I've heard it said that too frequently in our society curiosity is discouraged in children over a certain age, which in turns leads to adults resisting the natural urge to ask questions. In certain places of employment or organizations there can be that unstated norm to NOT ask questions/be curious; but instead to either comply with the known or speak up only with answers to problems.



Is it just me, or do other readers feel like we could have a lot of fun just digging into numerous revelations Jim has in this blog? I think I'm going to write this word on the top of my daily To Do list...to see how it infuses energy and excitement into my plans. And I'm going to ask a few different people to review our church website looking at it from different lenses.

Can't end without a Brene' Brown quote that mirrors the one quoted from Stephen Covey: "I'm not here to be right. I'm here to get it right!"

I think I need to be more curious about what great ideas my clients have. I don't want to feel like I hold the great idea and I'm waiting for my client to find it, or reveal it, while I shift questions around to get them to move in that direction. That would be more akin to biased questioning that leads the client, rather than letting the client lead the conversation. If I truly let go and allow the client to lead then my questions will help me reveal the wonderful ideas within them, but this requires genuine curiosity on my part. I feel that I have this natural desire, but I want it to be a focal point of my practice moving forward.

I just love this line, "Curiosity assumes that there are actions, ideas and approaches that have yet to be discovered." I love the idea that curiosity opens the door to things yet to be discovered. This gives me energy and excitement of realizing that we are never stuck, we are just one great curious question away from finding a way forward.

I am by nature incredibly curious. Mostly I'm curious about people. But the generalized curiosity keeps me detached and can be a good distraction for avoidance. I'm thinking if this is true for me, it may be true for others. One way for me to grow my curiosity muscle has to include space. In the blog I particularly resonate with the idea of reflecting on the information we already have rather than consuming more. That is what I think many think about curiosity; it is a consuming of information. Somehow consumerism invades and robs us of the uniquness of being human. Space to process; space to reflect. space to wonder (the essence of curiosity); space to let thing take root and flourish; space to be fully present. Space is the fertile soil for GROWTH and CREATIVITY which are inevitably the blooms of curiosity.

Point 1 really hit me as I read it today, because this is where I am at. Coaching has been so valuable to me this last couple of weeks because it has been allowing myself to get some head space. I love the feeling being able to think and look at my thoughts in different directions. It is really invigorating and I have forgotten how helpful it is as well.



I wonder if we start fostering this in churches what would happen. Instead of giving out lots more Bible studies and books but gave people some intentional time to look at an issue and allow them the band space to think on it. I wonder what would happen and where the church would go. As I think about this some more, I really think curiosity is the ability to use God's creative energy. Instead of flashing for the quick solution what instead we took our time and looked for multiple solutions and not the ordinary ones. I wonder where we would be at as a church.



We are going to be going through a revitalization process at our church and I think I am really going to be using this to stretch us as people and see what God has in store for us. It is exciting!

Until I read point 4 concerning the power that questions have in learning I hadn't connected the significance of curiosity in deepening and enriching life in the present moment. It made me think of the Jesuit practice of the examen and Ignatius' practice of twice daily meditation where he'd ask the powerful questions: where God's presence has been felt and where did God seem absent?

I agree that curiosity is the bedrock of learning, imagination and innovation. Despite that I would like to be curious on a more consistent basis. The practices (possibly helpful to view as disciplines?) of reflecting more (in contrast to consuming more information) , asking better questions, embracing the role of student and viewing situations from multiple perspectives may prove very helpful as I endeavor to my curiosity muscle. In addition, I will take a portion of my walks while intentionally NOT listening to an audiobook or podcast. Walk and simply reflect (bonus if said walk is in the outdoors).

I often encourage my clients toward curiosity and must confess not practicing this nearly as much as I should. One of my very favorite words is the word wonderment. For me it evokes a child like appreciation of the ordinary and the not so ordinary. After reading this blog I have to admit that lately the wonderment moments have been more infrequent. So this blog reminded me that the initial step toward experiencing wonderment, is being curious about the mundane and not so mundane things in life. I get caught up in to- do lists and quite often miss the wonderment I so love to experience as I do, do, do instead of adding curiosity in what I'm doing to the list of things I'm doing in the day. You know, curiosity doesn't really take extra time and yet it can add value, purpose and wonderment in so many things I do.

The phrase that we have been using a lot in my role as a conference minister is imagination. So often in church work we do things a certain way because that is the way they have always been done, but that often leaves little time to think and dream about what might be different. This question makes me think that I would do well to ask people more what they want to get out of church and what their "ideal" church would look like. I have lots of ideas about how I think things should work and what we ought to do, but if I am serious about encouraging imagination in people then it behooves me to be curious about what some of those imaginings look like. I think in many of my roles the most important thing for me to do is to learn to talk less and listen more... asking more questions that allow others to express their hopes and dreams.

Curiosity leads to innovation and inter-connectedness. I was struck by a conversation I had with someone at my son's baseball game that began with a simple curious question. Curious questions can lead to deeper introspection and help lead to places one has not been to before. I agree that physical movement can help get the curious portion of the brain moving. I seem to get some good ideas if I get my run in, where the focus is just putting one foot in front of the other...Sometimes new ideas emerge.

I would like to be more curious about opening a business. I think my life traumas have stunted my ability to be curious. I think that I really need to be open more to asking questions of all people in my life to help me grow my curiosity muscle, I should really do this with my daughter. I know that I have a tendency to try to correct her instead of really asking her questions from a curios place.

I would like to be more curious about my children: what they are thinking, feeling, experiencing. I don't ask enough questions about them.

I am naturally curious - more so than most people I know. Sometimes that's hard to see because I'm also a voracious reader and analytical thinker, which can lead me to also be quick to judge. I like how coaching is helping me hold space for other's voices.

I am consciously trying to use more "I wonder..." sentences instead of more declarative sentences to grow my curiosity and hold space for more engagement.

I'd like to be more curious about scripture aside from preaching and the occasional Bible study. What prevents me from being naturally curious? I think I am naturally curious, but a hindrance can be being overworked most of the time- too often there's no space to just be and think and process. To grow that curiosity I might be more intentional about being in the moment and asking deeper questions in those moments.

I feel like I lost my curiosity for a long time - due to overwhelm, obsession with fixing problems, change and grief. I am grateful to be able to look at life with a lens of curiosity again now - but it is still hard to use that lens of curiosity on myself sometimes rather than the outside world. Sometimes widening or narrowing the lens can be very uncomfortable when looking inward. I think remembering to be very slow and gentle with clients as we begin this work with them is essential.

The idea of "noting the norms in your life and then challenging them" really draws me in. It reminds me of every congregation (and organization) I've ever heard say, "But we've always done it that way!" I can be quick to move on to something different when I hear this, but what if I explored why they've always done it that way, what is comforting to them, what parts work best or what could use tweaking if tradition wasn't the primary motivator. Even if change doesn't come, approaching that statement with curiosity as a pastor might lead me to deeper understanding and future transformation in another area of the church.

I envision a POSTURE of curiosity that LEANS IN, says, "tell me more", ask questions about "what's behind this thought/idea/feeling?" As you wrote,

"Curiosity assumes that there are actions, ideas and approaches that have yet to be discovered." Curiosity leads to questions which leads to the generations of ideas and possibilities. Ultimately, this leads the client into more self-discovery, aha moments, and excitement to try something they just thought of!

I'm a naturally curious person but this can cause me to bury myself in the weeds. I ask lots of questions, but I need to learn to ask succinct questions that help the other person talk sooner and foster their curiosity. The advice to "Try asking short, concise, open-ended questions that address what matters most. View each person you encounter as a source of wisdom and knowledge" is one of the skills in which I want to grow.

Hahaha! I've been accused MANY times of being TOO curious! But I've also had people tell me that they admire my curiosity about the world around me. I'm trying to imagine what I would like to be more curious about ....... I think I'd like to be more curious about how to help others be curious (vs. just accepting that they're not, and I'm weird).



I don't think mine needs to be strengthened. I'm constantly asking questions in my head about how things work or why people reach the conclusions they do or what could be done differently or whose wisdom or approach would be beneficial in how I do something. I think one of the things I do that strengthens my curiosity, though, is explore. I explore all sorts of things that pique my interest, watching shows I wouldn't normally have found interesting for the sake of curiosity to see what I learn from them. (Can people REALLY live in tiny houses, I want to know? People who aren't me, I mean? And how can I use their storage solutions in my normal sized house? ;) ) I'm just always fascinated and eager to learn more.

I'm a naturally curious person - I'm constantly reading and seeking new ways/things to learn. I think my growing edge here though is to set aside intentional time to process what I've learned and to integrate it rather than just plowing through to the next thing. In some ways, that idea makes me anxious - the time that would take would also slow down the rate at which I could consume information and therefore slow the number of things I was able to learn, but it would also make that learning stick in deeper ways. I think our educational system adds to this anxiety as well. It was certainly reinforced in my grad programs that in order to get through the shear volume of content required, I needed to consume it at an intense pace, learn it for a test, then chuck it out of my head and move to the next thing. That model doesn't leave space for any real integration to take hold. How can we use coaching, both as a coach and a coachee, to mediate those urges and to invite/create space for reflection without anxiety that we're falling behind?

I stopped in my tracks when I read the bullet about reading less! I am a reader, but I also see the wisdom in this idea where we can imagine that we can read ourselves to transformation when the truth is that reading is extraordinarily helpful, but also that there comes a point when we just have to actually DO.

I think I would like to be more curious about opposite viewpoints from my own. We find ourselves in polarized and polarizing times, but I think that I would do well to be curious, without judgement to try to understand what undergirds those viewpoints that I disagree with. On that note, sometimes stubbornness prevents me from being curious, sometimes fear of what I might discover and how that discovery might rock my world. At this point, I think that the process of coaching is stretching my muscle, and I think I could really grow that by bringing the curiosity that I have in a coaching session to the rest of my life.

This is my favorite aspect of coaching. I feel curiosity is vital for strategic thinking. Sometimes people seem stuck because they have not seen another solution or path. There has been times that I have seen how children resolve things easily and simple. I would like to be more curious about moments that change people's life, like when a person finds out that they are wrong. Or how changes progress in time. I don't think nothing stops me from being curious. My muscle will grow if I learn how to pause and reflect about the information that I am receiving.

I was talking with my 10 year old niece this week and asked the usual questions, "What did you do in school today? What was your favorite subject?" But when I asked her "Did you ask any good questions today," she paused and then talked for five minutes about something she was learning in science. I want her natural curiosity and love for learning. I was always a question asker in school, but it was typically about the product and how to get to that point. By focusing on the logistics, I have stifled my curiosity and not allowed myself to get lost in the process of creating. Because I have trained myself to think about how can I get this done efficiently, I have limited the possibilities of what can be done. I would love to suspend the logistics part of my brain temporarily to simply dream and create!

I am always the person asking questions in meetings. Why are we doing it this way? What about this? I wonder what would happen if we tried this? On the surface it appears like curiosity, but if I'm being honest, it's definitely not. I am more often trying to guide the conversation to land where I want it to be. It's not so much about curiosity in these meetings, but in setting my own agenda. Eeek! I wonder what would happen if instead, I asked honest questions with an open mind, curious to see where the Spirit takes us (even if it's not where I want to go). This approach is freeing, as I don't have to be two steps ahead. It can be fun, as we open up the conversation to endless possibilities. It is faithful as it acknowledges God's hand in the work. "I want to reclaim curiosity as an essential element in my life and invite others to do the same." I want to embrace real curiosity as an essential element in my life and model that for others.



For a little inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqUdI4AIDF0&t=11s (Jack Johnson upside down, from Curious George)

This may sound odd, but I want to be more curious about myself. Maybe in doing so I can be more helpful to others, for by knowing myself I can see what I don't normally see.



I have found that fear and the desire to appear knowledgeable can hold someone back from being curious. One way to grow curiosity is to adopt a growth mindset, where you view challenges and mistakes as opportunities for learning and growth. Seeking out new experiences and different perspectives can also help in this... even activities like reading new authors, exploring foods you wouldn't try, asking questions to strangers, and being open to new ideas can help you cultivate a curious mindset over time.

It took me a long time to understand that curiosity may have killed the cat, but it will not kill me. Being curious unlocks so many possibilities, I love seeing the spark in a person's eye when a question opens a portal to unexplored territory.



Read less and reflect more. This reminds me of something someone posted on FB which I loved: "We are drowning in information while starving for wisdom." I still want to read more but totally agree, we must take time to process and reflect more.

I'd probably be more curious if I spent more time with people. I get into tunnel vision with work and school and the next thing I know I've several weeks without seeing people.

Not seeing people frequently makes me somewhat more self-centered, so making sure I'm getting out to meet people or friends helps me to maintain a desire to know them more, and maybe makes me less self-centered.

I for sure need to take time to digest what I read and listen to. It is usually the moments of quiet where my brain comes up with connections between all the stuff I've consumed and that is what leads to increased understanding, not the raw consumption of information.