It’s something I’ve never really thought about before, but in many cases it’s difficult to express curiosity without some degree of courage. On a recent episode of “The Long and The Short Of It” podcast, they unpacked this quite a bit. While it can be seen in a handful of different ways, Jen summed it up like this:
“I’m not a mind-reader but I’m pretty in tune with people, and I can almost guarantee you that there are people in that meeting who have an idea when someone says, “Bring me your creative ideas,” but they do not have the courage to share it out loud.”
This is one reason I’m so fortunate to have Ali as a business partner, as her EQ can notice situations like this that I might miss. There have been multiple times in meetings over the years where she’ll pause at the end, and ask a specific person if they have any thoughts to add, knowing that they likely do. A quick “no” is an acceptable response, but often that little nudge is enough to get them to share, and the ideas can be amazing. Being able to notice that in others is a powerful skill, and it helps to be able to bring out the curiosity in people that might be lacking a bit of courage.
We won’t always have someone around like that to give the nudge, so building the courage to express your curiosity is something you’ll need to do for yourself. I encourage you to listen that episode of their podcast, as it’s short and excellent and it does a great job of unpacking this concept.
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