The Power of Curiosity

Harness the power of curiosity to multiply your communication effectiveness tenfold or more. Curious? Read on.

Every fisherman who ever tied a fly or crafted a lure knows the power of curiosity. Want to catch a wild animal? Use something that dazzles and dances to lure them in. Next to sex and flattery, there’s nothing more certain than curiosity to trap the unwise. Combine the three and you’ve got it made, right, Cleopatra?

Curiosity has driven our spread across the globe and into space. Penicillin was discovered because Dr. Fleming saw something weird going on in a petri dish and wondered what was happening. Coffee, in fact, was discovered by a herder who decided to find out why his goats were obviously having too good a time eating the berries of a certain bush. Perhaps the most profound human expression is, “Hmmmm….”

At the core of educational theory is the notion that you don’t actually teach, but rather you set up kids to “wonder why”. Curious kids self-motivate and self-teach. Raconteurs know how to keep the audience on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word in breathless anticipation– “And do you know what happened next?”

As living beings, we’re hardwired to guess what’s next. We’re helpless to resist novelty. Humorists lead us along to anticipate one outcome and stun us with another, the delight of the unexpected. Much of the appeal of music is in the brain’s trying to guess the next note and the next phrase. The arts rely on our curiosity.

The great Gordon Henderson often opened his cases thus: “Your honour, as of this morning, the law is against my position. Today we’re going to change that.” You could see the judges put down their pens, sit up straight, and give him their full attention.

So there you have it in a nutshell. We’re all hardwired to wonder, to explore, to experiment, to check things out. So why the heck do so many communicators open with platitudes, recite the obvious, and “conclude” by saying it all over again?

Open with a puzzle, a challenge, an oddity, or a ridiculous factoid. Make the reader or the listener sit up and furrow their brows, and in so doing give you 100% of their attention.

And do you know what’s next?