During our sessions with audiences globally, we often get asked a simple set of questions: What are the most important skills for the future? What are the things we ought to teach children today to prepare them for the future? What are the things we need to learn/unlearn to be successful in tomorrow’s world.
Of course, there are many ways to answer these questions — with the most common answer being: It depends. 😏
That being said, I do believe there is one skill we all ought to cultivate, lean into, and exercise regularly. The good news is that every living human being has this skill in abundance. The bad news is that most of us had this beaten out of us when we went to school: Curiosity.
A curious mind allows you to ask questions and, maybe even more importantly, to stay in the question. And as Tina Seelig, Professor at Stanford University, once said: “Questions are the frames into which the answers will fall.”
Personally, I love the German word for curiosity: Neugier (and not just because it is one of the few German words which isn’t 26 characters long). Neugier is a combinatorial word — Neu and Gier. Neu meaning “new” and Gier meaning “greed”: The greed for new.
If there is one thing which prepares you for the future, it is your greed for new. New insights, new information, new opinions, new stimuli, new ideas.
Channel your inner child and start asking “why” again.