Curiosity Cultivation
I recently came across the following list written/compiled by David Heenan: Ten Keys to Life Fulfillment: 1. Listen to your heart 2. Take one step at a time 3. Deliver daily 4. Maintain a maverick mind-set 5. Focus, focus, focus 6. Never stop learning 7. Build a brain trust (network of knowledgeable people) 8. Reinvent Yourself 9. Sell Yourself 10. Start now!
This list rocks!!! I love it. It's balanced and passionate and practical and focused and full of hope.
All of the items on this list are things I dedicate myself to day after day and things which I strive to bring to my students and clients in each lesson and each seminar.
My belief is that we can have it all. We can have satisfying work that pays us really, really well. We can continue to grow and learn (at any point in our lives and careers).
To the above list, I would add 'Cultivate Curiosity'.
Stagnation is something many people struggle with later in their careers. I've heard from quite a few of my students who are in financial services that as some of their contemporaries begin to approach retirement age, they lose a certain passion, their hunger for achievement begins to wane. This, to me, is sad. I hope to continue to learn and deliver and focus and reinvent myself until way past "retirement age" and I think a big part of that is to cultivate curiosity.
Children have an innate curiosity. When we're new to the world we have a curiosity about absolutely everything. Why is the moon following us? Why is the sky blue? Who invented ice cream? How do birds fly? Then we become inundated by school and maybe we become overwhelmed by all that there is in the world and a lot of times, that curiosity wanes. Who has time to figure it all out?
Curiosity is a desire to know and learn about people, places and things outside of our experience. This is suspiciously similar to gaining rapport with our clients and prospects. There have been times in life when I had no interest in what was going on in the world around me. I'm not suggesting that periods of introspection are not valuable, but our culture seems to nurture navel gazing, that 'me, me, me' attitude, with a bent toward pathologizing and psychologizing ourselves to an unproductive and unhelpful extent.
Turning our attentions outward and really soaking up what's around us, however, has incredible value, especially where persuasion is concerned. Our goal as persuaders, especially as persuaders of an affluent clientle, is to learn, understand and know our clients in such a way that we can combine what we have to offer them with their view of the world, their criteria.
When you are curious, you can turn even the most mundane situations into opportunities to learn something. Paying attention to the details is where our real persuasive power lies.
Article Source: http://www.search-raven.com
About the Author
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License, which means you may freely reprint it, in its entirety, provided you include the author's resource box along with LIVE links (without "nofollow" tags).
by: KenrickCleveland
Total views: 45
Word Count: 477
Rating: Not yet rated