In a world so intent on knowing the facts (or fake news), # lifehacking our way through life, and looking for spoilers of the next Killing Eve episode online, Curiosity seems to be thrown into the non-essential basket along with single use plastics and the leftovers of my bad cooking. We don’t want to guess or wonder, we want to know. Knowing is safe and comfortable, even if it’s wrong, whereas curiosity is dangerous. It leads to the unknown… Curiosity killed the cat after all. But really, curiosity is essential to creation, to connection, and to life, which is why it’s so foundational in coaching.
Curiosity and Knowing have two very different energies. Knowing feels grounded but heavy and has an often times cocky, entitled, ignorant attitude. It’s all about the talking. Knowing feels like a door that requires a secret code to walk through. Curiosity; however, is light. It’s forward leaning. It’s inquisitive, childlike, and expansive. It’s an open window and all about the listening. Curiosity is finding the end a piece of string and following its trail around corners, under bushes, and into trees, just to see where it began, who left it there, and why. Meanwhile, Knowing is finding the end of the string and tugging it yard by yard standing exactly where you found it until you finally reach its other, now worn for wear, end. Curiosity is allowing the journey to unravel in front of you, savoring the discovery of the landscape while Knowing is being so focused on the outcome, that you’ll never discover how the piece of string got there in the first place. In Co-Active Coaching, Curiosity is a required skill to bring to the coaching relationship. A coach should assume to know nothing about you, what your lived experience is or where your dreams can take you. We’re not the experts on you, you are. We’re just accompanying you on the journey to your self-discovery and it is our Curiosity that allows us to start in one direction, continue on, take a 180 degree switchback, climb over a rock, and dip into the stream until you get a new perspective on something. We ask one Powerful Question after another so that you can lead the way into yourself, your longings, and your most powerful life vision.