Why Curiosity is the Most Important Trait

Because without curiosity, the world is boring, and we neither learn nor grow. But when we’re curious, we’re driven towards knowledge.

Cultivating relationships is a byproduct of this pursuit. Simply because much of this knowledge rests in the minds of people with experience we lack. Having experiences ourselves is also vital. How do we gain experience? Seizing opportunities. How do we perceive if something is a good opportunity? If we’re interested in it, and it sounds engaging. We. Us. I’m not talking about anyone else.

The other day I discovered an article about hustle. The author mentions that he read “every single Paul Graham post.” So I clicked the link and boom, found this gem. It’s a brief post, just two paragraphs. But I learned something invaluable – the importance of writing.

Here’s what he wrote:

“I think it’s far more important to write well than most people realize. Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates them. If you’re bad at writing and don’t like to do it, you’ll miss out on most of the ideas writing would have generated…[And] publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas.”

That’s a crazy thought. That writing isn’t just an outlet to express our ideas but actually a place where we can generate them. That we can actually learn from ourselves - all through writing. That’s what I’m seeking to do with this blog: Learn and generate ideas. And in the process, share them with the world. Why? Because the world needs more good ideas, every Thursday to be exact.

Disclaimer: Not all of my ideas will be good. But not all will be bad. And that’s okay, because discerning the good from the bad is an important life skill. So, at the very least, that’s what you’ll get out of this. And at the very best, you’ll learn something.

Now, to the learning:
Define for yourself what’s valuable to you. Determine it for yourself. Recently I was thinking, why aren’t more people successful and happy? Many reasons, probably. One is because we have this pie-in-the-sky vision of what those big words really mean. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a form of jealousy. We see others, we think their lives are incredible, and we want to be like them. That’s what we call rat race. Do we really want to be like them? First, we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. We see the image they project, which is often artificially good. Second, why should we judge our happiness and success off of them? There is no universal definition of these words, and there shouldn’t be. Because we’re all different, and having just a single metric for these goals makes no sense.

Once you discover what’s valuable to you, share that thing. Because it isn’t a zero-sum game. “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” Not only that, but putting two flames together makes them both brighter. Share your opportunities, your experiences, and your people. And others will share with you. Be kind to others and others will be kind to you, it’s all the same idea.

Just to give you an example, here’s how I define success: Beating my status quo. Performing better than I did yesterday, better than last semester. Not dwelling on mistakes. Not being attached to individual successes or failures, because they mean nothing in the long run. But rather, being attached to loving, learning, growing, and understanding. It’s a way of thinking, to value only effort. And people will notice. Most people do just enough to get by, so when people see that you’re going above and beyond, they’ll recognize you for it. (Thanks, Alex Banayan).

With curiosity, you will discover the world. In other words, have a hunger to learn. A desire to learn what isn’t so obvious. What isn’t readily accessible. Because you’ll find that typically what’s scarce is more valuable than what isn’t.

Have a growth mindset. Know that our intelligence isn’t fixed and that learning is possible. With this mindset, we develop grit. Grit is working really hard, over the long run. Which has been said to be super important in determining success (whatever that means).

Dive right in. This can be uncomfortable. Maybe you don’t have the background information necessary to write that essay or reach out to that professional you admire in the company you’d like to intern at this summer. But that’s where the growth mindset comes in. With this mindset, you’ll actually want to seek out uncomfortableness. “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try” (Seth Godin). What you’ll realize, and what I’ve realized, is being uncomfortable facilitates growth. And if you’re attached to growing, you’ll seek out situations that help you do that.

That’s how to set yourself apart. With increasing competition, it’s ever important to 1) know and 2) be able to present what value you bring to the table. Maybe it’s some sort of hard skill you have. You taught yourself how to code in high school or how to photograph and interview people on the street. Maybe it isn’t one of those, because you’re only finding out now that it’s vital to differentiate yourself from the masses.

In that case, you’re not out of luck. We’re young full-time students. What better time to make mistakes. Our parents and society expect us to get good grades, and not much more. So when we do achieve more, it’s special. Its above and beyond. The point: We can always fall back on our effort, which is more important than our intelligence anyways. In short, work hard on something you’re interested in. Maybe it’s a passion, maybe not. No need to put some sort of label on it. But we have to love what we’re doing. What to do, you may ask?

It matters much less what we do, and much more 1) that we’re doing it and 2) how we do it. Instead of thinking of some far-fetched goal, and dedicating every day to achieve that, as our high school commencement speakers urged us to do, just follow the opportunities that are presented to you, as long as they sound interesting and engaging. That’s how I’ve done it and it’s worked well so far. And everything that you decide is worth doing, is also worth doing well. So put in 110% effort and differentiate yourself. As a result, you will probably be rewarded. But 1) Don’t expect that and 2) It really isn’t about being rewarded as much as providing value to others. Giving.

That’s why mentors have mentees. Not because they believe in some feel-good, humanitarian, give-back effort but because they’re getting just as much from the relationship as you, the mentee, is. Also, with a growth mindset, they’re committed to learning and growing. However smart or experienced they may be, they know that every single person in the world knows something they don’t. And successful people (again, whatever that means) with many relationships are just people constantly trying to fulfill their curiosity. They’re dedicated to discovering what that one thing is.

With curiosity, you’re a committed student of the world. It’s exciting, not always easy. Either way, it’s an adventure, and you’ll have a blast. Good luck.

Hope you enjoyed. Come back every Thursday to learn something new. Or, at the very worst, learn how to discern good ideas from the bad.

Special thanks to Des Pieri and Dorita Kardonski for their invaluable help in writing this first post.