Curious Jo
A big part of the work of our lives – learning, un-learning, re-learning, remembering, resisting, resilience-ing (okay these may not be words, but definitely active practices) – comes down to our values. Defining, understanding, and embodying our values. The Rowan Strategies team has been having fun sharing our company values over the past couple weeks. They aren’t the same as my personal values, but there’s definitely some unsurprising overlap.
Curiosity has a prime spot on my personal values list AND the value of curiosity is essential to our work. And when it comes to shaping the innate human trait of curiosity – I have to give some flowers to the one and only, my amazing mom. Curiosity was nurtured by my mom in more ways than one.
First, the books.
My mom has probably read more books than anyone else I know. When I was a kiddo, Joanne always had a book in her hand, or if she was doing something else — almost anything else — she still had one still within reach. I love how much she loves books. I learned about the magical place called a “library” from her. I learned about the best places in our world to read without interruption (you sometimes had to hide). As a little one with lots of questions, she made me curious and excited to look for answers in books. I was very very lucky to have gotten matched up with a lifelong learner, a natural teacher – my Curious Jo for a mama.
But, books and the library were full of much much more than the seemingly infinite universe of important and unimportant facts and stats. They were full of stories.
Second, the stories are what really matter.
How curiosity showed up for her was that she was curious about people and their story, whether about the characters in her books or stories, or the happenings of the humans around us. She didn’t limit her curiosity to the pages, but to the experiences and opportunities happening around her. An example of how she engrosses herself in experiences - have you ever sat next to my mother watching sports? She is always full on into it, delightedly cheering loudly for the players or exclaiming loudly (a polite way to say cursing profanely) when her squad is under attack.
But not every story is constructed so simply as a sports game. There isn’t often a clear winner and loser, and there’s lots of learning to do on both sides. Learning as much as you can about the experiences of others involves still being curious, even when it’s easier to pick a side and stick with it.
In my early life, when my life felt un-ordered or difficult, it was always how she got me out of my own head. Jo comforted with Curiosity – with a whole scoop of empathy and kindness toward other people, not just her precious kiddos. She definitely did the comforting and soothing part too, but the best version of my mom met hard questions, childhood losses and moments of disappointments with a puzzled look and a thoughtful inquiring spirit.
“Oh, what do you think could be going on with that? Might it be that there is something else going on there that we don’t know about? They could be having a hard time about something else and we can’t know what struggles other people are going through…”
And so on. Oh wait, was that just my early life or our most recent conversation? (Again, relearning is real).
The world is a big place with lots of stories, and my mom made me want to read, listen, learn and share in as many of them as possible. I’ve been listening to the amazing podcast where Julia Louis Dreyfus interviews women about their lives, and one of the treasures is how while so many women share wisdom they’ve learned through their life, AND share what they are still learning and curious about. Curiosity is a life-long driver – and for its central place in my life (and in my business!), I owe my mom a huge thank you.
I’m so curious about all the things you’re going to learn about in the next chapter too. Love you to pieces, Curious Jo. Sending you May flowers – and Happy Belated Birthday and Happy Early Mother’s Day!
What are you naturally curious about? How do you foster curiosity? How does your work foster curiosity?