Boundless Curiosity
Boundless Curiosity
Introducing Boundless Curiosity
Prepare to embark on a fascinating journey with us on the first episode of the Boundless Curiosity Podcast. Your hosts, Brandon Smith and Jason Smith (no relation!), bring their unique perspectives to the dynamic world of leadership and human development. In this episode, they discuss their journeys into this field and how they are thinking about the podcast's design and mission. In doing so, they delve into the foundational role curiosity plays in personal and professional growth, and its broader impact on teams, organizations, and society.
We also extend a warm invitation to you, the listener, to join our quest for exploration and understanding as we collectively navigate the boundless realms of human experience and development. So, reach out and share with us at boundlesscuriosity@outlook.com. Your questions and. insights might land you a spot alongside us in a future episode. Here's to the curious minds and the journeys they inspire—until our paths cross again on the Boundless Curiosity Podcast.
Show Reference Material:
Celik, P., Storme, M., Davila, A., & Myszkowski, N. (2016). Work-related curiosity positively predicts worker innovation. Journal of Management Development, 35(9), 1184-1194.
Harrison, S. H., Sluss, D. M., & Ashforth, B. E. (2011). Curiosity adapted the cat: The role of trait curiosity in newcomer adaptation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(1), 211.
Litman, J. A. (2008). Interest and deprivation factors of epistemic curiosity. Personality and individual differences, 44(7), 1585-1595.
Mussel, P. (2013). Introducing the construct curiosity for predicting job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(4), 453-472.
All right. Hello folks, and welcome to the first episode of the Boundless Curiosity Podcast. I am Brandon Smith here with our co-host, jason Smith. Jason, how are you doing today?
Jason Smith:Brandon, I'm doing really well and it's really good to be here with you, and I like your shirt.
Brandon Smith:Oh, awesome. Well, thank you. I went to church this morning so I threw a button down on for the occasion. Yeah, so really excited about this first episode, Boundless Curiosity. I think today we're going to get a little bit into some introductions, talk a little bit about how we landed on the name Boundless Curiosity and, yeah, what else do we want to talk to these folks about today, Jason?
Jason Smith:Oh yeah, and you and I just barely talked about this a little bit where it's like, you know, since we're kicking this podcast off, we thought it would be good to just introduce ourselves and talk a little bit about like why we got into this, maybe give a little bit of a sense of kind of where this podcast might be going and then how it got its name. So, yeah, I think that that sounds, I think that's a good way to go forward here. Yeah, name. So yeah, I think that that sounds, I think that's a good way to go forward here.
Brandon Smith:Yeah, I love it, jason, and so with that, I'll challenge you go ahead and tell us about yourself, wrap up your whole life story. Give it to us in about 90 seconds 90 seconds when we had this idea.
Jason Smith:I didn't think I was going to go first, but yeah, you know. So, hey, my name is Jason Smith. Why did I say that? That's weird.
Jason Smith:I got into leadership development really because of like a good experience I had as a participant in like my first leadership development class that I was in, you know, when I worked for the federal government, got in there, was super burned out. I had no idea how burned out and out of sorts I was and it just reawoke like lots of pieces of me that had kind of gone dormant. I mean, like you know my heart, really, that like people focus that I had, you know it really did change the career, the course of my career, the course of my life, and it also led me into being a people manager and then also led me into the program that I had had such a great experience with, became an instructor and a facilitator, became an executive coach there and really fell in love with this work. And I think I fell in love with this work because I really get something out of helping people learn and grow, and I think that's one of the things that's motivating for me as a person is to always be thinking about like how can I get better, like how do I smooth out my rough edges? Because I've got a ton of them and I love being able to help other people do that too. So that's kind of a little bit about me, a little bit of why I'm in this space.
Jason Smith:You know, in terms of where my career has been you know kind of multi-industry, spent a lot of time in the federal government but then moved around the corporate world, academia, spent some time doing healthcare, and one of the things I've learned across all those industries is that, honestly, people are people and we tend to have the same kind of core human leadership, organizational challenges and that's been a really fun perspective to kind of build out. So that's me. I think I went over your 90 seconds, Brandon, and I bet you could probably oh yeah, you're looking at your watch, you could probably beat my intro, but I would love to hear a little bit more about, like, what do you want to share with the listeners of this podcast?
Brandon Smith:Jason, you did go over the 90 seconds but I think that's okay. It was very beneficial to hear that background and something I value as your diverse perspective, the different perspectives that you're able to draw into a conversation, and I think our listeners will really enjoy that as well. So thanks for sharing. I will share that my name is Brandon Smith, since you shared, your name was Jason Smith. Also share that we are not related, although we are both Smiths. We are professional colleagues doing some work in similar spaces.
Brandon Smith:And what would I want to share about myself? I'll just share that I have a passion for developing others, leadership development, thinking about how we have these ripples that we send out into the world and helping people be a little bit more intentional about how they're affecting those around you. You shared your experience of going through this program that kind of changed the course of your life. I think there's these small moments in our lives, in our relationships, in our interactions with others, that we really have the ability to, no kidding, change people's lives, and for me it showed up in a couple of different ways. I won't go too deeply into it.
Brandon Smith:I have a background in the military. I've shared with you, jason, very early in my adulthood, like 18 years old, I deployed to Iraq and had some experiences with some really great leaders and not so great leaders, and that really impacted how I think about leadership and the influence that it has on those around you. Only other thing I'll add I have my PhD in leadership and work development, so I really appreciate taking kind of evidence-based approach to the topic, and so I'll often bring in academic studies and some of the research around the topic as well. Yeah, I think that's all I'll say for now. As we go through the podcast, I suspect our listeners will get to know us just a little bit better.
Jason Smith:Was that a subtle hint for me to call you Dr Brandon Smith? Is that what that was?
Brandon Smith:You know I'd like to say that that doesn't do anything for me, but it's still new enough I've had my PhD now for about five months that I still enjoy the ring of it a little bit. But, jason, you go ahead and call me Brandon, I don't mind at all.
Jason Smith:Oh, that's really nice of you and you know, I don't know if I've shared this with you or not, but we might be related. My Smiths came in through Georgia and I had a family in a town called Tallapoosa, Georgia, which I believe is somewhere up north in Georgia, but I have to look on that on map. That might be incorrect. Yeah, I think that may somewhere up north in Georgia, but I have to look on that on map. That might be incorrect.
Brandon Smith:Yeah, I think that may be up north. The listeners may realize this, but I'm down in South Georgia. You might hear a slight southern draw. I've been told that I have. I don't hear it personally, but other people say that it's there.
Jason Smith:It's there and I'm in Virginia and I kind of go in and out, so I grew up in the DC area. But whenever somebody starts talking with a Southern accent that I go into some sort of odd Southern accent that I I I just kind of bring out for whatever reason.
Brandon Smith:Well, I am very eager to hear it, jason, so feel free to break it out at any point today during our conversation. But I think that's enough intros. The listeners will get to know us a little bit better as we go throughout the podcast. But let's talk about Boundless Curiosity. Why Boundless Curiosity? Do you want to tell the story of how we landed on this name? I just remember us kind of spitballing all these different ideas, and when I heard this one I think you came up with it I was like, yes, spitball and all these different ideas, and when I heard this one, I think you came up with it.
Jason Smith:I was like, yes, that is it. It really resonated with me. Yeah, you know that that it was. I remember a long and winding road of us, of us nailing down this name. I mean two pieces to it, right, so boundless and curiosity.
Jason Smith:And I think as we sat and chatted about, you know, if we were to do a podcast together, like, what kind of topics would we want to talk about? And boundless really fit to me where we are going, which was, you know, we've got this kind of lens of leadership, development, human development, you know, and really like not being constrained by that, because those, those topics are pretty broad in and of themselves. When we start talking about human development, we can spin that off into all sorts of different topics related to people, to organizations, to society. And so that's really why Boundless is in the title is we want this podcast to be big enough and expansive enough for us to be able to follow our interests where they go. And that leads us a little bit into the curiosity piece of it.
Jason Smith:So, you know, I think both of us were and I'd be curious on your recollection here but both of us were really interested in not having, you know, easy answers, I mean in really letting ourselves off the hook for, you know, having a solution here. Because I think where we're at, you know, not only in this field of leadership, development, human development, but, like I mean, it's really about exploring tough questions, that in complex questions and things that may not have easy answers, and that curiosity piece of it is absolutely critical if you're going to address some of what's going on in our world, in organizations, in leadership, and to be comfortable enough to come out of it and say like, hey, it's okay, we didn't come to an answer, but we did look at it in multiple different ways and we learned some stuff, and sometimes I think that's as good as it gets. But I'm curious what was your recollection of how we came to the name of this podcast?
Brandon Smith:So that idea of no easy answers is what really resonates with me. I think we have a tendency sometimes to go out and seek these solutions. I need to solve this problem. I'm having some challenges at work. My team's not performing or they're not engaged, or I'm not motivated. What is the band-aid to put on that particular problem?
Brandon Smith:But as we look at the challenges that we are facing, whether that's at work or as a society, there isn't an easy answer to many of these very complex and difficult challenges that we're faced with very complex and difficult challenges that we're faced with. So I really appreciate this idea of engaging and addressing these problems, not with here's the solution, but what are some questions we should be asking? How can we think about this? How can we draw perspectives in? And for our first couple of episodes, it's going to be you and me chatting about these things, jason, but I'm also looking forward to bringing in some diverse perspectives from people in our network to share other ideas, opinions and different ways of looking at things. What I appreciate about the banter that you and I have is we agree on some stuff, but there are plenty of things that you and I look at quite differently, and I think that really adds nuance to investigating some of these challenges and problems.
Jason Smith:I totally agree, and I think what Brandon is getting is sometimes I irritate the daylights out of him.
Brandon Smith:Fair, that is fair, Jason. Thank you for reading in between the lines. There You're welcome.
Jason Smith:I love where you're going there and you're right, I mean, we do look at things very differently and we do have a big area that we agree upon, and so I think that will create some really interesting conversations. And you know, I think what came up for me, where you were talking, is really a conversation that we had not very long ago. We were talking about, like ethics and how, I think, from my perspective, you know, that's an area that deserves a little bit of innovation and, like, at the core of many ethical dilemmas are like a right versus right choice, and I think that that's like that's really where we're at is. We have so many things that are important. They're all interlinked and, whether it's in organizations or in teams or in the way organizations interact with communities, it really takes good questions, a lot of curiosity to be able to navigate that space and do the most good as you do it, or maybe do the least amount of bad as you do it.
Brandon Smith:Great point, jason, and it does remind me of this idea of adaptive versus technical problems. It's work that HyFitz has done, so I won't go too deeply into it. But a technical problem is a problem that we could have an easy solution to. My car is broken down and I can take it to a mechanic and they can come up with for that particular challenge. But when you look at adaptive challenges, like challenges with human relations or ethics such a great example or maybe look at the social unrest or some of our political challenges that we're facing right now, that's an adaptive challenge because there isn't one easy solution to that and you really have to pull on a lot of different threads and different perspectives to think about how to navigate that particular challenge.
Brandon Smith:So anyone who's interested in learning more about that Ronald Heifetz has some really great work on technical versus adaptive challenges that I would encourage people to check out. But what I am curious about, jason, is we're thinking about and talking about curiosity, boundless curiosity, and I want to know from you what role has curiosity played in your life? How do you define it? How has it shown up for you?
Jason Smith:Yeah, really great question. And it's interesting because, as I thought about, like, how was I going to describe, you know, my relationship to curiosity? I mean, like the first thing is that it was kind of hard for me to own like being a curious person. And you know, I remember the first time I was told that was by a former boss and she was talking about, you know, one of the things that I kind of brought to the team. That was different and she's like you're just so curious and I'm like boy, I don't feel curious at all, I feel largely like kind of anxious and trepidatious and all of these other things, but like it made me think like how, like, what she saw.
Jason Smith:And you know, I like I am really curious about most things. I'm really curious about, like my experience of the world and my experience of other people and my experience of organizations. I'm curious about sort of what lives at the edges of what we understand, like in a whole bunch of different sort of spaces. I'm curious about, you know, where we are as a, as a society, like why things like are so icky these days, like, and how they get better. Like I'm really curious about, you know, what are the pieces that are coming to place, that are going to like make the future a little bit better than the present. And you know, I think that that curiosity has really like opened up a lot of avenues for me. So I, you know, I spent a lot of time with the federal government. I think it was my curiosity that was like what's it like outside of? Like outside of, you know, the big organization that I was a part of?
Jason Smith:you know what? What do people face in other organizations? What's it like to work there? Like, what would it be like to have a little bit more freedom in my career and you know that has made me make big life choices. I think there's a shadow to that as well. I think it also makes me a little bit. I can get bored really easy. I think I need a lot of like stimulation when it comes to that. But that's a little bit about my relationship to curiosity and just kind of a journey from not realizing that I am a curious person to really seeing it as being like a driver in my story.
Brandon Smith:It's fascinating to hear that you don't really associate with being curious, because if I were, if someone were to say describe Jason with 10 adjectives, curiosity, curious would certainly be one of those that I would use use. So I wonder what? What do you think that resistance is to just to describe yourself as curious?
Jason Smith:yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably something over done in my like, uh, trying to be humble. Maybe there's something there around, um, you know not, uh, not owning strengths and stuff like that. I mean, I see that in coachees, like it almost certainly exists in me as well, and there's something really important about being able to claim that. And so that was a helpful reflection to just think about that in our preparation for this recording today. And I would imagine, dr Smith, that a healthy degree of curiosity enabled you to push through and get that major achievement which is a PhD. But I'm curious. That was my story about curiosity. What's yours?
Brandon Smith:Yeah, I think it certainly played a role in pursuing the PhD, and I'll talk a little bit about what curiosity means to me, how it's shown up for me and maybe even some of the struggles. I appreciate that you brought out some of the shadow side. So when I think about curiosity, I think about it as the desire to know. I need to know this thing or experience this thing. I think that's two sides of curiosity information as well as experiences. Sides of curiosity, information as well as experiences. And I would describe myself as being very curious.
Brandon Smith:I like to read or, more likely, collect books. You see a bunch of books here behind me on the bookshelf. I'm constantly pick up one, read a couple of chapters and I'm on to the next thing, and I think it's played out for me very well. I think it helps with my relationships. I think it helps with my leadership style to be curious, to inquire, oftentimes more than I advocate, and I can also think of situations where it's been challenging for me, for example, in the military. I don't know if you've ever heard this term shut up and color. Have you heard that expression before?
Jason Smith:You know what? I don't think. I have this term shut up and color. Have you heard that expression?
Brandon Smith:before you know what? I don't think I have I've heard shut up or wait. No, hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait is definitely one, but the other one is shut up and color and, as it might imply, it's just do what you're told. Don't ask questions, just don't think, do what you need to do in that moment. And that's what a lot of the military experience is like, particularly as you're coming in lower ranked, and it was difficult for me not to ask questions, to ask about the why, and just follow those orders and directions. But there's certainly a time to do that, when you have to make quick decisions, when decisiveness is needed, and being in that military situation really allowed me to think about.
Brandon Smith:Maybe there are times that curiosity isn't necessary or isn't as beneficial, but in general I think it has benefited me. There's also been scenarios where I call it the shiny object syndrome of I'm working on a project at work and some new project comes along and I don't want to finish what I'm doing. I want to go work on this new thing over here, and it's resulted in me being a little bit of a dilettante. So instead of focusing in on a particular area, I dabble in a lot of different areas and that's something I've challenged by. But it might not surprise you to know that I did a little research in preparation for this episode and I found this interesting article that talked about curiosity might be driven by two different kind of motives and it's separated. This is research by Lippman and I can drop the resource in our show notes, but Lippman talked about that.
Brandon Smith:Some people are motivated to be curious because they're going to experience pleasure from things, learning more about things that they're interested in. On the other hand, some people are motivated to gather new information because they want to reduce the unpleasant experience of not knowing, feeling deprived of information. I think sometimes I fall into that category where I have this anxiousness about not knowing things about not. I have a PhD, so I should know about these things. So let me make sure I'm doing my research and I show up in a way that makes myself look smart. So curiosity can sometimes not feel good, I guess as a way to think about it, maybe there's some anxiousness associated with it. So I's some anxiousness associated with it. So I'm curious to hear how does that resonate with you? What do you think drives your curiosity? And certainly it can be both, and it doesn't have to be either or.
Jason Smith:Yeah, you know it's funny. You call yourself a dilettante. I call myself a dilettante to a friend in a text message, but then I misspelled dilettante, which I think reinforced my point about being a dilettante.
Brandon Smith:Anyway, what did it get autocorrected to, by the way?
Jason Smith:I have no idea.
Jason Smith:I think it was so far off that it didn't even have a suggestion. But, you know, like, yeah, what sparks my curiosity, like what's the desire to to know more, to like see beyond, like what my current understanding is, and there's probably like a little bit of like a like a cognitive itch that I get when I feel like I'm just really close to getting some sort of new perspective, or even like the glimpse of an answer, and I find myself, like, especially like in the topics that I love, which is, you know, like human development, like you know, I love things that don't have easy answers, like we've been talking about, and I find that it's something I need to be on guard for, because if I don't, if I allow myself, I'll go down all these rabbit holes, like I'll kind of torture myself in looking for an answer when there isn't one, and so, yeah, and so that's something I either. There needs to be kind of a bound on my curiosity sometimes, which is kind of ironic given the name of our podcast.
Brandon Smith:Yeah, bounded curiosity doesn't have the same ring to it, though it doesn't.
Jason Smith:Well, no, no, we've already had the logo made, so now we can't go back. Well, no, no, we've already had the logo made, so now we can't go back. But no, that definitely resonates and I'm curious from your experience, from your perspective especially. I love that conversation about like the military and how you know, in that role of you, know where you kind of keep curiosity at bay, you know, show up in color, but like what have you seen at work where curiosity has been helpful to teams, to leaders, like to this sort of space we're talking about now?
Brandon Smith:I see one of the biggest benefits of curiosity around so many. Let me pick one, though. If I had to pick one and start with one, it would be receptiveness to feedback. I think about curiosity and being receptive to feedback as very much related, and I've done coaching work, something neither one of us mentioned in our intro. We're both coaches. That might be pertinent for people listening to us to know, but in some of my leadership coaching work I've had leaders who receive feedback and they want no part of it. They're nope. That's not me. That doesn't apply.
Brandon Smith:This person, this person, this assessment, wherever they got the feedback from, they're wrong, Whereas someone who takes a more curious approach, maybe they don't accept the feedback right away, but they're willing to say, hey, what is this about? I don't realize this about myself. How could I find out more? Who should I ask? How might this show up? What are the situations? So I see feedback receptiveness as something very much related to being curious. That benefits leaders. How about you and the conversations that you have? Where do you see it popping up?
Jason Smith:Yeah, I think you're like totally, totally on it there with like receptiveness to feedback, because I think like, yeah to me, if you know, if you're, if you're curious about how you show up in the world, then like that, that's you know, then you're interested, right, like you're seeking out feedback, you're trying to understand, like how you're showing up with other people. I think one of the things that I've noticed in teams is that curiosity seems to be kind of emergent, so it's not something that you can be like yeah, we're a curious team, here's the way we're going to be curious. Curiosity seems to emerge out of people feeling safe and so, again, doing a little bit of preparation for this episode. That does seem to be the case where it's like tied to psychological safety, and when people feel safe, then they kind of open up.
Jason Smith:And I'm curious if maybe that's why some folks who aren't curious about feedback and are resistant to feedback I mean, maybe they feel threatened in some way by it and so it's just not available to them. But I think that's really interesting to me, that it's kind of a higher order of like of thinking, and so it's not something that if you're in sort of some fight, flight or freeze you're just going to be able to go into as being curious because your mind is somewhere else. It's on some probably some just basic like safety things, where it's like you know what's my role on the team? Am I secure here, like, do people think I'm like dumb or like not adding value, and you're not going to be curious in that state, so that I mean, that's one of the kind of how I see it and that's important to me as a former people manager and the leader, because I want my teams to be innovative and if we're not curious, there's no way we're going to be innovative.
Brandon Smith:Innovation is such a great call out, but I'd be curious to know, jason, what are some of those conditions. You've been on a team before where you really felt like you were able to show up, be creative, innovate, bring new ideas, versus teams that you did not feel that way. What do you think was the real differentiator or differentiators? What things were at play?
Jason Smith:There's a really good book by the guy who started Pixar named Ed Catmull, and he wrote a book called Creativity which is basically, like you know, the story of him founding Pixar, and they get into some of the culture that they try to create in the writer's room and he talks about how, you know, if you heard, you know, toy Story, the idea of it pitched early on, it would have sounded terrible, and especially given the technology limitations ahead of the time and everything like that.
Jason Smith:But, like, to me, the thing that separates teams that are curious from the ones who aren't is really the ability to nurture ideas, especially when they're like new and they don't look very good. And so Ed Catmull calls those ugly baby ideas, right, like they are fragile and there are lots of flaws you can very easily spot and then you can make, you can just and you you can make the idea go away really really fast and easily. But to me, that's one of the things that separates innovative teams from not, or the ones who can understand where they are in an ideation process. And when you're early on and you're trying to ideate, you know being able to see the benefit or see the potential in a new idea like that's huge and that's absolutely grounded in curiosity, because it's allowing you to look at it and sort of see what it has, rather than be like no, this will never work, or we tried that before and it's never going to happen again. That's so easy to do.
Brandon Smith:I love that idea of the idea being so fragile when it's first originated and how can you bolster that idea versus tearing it down initially. I want to back this up for a minute. So we're talking a little bit about curiosity at the team level. Let's go back to the individual level. So we're talking individual level curiosity. We see some benefits there around receiving feedback, maybe around innovating.
Brandon Smith:I pulled some research that talked about and I'll just hit a couple of statistics or data for us study by Harrison and colleagues in 2011. They tend to receive higher performance ratings. That was a study by Muscle in 2013. They also display increased divergent thinking associated with innovation. That was a study by Selick in 2016. So we see that curiosity has a lot of benefits.
Brandon Smith:But we also brought out the shadow side of it around maybe falling into analysis paralysis. I don't think we threw that term out there, but if you're always seeking additional information, maybe you're a little bit slower to make decisions. You have that shiny object syndrome where you're on to the next thing. So there is some shadow to curiosity also and it can be very situational of when you need it also, and it can be very situational of when you need it If you're trying to innovate, maybe you don't need it like a military type situation.
Brandon Smith:I described so a nuanced topic. But if you had to come to me and say, Brandon, curiosity, should I have it, Should I not have it, I would err to the side of, yeah, let's have a little bit of curiosity. It's going to benefit you by and large in most situations. Take it one click bigger, to the team level. We think that having especially the conditions for safety, that psychological safety where people can be curious, is very beneficial. We talked about some of the boundary conditions that might allow for that. But I want to take us one click bigger. When you think about curiosity, maybe at a societal level, how do you think that plays out? Is it important? Where might it be important? Where might it not be important? What do you think?
Jason Smith:Boy. I mean like then now, where it's like macro curiosity, right, Because it seems like I would imagine that it's hugely important. But I also wonder is it something that like it's hugely important? But I also wonder, I also like, is it something that like, it's probably not something you cultivate, like it seems to be something that like perhaps I'm like I'm just spitballing here, I'm curious, your perspective, brandon, but it seems to be tied to kind of where we are like in in our, you know, in our era, and you know, are we in a time of innovation? Are we in a time of great change? Are we in a time of innovation? Are we in a time of great change? Are we in a time of stability?
Jason Smith:I mean like, and there does seem to be two forces at work all the time, like, one of them is very much the let's preserve what is, and one of them is the very much like let's break down new barriers and move into the future. And I wonder if those two forces are connected to curiosity. And I think that opens up a whole bunch of different doors around like well, you know, if they are like, if they're curious in their own way, what does that mean? And maybe. If they're not, then like well, how do you spark more curiosity, you know, especially in areas that we know we need to improve? But I mean, what's your take? That's a big, macro, meaty question you just threw at me.
Brandon Smith:Yeah. So no easy answers, right? That's what we promised people at the beginning of the podcast. And there's a reason I asked you first, Jason, because I didn't want you to ask me first. I felt like I can ask Jason, I'll head him off, but I really appreciate your perspective that you brought in and you didn't name it this. But there's a polarity there, right? So this two opposite poles of stability versus change, I think as a species, we have this innate tendency to continue to question, continue to evolve.
Brandon Smith:You think about the way society and technology has continued to advance. If we didn't have some level of curiosity, we'd still be in caves without the will and without fire. So there is something innately human that drives us to innovate and I think that individually, we differ. If you were to think about personality, psychology and theory. Curiosity is embedded under openness to experience. That's one of the big five personality traits and we all differ to the extent that we're curious.
Brandon Smith:Some people like for things to be really safe and stable, some people really like to experience, like to innovate, and as a society, I think it has resulted in some really fabulous inventions and accomplishments. But you might even think about like a nuclear bomb, for example, people's tendency to push the envelope and edges of technology. And while nuclear technology doesn't inherently have its own value, it can be used for good in terms of energy, but we can see it can be used for mass destruction as well. The other area I see this popping up in is maybe around some of the political discourse. We're very much in a time, I believe, where we're surrounded by echo chambers of our own ways of thinking and I think social media, to some extent the algorithms that exist that continue to feed people similar ideas and information to what they already believe maybe further entrenches us. So I believe we could benefit a lot from having more curiosity and inquiry around how other people are looking at things.
Jason Smith:No, I love your, I love you going there. I mean clearly, clearly, echo chambers are the, the. I mean they're. They're really in service of the opposite of curiosity. They're in service of telling us that we're right and we don't have to question our opinion, whatever side of the political aisle that you're on.
Jason Smith:There's a really good book that's out there by a guy named Tim Urban who writes a cool blog called Wait, but why it's called? What's Our Problem? He talks about the functioning political system We've got progressives hitting the gas and conservatives hitting the brake and he makes an interesting distinction in there that I think brings curiosity to play. And that's like, regardless of which side you're engaged in, as long as you're engaged in what he calls high rung thinking, which is this place of like an idea chamber, you know, like, where you're like an idea lab is what he calls it, where you're like actively looking for new things, like considering new perspectives.
Jason Smith:And that probably allows you, whether you know, if you're on the progressive side, to say like yeah, let's move down this road, because this is going to be better, or if you're on the conservative side, to say like hold on a second, like we're not ready to go there yet let's tap the brake, and then you get into low rung thinking, which is very much kind of what you're talking about, and that's that you know the echo chamber where you're looking to basically say like, hey, I'm, I'm, I'm interested in preserving my own dogma, I'm interested in preserving my own belief system and I'm going to do it at the expense of anything new. And that is the opposite of curiosity. That is the opposite of curiosity.
Brandon Smith:It really is, and it seems so commonplace these days that it is troubling, and I think certain things in the system can lead to that. I think about certain political ideologies, or maybe even you think about a global event like COVID, when there was so much instability that people then seek certainty. And back to your point about as society. Maybe sometimes we're leaning into curiosity more and stability more. I think some of these macro trends that are going on in the world can lead to that and I think that's an excellent point that you brought out. But I want to bring us back down to earth a little bit more practically. We're kind of getting heady. If I were, let's say, I'm coming to you, coach, coming to you as a coach, coach, jason, I'm a leader and I have been struggling with curiosity. What are your tips for me? What should I be doing to exercise a little bit more curiosity and introduce this into my practice a little more?
Jason Smith:Question yeah, you know, I think the first place my brain goes as a coach is like well, what's your current relationship to curiosity? You know what gets in your way, like, what are your avenues to it? Like, where do you see it really thriving in your life? Where do you see it needing a little bit of, like you know, coaxing and a little bit more development? And to me it starts with that reflective piece which is kind of where we started with in this episode. But yeah, I mean like, what is your perspective on that? Like, how do you cultivate it? Or how would you advise somebody who's in one of your leadership development programs how to cultivate it?
Brandon Smith:I think it would go back to this idea that we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, and what I would encourage leaders to do is maybe spend a little bit more time listening, listening and asking questions and that's something, as a coach, we're both very familiar with is this tendency to ask good, open-ended questions, to draw out more from people. Sometimes it can be very easy to advocate for our own position and own ways of doing things, and certainly there are times that we need to do that. I need to advocate for this position, but more often than not, we can benefit from learning other people's perspectives and also allowing people to feel heard and respected and think about what they're bringing to the situation as we're making decisions or just moving about social situations. So that would be my advice Listen, ask questions.
Jason Smith:It's such good advice and that's something I noticed in our, in my coaching and in supporting, you know, folks going through leadership development and their own journeys. Is that like, at some point, bringing more inquiry into what you do, like that seems to pop up, like that seems to be like a door that we all need to open at some point, and I love you that you brought that out. So, as we sort of start to bring our conversation to a close today, I'm curious, kind of just broad level, like what are you excited about? Like where are we about where we're going with this podcast?
Brandon Smith:Fabulous question. I leave these conversations so energized and that's why I appreciate the opportunity to just sit down and talk to you and hear your ideas. Back to this idea of asking questions, learning from other people. So I'm very excited to just explore your thinking. As we're continuing to move through the podcast, we already have an idea of some of the episodes we wanna be recording. So some really impactful, interesting stuff, and also very eager to hear from our listeners as well. As we close out the episode, I will share our email address. So we'd love to hear from our listeners as well. As we close out the episode, I will share our email address. I would love to hear from our listeners what they're curious about, what they would like to hear. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. How about you, jason?
Jason Smith:Oh, I love that and I think that the engagement with the listeners. I think it's going to be so much fun to just see what other things are on their mind. I'm really excited to have these conversations too. Like I said, I think we come at problems from oftentimes the opposite ends, which I think creates a lot of possibility there. You know, and I'm really excited about, you know, exploring some of the edges of this field and just see where it might be like right for a little bit of fresh thinking, maybe a little bit of, like, innovation and development. You know, I'm I'm often surprised how how much we encounter, you know, ideas that are from, you know, the mid 20th century and they're still like there and and and maybe they they're just wonderful and they need to like, like we need to enshrine them, or maybe they need an update, like for our, for our complex times, and so I think that's one of the things I'm really excited about.
Brandon Smith:Speaking of needing an update, it's a fascinating point that, as the world is evolving, when you take these ideas back from the 50s, the 60s, while they may have served us well at that time, the world has changed. So how do we need to think about these things differently in our current times, with our current challenges? Fascinating, excellent point. So, jason, closing us out what has been left unsaid about curiosity that we need to say to close it out.
Jason Smith:Well, I think the big one is that we missed a Jurassic Park reference there, where it was something about you didn't bother to think if you should. You're only thinking if you could. But you're talking a little bit about like wisdom and maybe some of the shadow of curiosity, right, like I mean, do we want to open Pandora's box, like I think it was in reference to something nuclear, atomic, whatever? But anyway, that's a huge one, so we cannot miss any more pop culture references.
Brandon Smith:Jason, that is all on you.
Brandon Smith:The pop culture references that is not my area of expertise, so I will rely on you for those. But great, call out the Pandora's box, this idea that curiosity killed the cat, that sometimes maybe some things are better left undiscovered, unresearched, and we'll pull that thread a little bit, maybe in a future podcast. I know we are coming close to time for this particular episode, so today we've talked a little bit about curiosity, how it can be a powerful force for growth and innovation, but also some of the shadow sides around curiosity. I agree with you when you think about curiosity as a higher order of thinking. I really appreciate that you called that out and to some extent I think curiosity really moves the world forward. Our tendency to ask questions, to innovate, even sometimes when it's uncomfortable to do so, maybe in the face of fear we're nervous about something, this tendency to explore, question and venture into the unknown, and it's really what allows us as a society and even as individuals to push past our growth edges. So I've really enjoyed this conversation on curiosity.
Jason Smith:Yeah, same here. Yeah, thanks so much for um for getting us rolling here today and for uh for helping to kind of pull this all together. I'm really excited about where we're going.
Brandon Smith:Really excited. To Jason, and so to our listeners, I'll say thanks for tuning in. If you want to get in contact with us, you can. You can email us at boundless curiosity at outlookcom. Would love to hear your comments, feedback, any ideas that you have for future episodes, or maybe you want to hop on and join us and chat with us about something. Would love to hear from you if you're willing to do so. With that, let's go ahead and close it out, and we will be back with another episode in a couple of weeks.