Cultivate Your Curiosity

I recently came across the following list written/compiled by David Heenan: Ten Keys to Life Fulfillment: 1. Listen to your heart 2. Take one step at a time 3. Deliver daily 4. Maintain a maverick mind-set 5. Focus, focus, focus 6. Never stop learning 7. Build a brain trust (network of knowledgeable people) 8. Reinvent Yourself 9. Sell Yourself 10. Start now!

I love this list. I love it because it is balanced-hard work and passion, practicality and faith. I love it because it's full of hope and belief and very focused.

These are all things I strive to deliver to my students and clients.

My belief is that we can have it all. We can have satisfying work that pays us really, really well. We can continue to grow and learn (at any point in our lives and careers).

The only thing I feel is missing from the above list which I most definitely am a proponent of is, 'cultivating curiosity'.

A lot of people struggle with stagnation later on in their careers. The edge just isn't there anymore and there's nothing really spurring continued advancement and growth. Lately I've heard from a number of my students that this is an issue in the financial services field. Many of the contemporaries of my students, as they approach retirement age, begin to find their hunger for achievement on the wane. I can't ever see myself truly retiring. A big part of wanting to continue my work in persuasion is that I have a constant curiosity about what can be improved.

Curiosity is something children have innately. When we are new to the world, we want to know what everything is, what is going on around us, why the sky is blue, how gravity works, who invented cake, etc. As we become overwhelmed with all that the world has, sometimes that curiosity wanes. But do you know why the sky is blue or how, exactly, gravity works, or who invented cake?

Curiosity is a desire to know and understand other people and things outside of ourselves which happens to be the exact same path to gaining rapport with our clients and prospects. I've definitely had periods in my life when I had no interest in what was going on in the world around me so in no way am I suggestion that having periods of introspection is not valuable, but our culture seems to nurture navel gazing, that 'me, me, me' attitude, with a bent toward pathologizing and psychologizing ourselves to an extreme.

Turning our attentions outward and soaking up what is around us has incredible value, especially where persuasion is concerned. Our goal as persuaders, especially as persuaders of an affluent clientle, is to learn, understand and know our clients in such a way that we can combine what we have to offer them with their view of the world, their criteria.

Pay attention to the details. When you're curious, you can turn the mundane into an opportunity to learn something.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.

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