Frank: Welcome to this week's episode of Casual Fridays. I'm Frank and yes I did get a haircut. Thank you for noticing. Today we're going to talk about embracing ignorance and the benefits of curiosity without fear. I recently attended South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas and I know what you're thinking. South By Southwest is just an enormous party. Well, you're wrong. That's not me. Okay. It's not entirely a big party. It's an opportunity to learn from some of the smartest business, design and tech people in the entire world and if it wasn't fun, they wouldn't go. I learned a ton from the experts at this year's conference, but the most profound lesson I learned came from a fellow attendee.
I attended a session on giving successful presentations. The person sitting in front of me was asked to stand up, introduce himself, and explain what he did for a living. For the rest of the day, he was the guinea pig. He stumbled through his presentation and public speaking. When we broke into groups, I was paired up with him. I made a quick joke and asked him if he was embarrassed. His response took me by surprise, but it made so much sense. He said, "I don't care if I look like an idiot in front of Bill from Indiana in the back row. I'm here to learn everything I can from the expert in the front." Then it just hit me. What separates somebody like me from these world class creative people?
Krista: Living in a big city?
Frank: Sure.
MacLaine: Talent?
Frank: Maybe.
Ben: Bilingual?
Frank: Es Posible
Katie: Fancy clothes?
Frank: I'm not sure.
Michael: Nice hair?
Frank: I doubt it. There are a lot of reasons why certain people become great, but the one constant that I've noticed among the successful people that I admire is the insatiable thirst for knowledge. The biggest hindrance to knowledge is the fear of looking stupid. My parents were very supportive of me growing up, but I had this one personality trait that I couldn't shake. It earned me a nickname, annoying boy. Apparently I asked a lot of questions, but I didn't care if I was being annoying. I needed answers.
Elf: How's school? Was it fun? Did you get a lot of homework? Huh? Do you have any friends? Do you have a best friend? Does he have big coat too?
Frank: What happened along the way? Fear crept in and I stopped asking so many questions. What other people thought of me became more important. Now it didn't help that I wore coke‐bottle glasses and didn't hit 100 pounds until I was 17 but still. I don't think I'm alone here. Lately I've been trying to make myself uncomfortable as much as possible, whether it's speaking up in a client meeting to just dig a little deeper or have lunch with a colleague just to pick their brains. People love talking about themselves. If you have genuine curiosity in other people's stories, the results are priceless. It's not just at work. I've actually been trying some things at home for the first time.
Josh Waitzkin, national chess champion and world champion martial artist speaks of two theories on intelligence; entity and incremental. Entity theorists believe that their intelligence is fixed and can't be improved on. For example, I'm bad at math. Incremental theorists understand that things are achieved through hard work. For example, I can get better at math with practice. Great people fall under this category. Your brain is not static. You can learn anything, especially now. We have access to information every second of the day. We work alongside experience and talented people. We attend conferences with people that are the best in the world at what they do. Find that line between paralyzingly shy and annoying boy and ask some questions.
Making yourself uncomfortable is one of the hardest and sometimes most exhausting thing to do at a consistent basis. But if you're driven enough, it will get easier each time you do it. So Frank, how the hell can I apply this to my every day life? Start small. Take a different route to work in the morning. Eat something different for lunch. Start a conversation with a stranger or a strange co‐worker. Go out there and be curious and be weird. But not too curious.
Greg: What are you working on?
Frank: Or too weird.
Ben: What's your Snapchat handles?
Frank: See? Now everyone is uncomfortable.
Episode 4 - Curiosity Without Fear
Do you ever stop asking questions because you feel uncomfortable? In this week’s episode of Casual Fridays, Frank addresses how we can embrace curiosity without fear. Learn how to take chances in your everyday life, fuel your thirst for knowledge and embrace ignorance.
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