When was the last time you ever said ‘Interesting !!‘ In the way that you express great astonishment and genuine interest in a new piece of information or experience.
So before I proceed selling you my life one word motto : Curiosity , let’s make this straight clear: curiosity did not kill the cat ! Yes, it did not. The origin of the metaphor was ‘Care killed the Cat’ since the Shakespearian days . It wasn’t until the last two centuries this awful phrase came to life : ‘ Curiosity killed the cat’. But luckily, and given the 6 lives left in that a cat the author Stephen King did a smart extension to the idiom: Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back.
I’ve been called ‘Mr. Interesting’ many times, in summer camps, college, and among some of my colleagues when I used to work at GE. ‘Interesting’ is a word of amusement and interest I use when being exposed to something new. And let me tell you, life is full of new stuff ! Even routine has the potential of introducing new learning experiences. No wonder I started my career in the automation industry, where dull, Difficult, and dangerous jobs are being automated and delegated to machines and robots.
Today, I enjoy working and volunteering with others in projects that might seem dull or I might be a little bit more experienced in doing. What a huge potential to kill my curiosity right ? Wrong ! It’s where I start exploring my mentoring, coaching , and observation skills.
Consider again when your kid start crying for the 100th time. Would it be a new experience that might help you explore doing something new with her ? O.K. that might be a bad example, it looks like I have no idea what is it like to have a child. Well, now I’m curious wither when I have a kid I’ll have access to an automated dipper changer … hmm ! See curiosity works on any example ! … Guess what key word I’m googling now in Google Patents ? Open it up on your own responsibility ! Interesting, right ?
Curiosity helped me explore new research areas I never thought they would help me out with my mission in life. I got interested in engineering after exploring electronics and instrumentation in high school. I got curious to learn how big corporations work and how could I add a value to what a corporation do, so I did. I found productivity tools are more relevant to what I would like to do in that company more than the detailed programing and configuration main work that was assigned to me, so I focused on that. I wanted to do my masters degree in engineering management degree, yet while exploring that I found human systems engineering is interesting to explore, so I did. Today, I’m researching a human systems engineering topic that relates to engineering management concepts and focuses on productivity and efficiency in critical situations like emergencies. It’s hard to describe how all of this fits together in one paragraph. But this journey of 12 years , since I did my first electronics circuit in 9th grade, fits together into one purpose. The verity of experiences added a lot to me. Such verity I would attribute to two things: My curiosity and the ‘American approach’ into higher education that encourages width over depth in what you study.
If you would like to learn more about more personal stories about curiosity. And how curiosity would grow a whole society, check out one of my latest talk at Ignite Corvallis 5:
