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Engage deeply
There’s research showing that people who are curious, who ask questions are not just happier, they’re not just more successful, they also live longer. So there is a connection between curiosity and longevity. Another important element of intellectual well-being is not just asking questions, it’s deeply engaging with material.
That material can be text, a work of art, it can be nature. Now, the question is, how does that contribute to intellectual well-being? How does that contribute to overall happiness? When we primarily engage in speed reading, in scanning — which is mostly what we do when we go online and scan webpages. So when we go through the news or quickly read an article that we were sent, what we’re doing is we’re exercising very specific muscles, so to speak. Certain neural abilities are cultivated. And we neglect other abilities such as deep, slow learning.
Same when reading a contract. In order to gain deep understanding, to really get it, well, we need to practice. When we do not practice these muscles, these neurons, we pay a price when it comes to our business success and also when it comes to our relationships. Why is that? Because let’s say we do exercise these muscles, so to speak, well, then we’ll, when we meet a potential client or a potential partner, we’ll be able to better read that person, deeply understand who they are, what they are about.
Whereas, if all we’re practicing is a superficial kind of reading or engagement, well, we’ll only gain a superficial kind of understanding of who that person is. One of the reasons, not the only reason, but one of the reasons why we see so many relationships flounder today is because individuals fail to engage deeply with their partner. Because if, and this is a real statistic, we switch webpages every seven seconds on average, like, dislike, like, dislike, well, we do not engage deeply with texts. And then why are we to engage deeply with another person? We get bored. We want to move on, we want more stimulation. Whereas, if we practice deep learning, we’ll also prepare ourselves for deep or deeper relationships.
Slow down
It’s also important once in a while to slow down. It’s important for a manager, for a leader to do it themselves, and also to encourage their employees to do the same, to spend time, quality time just analyzing a certain business case, or perhaps a contract, or to read together and then analyze and discuss a literary piece or a poem. Now, these things seem tangential or perhaps unrelated to the day-to-day work. However, over time, what they do is cultivate better thinkers, cultivate more effective, more efficient, more productive, better employees.
Examine your interests
Spend a few minutes a day, a few hours a week, engaging with text, learn something that you are interested in, that you are curious about to identify what it is that we can engage with. Whether a text, a work of art, or nature. We need to ask, what am I most curious about? What do I really want to learn?
Now, when I say that to people, some of them say, “Well, I’m not really curious, or my child is not curious.” And my answer to that is that it would be the same as saying, well, my child or I am not hungry. Well, you may not be hungry now, but you will be later. You may not be hungry for broccoli and celery, but you are perhaps for chocolate and oranges. So identify what it is that you are curious about.
It’s in our genes, it’s in our makeup to be curious to want to learn. What do you want to learn? Identify it, and then study it. And whatever it is, no matter the topic, it will have a trickle effect on other areas in your life, from your business to your relationships.