking. When the participants were highly curious about a fact, they were 30% more likely to recall it. And this seemed to correspond to heightened activity in areas of the midbrain that release the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is normally associated with reward, but animal studies suggest that it can also enhance the formation of new neural connections. It looked as if the feeling of curiosity was helping prepare the brain to absorb the new and important information, and this then resulted in a more stable memory.
Intriguingly, the researchers found that the dopamine hit, arising from initial curiosity, could even enhance the memory of incidental information that had no direct relevance to the primary question. To demonstrate this, they had presented random faces alongside the answers to the questions and, an hour later, checked whether the participants still recognized the faces. The analyses showed that the participants were far more likely to remember the face if it had accompanied one of the more interesting trivia questions that had spiked their curiosity.
This additional, and unexpected, memory boost could be extremely useful whenever we’re trying to learn something new and complicated. We’re unlikely, after all, to find every single element of our studies fascinating. But if we can cultivate some curiosity about at least some of the facts, we may find that the rest of the material also sticks far more easily.
High curiosity meant that people wanted to have that moment of realization and discovery on their own – Abigail Hsiung
Curiosity can also increase our patience. A recent, currently unpublished, study by Abigail Hsiung, a PhD student at Duke University in North Carolina, showed that heightened curiosity meant that people were more willing to wait to find out the solution to a puzzle. Less curious people, in contrast, were more impatient to get through the task quickly, and so they asked to jump straight to the answers. “High curiosity meant that people wanted to have that moment of realization and discovery on their own,” says Hsiung.
In education, greater patience and prolonged engagement are likely to lead to extended research, deeper learning and understanding, particularly for complex topics – which may also help to explain why curiosity is such a strong predictor of academic success.
Idea linking
Similarly profound effects can be found in studies of creative problem solving, with signs that curiosity helps people to build more exciting and original ideas.
Evidence for this process comes through the story of the vanishing elephant. In a series of experiments, researchers exposed participants to one of two versions of the tale. Half read a version that amped up the element of mystery – the fact that other illusionists have struggled to work out how the trick worked. These participants were then asked to describe how they thought Houdini had hidden Jennie. Whatever their answer, they were told that they were “close but not completely right”, which left a gap in their knowledge, creating further uncertainty and intrigue.
The rest of the group read a less intriguing description of Houdini’s trick that seemed to suggest that the workings of the illusion were already well understood, with a giveaway clue that Houdini had hidden the elephant behind a curtain in the cabinet. (This is, indeed, the favored theory.)
Afterwards, the participants rated how curious they were to know more about Houdini’s trick. They were given a few minutes to design their own magic tricks, which were later rated by independent judges.
The researchers found that the participants who had read the first, more mysterious version of the story were indeed more curious, and this resulted in significantly more innovation during the subsequent magic-trick task.
This seemed to come through a process called “idea linking”, in which participants would continually build on their initial thoughts through an iterative process. For example, a participant from this group could start out thinking about a way to make a whale disappear, explains co-author Spencer Harrison a professor of managerial and organizational cognition at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. They might then go on to think about the possibility of making a dinosaur skeleton disappear from a museum, “And then the [skeleton] is not disappearing, it’s dancing,” he says. Step after step, they were modifying and expanding their answers, “pushing the idea into a realm that feels it’s wholly new”, adds Harrison.
Those who had seen the less intriguing version of the Houdini story, in contrast, tended to just settle on the first idea that popped into their head, which was generally less ambitious or interesting.
Engagement and wellbeing
The benefits of curiosity do not end here. In his recent book The Art of Insubordination, Todd Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, US, points out that greater curiosity can also make people more open to hearing others’ opinions, even if they differ from their own. That’s essential if we want to have productive disagreements and avoid issues like confirmation bias and groupthink.
Kashdan’s own research has demonstrated that curiosity brings comprehensive benefits to the workplace. The study included more than 800 participants from the USA and Germany from a range of industries, who rated a series of statements about their experiences of curiosity in their day-to-day lives, such as:
- I get excited thinking about experimenting with different ideas
- I do not shy away from the unknown or unfamiliar even if it seems scary
The participants also completed questionnaires about their job satisfaction and engagement, their social relationships with their colleagues, their feelings of burnout and their use of innovation at work. In each of these measures, the more curious participants tended to report better experiences, compared with the less curious participants.
Cultivating curiosity
According to Kashdan and Harrison, many organizations could encourage greater curiosity in the workforce with a few changes to their corporate culture. Managers might consider giving their employees a little more independence, for example, with various studies showing that a sense of autonomy increases curiosity. Even if there are only a limited number of options available, a project is more likely to stimulate someone’s interest if they have selected it voluntarily, rather than having the choice imposed on them by someone else.
We really need to get rid of this notion of ‘staying in your lane’ – Todd Kashdan
Where relevant, employers might also encourage workers to look beyond the narrow confines of their primary expertise. “We really need to get rid of this notion of ‘staying in your lane’,” suggests Kashdan. The increased interest in the new domain could then spill over into their own area, he says, energizing their thinking and allowing them to spot new connections and lines of enquiry.
On an individual level, there is also some evidence that you can actively train your curiosity. The first step is to make it personally relevant; research by Rachit Dubey, a cognitive scientist at Princeton University, has shown that reminding people of the usefulness of the new knowledge can boost their curiosity when it’s lagging. So, try to keep your ultimate goals in your focus, if feelings of frustration or confusion have caused you to forget why you were interested in the first place.
For similar reasons, you might compile a list of questions that you would like to answer in the days or weeks ahead. Studies show that this simple step of identifying the current holes in your knowledge naturally sparks more curiosity, and subsequent engagement, in the relevant material. Your queries do not need to be profound: there is no such thing as a stupid question as long as your query prompts a desire to know more.
The physicist Richard Feynman may have put it best when he said: “Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” And with the proven benefits for your learning, creativity and general well-being, you may be pleasantly surprised where this new-found curiosity eventually leads you.
SOURCE – David Robson is a science writer and author of The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life, published by Canongate (UK) and Henry Holt (USA) in early 2022. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.
The Dimensions of Curiosity
Psychologists have compiled a large body of research on the many benefits of curiosity. It enhances intelligence: In one study, highly curious children aged three to 11 improved their intelligence test scores by 12 points more than their least-curious counterparts did. It increases perseverance, or grit: Merely describing a day when you felt curious has been shown to boost mental and physical energy by 20% more than recounting a time of profound happiness. And curiosity propels us toward deeper engagement, superior performance, and more-meaningful goals: Psychology students who felt more curious than others during their first class enjoyed lectures more, got higher final grades, and subsequently enrolled in more courses in the discipline.
How Are You Curious?
Use this scale to indicate the degree to which the following statements describe you: 1. Does not describe me at all. 2. …
But another stream of research on curiosity is equally important, in our view. Since the 1950s psychologists have offered competing theories about what makes one person more curious than another. Rather than regard curiosity as a single trait, we can now break it down into five distinct dimensions. Instead of asking, “How curious are you?” we can ask, “How are you curious?”
A Brief History
In the 1950s Daniel Berlyne was one of the first psychologists to offer a comprehensive model of curiosity. He argued that we all seek the sweet spot between two deeply uncomfortable states: understimulation (coping with tasks, people, or situations that lack sufficient novelty, complexity, uncertainty, or conflict) and overstimulation. To that end we use either what Berlyne called “diversive curiosity” (as when a bored person searches for something—anything—to boost arousal) or what he called “specific curiosity” (as when a hyperstimulated person tries to understand what’s happening in order to reduce arousal to a more manageable level).
Building on Berlyne’s insights, in 1994 George Loewenstein, of Carnegie Mellon University, proposed the “information gap” theory. He posited that people become curious upon realizing that they lack desired knowledge; this creates an aversive feeling of uncertainty, which compels them to uncover the missing information.
But these theories, focused on our inherent desire to reduce tension, don’t explain other expressions of curiosity: tourists strolling through a museum, entrepreneurs poring over feedback from beta testing, people engrossed in a book. The University of Rochester’s Edward Deci addressed those in the 1970s, arguing that curiosity also reflects our intrinsic motivation “to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn.” We use it not just to avoid discomfort but to generate positive experiences.
In another body of work, the University of Delaware psychologist Marvin Zuckerman spent five decades (from the 1960s to the 2000s) studying sensation seeking, or the willingness to take risks to acquire varied, novel, and intense experiences. And in 2006 the psychologist Britta Renner, of the University of Konstanz, initiated the study of social curiosity, or people’s interest in how other individuals think, feel, and behave.
The Five-Dimensional Model
Synthesizing this and other important research, and in conjunction with our George Mason colleague Patrick McKnight, we created a five-dimensional model of curiosity. The first dimension, derived from Berlyne and Loewenstein’s work, is deprivation sensitivity—recognizing a gap in knowledge the filling of which offers relief. This type of curiosity doesn’t necessarily feel good, but people who experience it work relentlessly to solve problems.
The second dimension, influenced by Deci’s research, is joyous exploration—being consumed with wonder about the fascinating features of the world. This is a pleasurable state; people in it seem to possess a joie de vivre.
The third dimension, stemming from Renner’s research, is social curiosity—talking, listening, and observing others to learn what they are thinking and doing. Human beings are inherently social animals, and the most effective and efficient way to determine whether someone is friend or foe is to gain information. Some may even snoop, eavesdrop, or gossip to do so.
The fourth dimension, which builds on recent work by Paul Silvia, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, is stress tolerance—a willingness to accept and even harness the anxiety associated with novelty. People lacking this ability see information gaps, experience wonder, and are interested in others but are unlikely to step forward and explore.
The fifth dimension, inspired by Zuckerman, is thrill seeking—being willing to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences. For people with this capacity, the anxiety of confronting novelty is something to be amplified, not reduced.
We have been testing this model in several ways. With Time Inc. we conducted surveys across the United States to discover which of the dimensions lead to the best outcomes and generate particular benefits. For instance, joyous exploration has the strongest link with the experience of intense positive emotions. Stress tolerance has the strongest link with satisfying the need to f0000eel competent, autonomous, and that one belongs. Social curiosity has the strongest link with being a kind, generous, modest person.
With Merck KGaA we have explored attitudes toward and expressions of work-related curiosity. In a survey of 3,000 workers in China, Germany, and the United States, we found that 84% believe that curiosity catalyzes new ideas, 74% think it inspires unique, valuable talents, and 63% think it helps one get promoted. In other studies across diverse units and geographies, we have found evidence that four of the dimensions—joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, and social curiosity—improve work outcomes. The latter two seem to be particularly important: Without the ability to tolerate stress, employees are less likely to seek challenges and resources and to voice dissent and are more likely to feel enervated and to disengage. And socially curious employees are better than others at resolving conflicts with colleagues, more likely to receive social support, and more effective at building connections, trust, and commitment on their teams. People or groups high in both dimensions are more innovative and creative.
A monolithic view of curiosity is insufficient to understand how that quality drives success and fulfillment in work and life. To discover and leverage talent and to form groups that are greater than the sum of their parts, a more nuanced approach is needed.
Curiosity + Love (Part I)
Who doesn’t want a human diary to do life with?
In this episode, we dive into love and curiosity, today’s ‘swipe life’ culture and mutual values, and how you cannot ‘unfuck’ someone.
Three questions asked:
How are curiosity and validation related?
Is curiosity good for relationships?
Why do The Curious have better relationships?
The intro music is from Mr.Gnome; an alternative are rock married duo from Cleveland, Ohio.
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Kung Fu Foster Puppies
In this rough around the edge’s episode, we look at the term’s kung fu & fostering, talk about summer expectations not meeting reality, and how two Husky foster puppies have challenged yours truly.
You’ll get to hear about Amber & Johnny and how they earned their names.
Yes, they are named after this summer’s infamous defecation defamation trial. New intro song Ha! by Jon Kennedy
Listening Time: 20 Min (Audio Only) New to the staycurious.org Podcast? Check out previous episodes here.
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When Life Throws Thorns; Hunt For Roses
staycurious.org Presents: Available on YouTube! Subscribe, listen and learn!
In this curious conversation, we cover how the economic collapse of 2009 blended the need for sustainability and a passion for a green thumb, the vast amount of free resources out there for horticulture, and how we (like roses) will regrow and prosper again.
Special Guest: Doug Wickert Doug is a long-time friend with a dialectic mind that has been both inspirational and supportive of staycurious.org.
Above all, it was a pleasure to have him as guest and learn about his curiosities, his passions, and to hear him laugh.
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YouTube| Who is staycurious.org? (Meet Heikki)
This was the only YouTube of the podcast so far.
There are Only Four Jobs in the World
The research is in. There are only four different types of jobs in the world.
YES! IN. THE. ENTIRE. WHOLE. WORLD!
Everything starts with an idea. This is the first of the four jobs – the Thinkers. Builders convert these ideas into reality. This the second job. Improvers make this reality better. This is the third job. Producers do the work over and over again, delivering quality goods and services to the company’s customers in a repeatable manner. This is the fourth job. And then the process begins again with new ideas and new ways of doing business being developed as the old ones become stale.
The Four Basic Work Types In Detail
Thinkers: These people are the idea generators, strategists, and creative types. They’re at the front end of the growth curve, and their work covers new products, new business ideas, and different ways of doing everyday things. Sometimes they get in the way once the company or projects begin to grow. An example of a performance objective for the Thinker could be, “Develop a workaround to the technical bottleneck to ensure the launch date is met.”
Builders: These people take ideas from the Thinker and convert them into reality. Entrepreneurs, project managers and turnaround executives are typical jobs that emphasize the Builder component. They thrive in rapid change situations, make decisions with incomplete information and can create some level of order out of chaos. They feel strangled in bigger organizations. “Rebuild the entire product management department in 90 days to support the global launch,” would be an example of a Builder performance objective.
Improvers: These are the people who take an existing project, process or team, organize it and make it better. In a moderately growing company they are charged with upgrading a new system, converting an outdated process or rebuilding a department. In a mature company they’re the ones that need to implement major and minor change despite heavy resistance. Here’s an example of an Improver performance objective: “Develop a detailed plan for upgrading the international reporting system over the next 18 months.”
Producers: Technical skills dominate the Producer Work Type. A pure Producer is someone who executes a repeatable process on a regular basis. More often, the Producer Work Type is a component of the job, for example, combining problem-solving (the Thinker) with some technical process to implement a solution. Here’s an example of a pure Producer performance objective: “Handle 6-7 inbound calls per day at a 90% resolution rate.”
Regardless of the size or scale, most work requires a mix of different thinking, project management, process improvement and executing skills. Getting the scale, scope and mix right is essential for hiring the right person.
Some types of work are more at the front end of the cycle, some bulge in the middle, some are heavily weighted towards process implementation and some are balanced throughout. Regardless, knowing how a job is weighted by these Work Types allows a company to better match people with the roles they’re being hired for rather than hoping there is a good fit.
What’s Under the Grundle? (podcast draft)
(draft 1/31/24)
Welcome back to staycurious.org Podcast.
The only podcast dedicated to help you kungfu your curiosity. This show is dedicated to the topic of curiosity itself.
Not the topics you doom scroll through, or the headlines you parrot while one of your friends are talking to you, nor endless ways of how you stay ignorant, distracted and misinformed.
We’re dedicated to the topic of curiosity itself. Is it a trait or a state? Innate behavior or emotion?
This show will dive into the various kinds of curiosity with the hopes to help you foster your curiosity in a way you can get a better understanding of your Self, the others you engage with and whatever fuckery life throws at you.
Think of this podcast as your Orange Theory for mental fitness or whatever trending exercise class you joined and will give up on like your upcoming New Year’s resolutions.
Or if you prefer to draw your line in the sand with a more taboo metaphor, consider this your PorhHub for your mind? MIndporn is real.
If you need a reference that relates to UFC styles or whatever Krav Maga, martial art, Joe Rogan’s guest’s are rambling about, humble yourself and embrace kung fu.
For the Incurious, in its original meaning, kung fu can refer to any discipline or skill achieved through hard work and practice, not necessarily martial arts.
With that PSA complete….sit back, relax and listen up as we see what’s under the grundle of curiosity itself.
We humans share 3 basic drives in life with most of our primate cousins and beings: food, sex, and shelter (food, fucking and finding a place to keep us safe)
Yet, humans have a 4th drive: Curiosity.
In short, your curiosity is straight up a deviant.
If left unchecked, untrained, or left to run amok, curiosity can cause mayhem for you, your life, and society as a whole.
Now, before anyone stops listening to retort, refute or add their own two cents talking about how Koko the ASL signing gorilla, or how they saw some viral video of some cat, crow or, new puppy being curious….
Just stop, try to handle your inability to listen and open up your gray matter.
Humans are different. We’re the only ones asking questions, stopping to look up to the sky and wonder what the fuck we are, when we are, where are we going, or why is my Door Dasher bringing me another bag of shame today?
Mastering your curiosity is impossible, so they say. As the shows unravel, we’re gonna learn that your curiosity is often a mystery and not a puzzle to be solved. You have two choices: fuck around, find out, and learn, OR stay a Simple Jack. The old “learn or die” metaphor.
Most of the old stories of curiosity are sometimes warnings on how chaotic & confusing curiosity can be. Ever heard of Adam & Eve & the apple of knowledge? Icarus trying to chase the sun? and Pandora’s Box? This story is actually pretty interesting, it’s the perfect idiom of riding a unicycle down a two-lane expressway: on one side is a curse, the other value.
Curiosity and the Early Christian theologians did not get along either; with one of those delusional dipshits going as far as to say “God fashioned hell for the inquisitive. Some philosophers have even gone so far to suggest curiosity is just greed by a different name.
Even the Western societies are skewed on what curiosity is and can be, often calling it a distraction and often destructive to society and the soul. And for most of modern day society, they’re right.
However, curiosity will not die nor go away. And it’s one of, if not the main ingredient for ‘the happening’, of whatever you call this existence. Need proof?
During medieval times, inquiring minds were often stigmatized, especially by the commandment of the church.
Then the Renaissance and Reformation started to interrogate curiosity like it was Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. And just like the movie, Curiosity opened up mens’ minds and showed everyone how wonderful the unknown is.
The result? The Enlightenment. Ideas exploded, big ideas were shared, encouraging questions were exchanged. Curiosity was unbarred which resulted into a wave of prosperity for the European nations and other societies that precipitated it.
Fast forward to now, and look at us. Doom scrolling and trolling each other with information from your stepmoms facebook without even questioning the source, the topic, or anything. While some say the internet has brought forward a great innovation and exchange of ideas, others disagree. Some call this the end. The Great Stagnation. Curiosity has been put back into its box, or hidden behind the black mirror, or reduced to the basic form, much like a child pointing at something not knowing what it is.
The lust for knowledge, yearn to learn, and make people hungry to question and create outside the box thinking, without getting your feelings hurt or complaining to the internets is a real problem.
We’re creating a world of cognitive misers. We all want shortcuts, the easy way, and answers. Well, if that’s you and you’re still listening. This podcast may not be for you. Battles, wars and bar stool philosophizing are happening with most of us just loading up biases, shitty headlines, or romanticizing what your overpriced degree taught you. Don’t get it twisted, we’re all cognitive misers.
The future belongs to the Curious. Embrace the future. Don’t like where you’re at? Fuck around and find out and make a new blueprint. Challenge your Self. Find the cognitive misers and challenge them. The Incurious are everywhere and making pet sperm faster than Nick Canon multiplies.
Listen and learn how to master your curiosity.