The seed of curiosity | 3 min read

Hey, what’s your name?

Hope your Sunday is a sun day and you’re enjoying the time for yourself.

The story

My dad showed up to my kid's baseball game and asked how the new job was going. "Honestly? I'm overwhelmed," I said.

"No, you're not. It's not overwhelming. It's just challenging."

Thanks, Dad. Nothing dissolves a feeling like being told it isn't real.

(For the record: the job is fine. It's the freelance work I never stopped doing that’s turned into midnight finish lines. Now, the workouts have stopped, and my only real joy is two hours in a folding chair watching my kids play ball. He didn't know that.)

When we were leaving the park, he started down a steep hill. As someone who had a hip replacement, it’s harder.

“This is bad for me,” he said.

To which I replied, “No it’s not, it’s challenging.”

He paused and gave me a look. He knew he was busted. He realized what he had done to me.

So why do we do it all the time?

You cannot talk a person out of how they feel, and you usually can't talk them into changing either.

The harder you push a conclusion at someone, the harder they hold the opposite.

It’s called reactance.

To do the opposite, to help someone change, there’s another approach (after you validate their feelings, of course, as we talked about in “everybody’s got their shit”)

In one study, people who were asked to come up with their own reasons for a behaviour had more positive attitudes and a stronger intention to follow through than people who were simply handed the arguments.

The same pattern shows up across health and habit research: a poster that asked "Why would you choose healthier food?" tended to move people more than one that ordered, "Choose healthier food!"

It’s so stupidly simple, it’s humbling.

As humans, we're wired to stay consistent with our own arguments.

If I reach a conclusion myself, I'm motivated to act on it, because it's mine.

Your conclusion, however correct, is still yours. It bounces off (here’s the science behind choosing to do the right thing yourself)

Swap judgment for curiosity.

It changes the whole temperature of a conversation.

A curious question opens up a more balanced, compassionate view; a judgment strips out the details that actually matter.

My dad saying, "You're not overwhelmed," immediately invalidates how I feel.

"What's making it feel that way?" hands me a shovel and lets me dig into myself. It plants the seed of curiosity and allows me to turn inward and wonder why.

So instead of don't and you're wrong, you plant a seed:

• I notice you do this, why?

• I'm curious about when this happens, this other thing happens, any reason?

• I ask, “What's going on for you?” Tell me. I’m interested.

No verdict, no attack, just a door they can walk through.

My dad wanted to reassure me. What I needed was for him to ask one more question.

The Pebble

So hard, yet so simple

The challenge
This week, catch yourself right before you correct someone: a kid, a partner, a coworker, your dad.

Swap the verdict for a question. Instead of "You're overreacting," try "What's making this feel so big right now?"

Plant the seed. Then, and this is the hard part, listen long enough to let it grow.