Curiosity and Six Honest Serving Men

In this post I want to go through one of my ideas on what makes an individual effective during brainstorming - what makes some people more creative than others…

One competence that any creative person should have is a vivid sense of curiosity. I think it was Emerson that once said “to the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind the whole world sparkles with light”. I like this, it sums up how a curious person will feel compared to someone who walks around with the weight of the world on their shoulders, constantly looking at their feet and consequently missing out on a whole raft of opportunities and stimulants. If you walk around looking at your feet, sooner or later you’re going to bump into something and fall flat on your face… Sure, if you’re doing the opposite and always looking up at the sky, the rooflines of buildings, at the faces of passers-by, at some point you might trip over an unexpected crack in the pavement - but you’ll go down happy, illuminated and full of reasons why to get back up again…

So, to be curious we need to be receptive to the world around us. Soak up information, seek out new knowledge - have you ever come across a word you didn’t understand - did you look it up in the dictionary or encyclopaedia? Why not, with the advent of free online encyclopaedia like Wikipedia, there’s no excuse. Aim to learn at least one new thing every day.
The best learners are our kids. They also happen to be the most creative individuals on earth. Copy them - lock up the adult brain for a while and let out the child in you. Do your kids drive you crazy with the constant question of “why?” … Try using Serial Questions such as “Why did X happen? Because Y happened. And why did Y happen? Because Z happened. And Why did Z happen? Because… (etc…). At some point the damp squib will run out of excuses and reasons as to why not. Next time you come across something you‘re told is “just so“, ask yourself the 5 W’s and an H. Kipling put it better than I ever could so listen to what he says:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I know)
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who
(Kipling, 1902)

You’ll annoy the hell out of the people your asking the questions of but remember what you tell your kids “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” and in this case it’s knowledge and inspiration we’re after…

Right. There’s lots more on my website about Curiosity and how to engender it into our everyday lives, but in the meantime I’m going to leave you with a quick win, something you can do right now to make yourself more curious and hence more effective in brainstorming…
Make room to give yourself 20 minutes of undisturbed time. Sit down in a quiet room, or better still your favourite location - at the beach, in the forest, in an empty football stadium wherever… Sit and listen. What can you hear? Now really focus on listening. Close your eyes so you shut down one of your other senses. Listen hard and carefully. After a period of time you’ll start to hear a multitude of noises you never heard in that place before. You can repeat this exercise using your other senses - really study your favourite painting, building, photograph or even your living room floor. What can you see that you couldn’t before. Try examining a peanut in its shell for 20 minutes. You’ll be amazed at how complex it’s structure and texture is. The idea here is that you’re training yourself to be receptive to your environment, to see and hear stimuli that you’d missed before. So, when the next great idea or inspiration comes along, you’ll see it before anyone else does…

Be curious.