Getting Your Curiosity Mojo Flowing

At the beginning of some presentations at work, on of the Vice-Presidents, the one who initiated the projects, gave a bit of a talk and mentioned a couple/few books. One of these The Power Of Why by Amanda Lang caught my attention. As someone who is big on testing out potential scenarios on new programs 'what ifs' really, I liked the notion of asking why. They're similar questions, but Lang's is more about general discovery and at which point, or why we stop asking why. Since I often am told not to worry about the what ifs, I found that being encouraged to read a book about why would probably help me with my own troubles.

Turns out I'm right, but probably for the wrong reasons. I approach it in a way that should be more like asking why. Nonetheless, enough about me and more about this great book. Through some self-discovery, Lang realises that preventing ourselves from asking why at any level of our lives, but particularly in business, is posing more limits on what is possible than any other thing. She suggests that we are constantly needing to, in post-modern parlance, control/alt/delete and restart thinking from scratch. This ensures more well rounded responses, and seeing how what we do affects us and others, but from a different perspective.

In the first 150 pages I simply read. However, something she wrote must have triggered something, because suddenly I had a stack of blue sticky notes and whenever a 'why' about something regarding a process our company uses popped up, I'd write it down. The VP is going to be a bit surprised when I give him the sticky note filled book back tomorrow.

The point that Lang strongly makes though, and every example she provides supports it, is that we do really need to reconnect with our inner child, not only to have fun in our lives, but so that we can reduce the number of limitations we've set for ourselves without actually realising it. That by not limiting ourselves, we open up to a lot more of what's 'out there'.

One thing she did conclude is that often, we are best at fixing or creating things when we don't know anything about that thing. Successes breed in ignorance. So, if you're looking to fix something that you've no business fixing, don't stop yourself! Try to fix it, because all those who wanted to fix/create it before you, and know about that thing, are likely to have set limits. You on the other hand, don't even know you're meant to limit yourself. So have at it. In my opinion, the best advice ever.

I never thought I'd say this about a non-fiction business type book, but here we go: 5 out of 5 eurekas.