Curiosity & 1 Year

Hello and welcome to episode number 52. That’s right.

I’ve been doing this for a full year, 52 weeks in a year of the Strategy Corner where our goal is to get you to take action. I’m your host, Michel Zink, the owner of Intentional Solutions Corp. You can see I’m so excited. I cannot believe I’ve been doing this for a year. I can’t believe it. Today’s strategy is all about curiosity. And I’m going to take it from a couple of different perspectives. And the first one is about getting curious about things that you’re interested in and doing it. If I wasn’t curious last year about connecting to you, my people, the owners, the managers or leaders, the amazing individuals out there, and sharing my message, I would have never created a podcast. I would have never done 52 episodes. If you can believe it. But I got curious. I thought, OK, this seems a really confusing complex. I can’t do it. Only these really amazing people do it. And then I realized, wait a second. I got curious, what if I did create a podcast? How would I do it? And guess what? There’s an amazing tool out there called Google. And you could type your questions into it. And it gives you answers.

And so that’s what I did. I typed in, like, how do you start a podcast? I looked at the people that I listened to and what services do they use. And I actually signed up for Pat Flynn. He owns ah, he runs several different podcast podcasts. And Pat Flynn is very successful in what he does, creating a podcast. And he actually does, um, and creates money as well. But I’m just looking at creating a podcast. And so I just signed up and did his whole class. Did his online program on how to start a podcast. He walks you through everything, like how do you start it? What services to use. Everything. And that’s how I did it. I just got curious. And then by being curious, I was able to find solutions and to get to where I wanted to be, which was to create a podcast. And now, 52 weeks later, I mean, I can’t even believe it to be honest. I have been doing it for a year now. I hope that I’ve gotten better at communicating through podcasts. But I also know that I would continue to get better in year two, year three, year four.

And so the key here is, if I wasn’t curious, I would have never done it. If I just would’ve thought, no, people like me don’t do that. I would have never created a podcast. And to be honest, I really enjoy it. I love getting on here and talking with you guys and sharing simple strategies because he gets me excited. I want you guys to live the best life you can live. And I know through doing things daily to help you move the needle forward is key. You’ve got to do it. And being curious is the way that you do things. And then also my favorite word is being consistent. But we’re not going to talk about that word today. Another way I want you to utilize curiosity is through being curious in people, right? In today’s day and age, we need to learn how to connect. My last podcast, I talked about connecting through listening. And this podcast is all about connecting through curiosity.

You know, you’ve got employees, you’ve got managers. You got an owner. Right. Your boss who you know, hey, Tommy, why didn’t you do that this way? Hey, that was the result we wanted. Why didn’t you get the result we wanted? Or an employee who’s questioning why are we putting this policy out? Another policy about how to be I don’t know what I was working in the corporate world. It was always about attendance, how we can get the hourly workers to get there on time, how we can make sure that people are at their desks at the appropriate time, etc., etc.. And so we used to come out with a bunch of different policies on attendance. And the big thing I learned was I had to get curious. I needed to be open to people who didn’t agree with me. I needed to see where they’re coming from. And the only way I got there was being curious. Because if you’re in a place of fear, fear that you’re not going to have the right answer, fear that they’re going to go complain to your boss, fear that you don’t know how to connect with them. Guess what? We feel fear and we shut down. Right. It’s a whole fight or flight thing. Either we’re going to get defensive or we’re going to shut down. And we’d want to do either one of those things, because if we want to, as managers, leaders, owners, connect more, have more of a human connection with people. We’ve got to get curious. We’ve got to make it not about us and to get curious.

Wow, that really is interesting, Sally, that you don’t like this policy. Tell me why. Wow. Dave, I thought we had an agreement that you’re coming in at 8:00 a.m. Why didn’t that work? Why weren’t you here on time? Wow, boss. I’m so sorry that we didn’t accomplish the goal that you wanted. Help me to understand how you would do it differently. How can we do this more effectively next month to ensure we get the goal we’re looking for? Curiosity is the key to creating a better human connection. I was just coaching a client last week who’s an amazing client, well all my clients are amazing, but they’re really a great bunch of people. I just love working with them and they’re learning how to communicate better. They’re learning how to engage with their employees. And the biggest thing I tell them is just to get curious because when you’re curious, your shoulders go down. You smile more. You’re listening. You’re more intent to hear what they’re saying. More contentious to ask questions. You’re more intend to realize that your goal of a leader is not to have the answers, but to have the curiosity to find out.

Maybe the policy that you created isn’t as effective or well-written as you thought. That’s really interesting. How would I change this? What did I hear my employees say? How can I possibly maybe hit the reset button and put out a new policy? There’s always an opportunity to redo it. There’s always an opportunity to start over again. But we only know how to do that if we get curious. Get curious, maybe why something like a sales opportunity fell flat. Get curious why the person that I emailed about an opportunity didn’t, you know, respond. Maybe go back and look at that e-mail, get curious about it. Did I word it properly? Did I miss a word? Oh, here I am. I didn’t even ask him to get back with me. Get curious. We want to connect more. We want to build more. We want to do more. Get curious. Don’t worry about having the answer. Don’t worry about what’s going to happen. Get curious. And getting curious is about getting uncomfortable being in a situation you probably want to leave because you’re just uncomfortable with X or not used to doing this. But the more you get curious, the more you sit with people who possibly have differing of opinions, who think differently than you, the more you’ll be able to learn and grow yourself and the more you’ll be able to decide what you want to take from the conversation, what you want to take from that interaction and what you want to apply and what you don’t want to apply.

But just get curious. That’s all I want you to do. That’s my call to action this week. Get curious. Someone says something you’re like, I don’t understand what they’re talking about. I wouldn’t have handled it that way. That’s really interesting. I wonder why they did that. Ask him. Get curious. Just ask him. Just see what they say. That’s it. That’s the call to action.

Get curious. Why? Because you want to connect more to humans. You want to have a higher level of human connection. And you get that by connecting and getting curious, getting curious. So I want you all to get curious and go to my Web site, Intentional Solutions Corp.com. I know it was a bad follow, and that’s OK. I want you to sign up to get my weekly newsletter that contains my latest blog and podcast. And when you go on there, you’ll be able to put in your email address and then you’ll be able to receive my seven actions to create a productive week PDF that you can download in your email. And it’s really useful because it helps you to keep focused and committed to creating the things that need to get done. The most important things and allow you to let other things just fall to the wayside that aren’t as important. So again, remember, through curiosity, things happen. I would have never started a podcast. I would have never started a blog. I would have never started a business unless I got curious. Until next time. Remember, through action and growth, progression happens. Let’s take action together. Thank you. And create an amazing week. Thank you for being with me for 52 weeks. And thank you for being you. Bye-Bye.