I am obsessed with knowing why and how things come to be. Knowing how something works isn’t good enough; I need to understand the relationship between things and how it makes everything else in the bigger picture tick.
Looking to differentiate yourself from your colleagues? Be curious. Tell people what you’ve just read out of HBR, Wired, TechCrunch or a LinkedIn post. Always inspire people to learn more by showing them what’s out there.
Instead of checking your email 30 times more than you should – set some time in your daily schedule to read something new and make a habit of telling someone about it within 24 hours. Making a habit of actively revising your newfound knowledge will actually help you remember it for a lot longer than if you just skim over an article.
The benefits of infectious curiosity:
1. You learn.
Learning is a lifelong endeavour. It nurtures your mind and builds you as a person. If you want to have a growth mindset for the rest of your life and avoid stagnating, you must invest in your personal development. The only time you should stop learning is when your heart stops beating.
2. You become interesting to talk to.
The most interesting people are those with stories to tell. The ability to captivate an audience with your knowledge of fascinating tidbits is one that will pay dividends if you leverage it properly. People pay you a lot of attention when you talk about stuff that most people don’t bother to, specifically people of influence.
3. You inspire people of influence to think optimistically about the future.
There are so many problems to solve in the world and there are so many wonderful people working in these fields – take their insights and passion and spread the love by telling other people about it. By doing so, you become that positive person people want to relate to.
So where do you find all this interesting content? Simple. Let other people find it for you.
If used properly, your social media feed will give you all the best articles & readings you could ever hope for. The trick is to delete (or hide) the people who only post stuff about themselves (you know who I mean) and curate your feed with inspirational people who post a lot on social media. Some great sources include:
- Mark Zuckerberg: he regularly shares what he’s reading with the entire world
- Richard Branson: a regular blogger with keen insights about entrepreneurship and innovation
- Bill Gates: a keen social advocate, Gates is the epitome of entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist and his insights into both areas are incredibly interesting
- HBR Blogs: the go-to place for business content
- Quora: Yahoo-answers much more sophisticated, intellectual cousin, Quora is one of those places you could literally lose yourself in. Very popular amongst Silicon-Valley-ers, Quora is a goldfield of fascinating content.
Thank you for reading my post. Here at LinkedIn & on my personal blog, I regularly write about people management, digital & data. If you would like to read my regular posts, please click ‘Follow’ and feel free to also connect via Twitter, Facebook andimteazahamed.com.
Here are some other recent articles I have written:
- Connectors win in the long run
- EQ Insights from the Happiest Person in the World
- Building networks of reciprocity
- Sell Sell Sell – How to understand people
About: Imteaz Ahamed works in the eCommerce space for RB. At the tender age of 6, in the early 90’s his father bought him a 386 PC for $3000, the best investment he could’ve ever made for his son. Imteaz also mentors early stage startups & entrepreneurs from all over the world and is avid fan of hackathons. He is also StartupBus Alumni – the most intense 72 hour startup hackathon in the world.