Cultivating Curiosity
Kenrick Cleveland
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 is an awesome list. I love it because it's balanced and has passion and practicality, hard work and faith, hope and focus. . . It's got almost everything.
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'.
Many people struggle with a stagnation later on in their careers. Many of my students who are financial advisers have told me that as many of their contemporaries reach retirement age, they begin to lose passion, their edge is dulled, their achievement wanes. Maybe it's because I've found my calling and love what I do, but I think it's sad. I hope to continue to reinvent persuasion and continue to learn and grow way beyond "retirement age". A big part of that is my desire to cultivate curiosity.
Curiosity is something children have innately. When we are new to the world, we want to know what everything is, what is going on around us, why the sky is blue, how gravity works, who invented cake, etc. As we become overwhelmed with all that the world has, sometimes that curiosity wanes. But do you know why the sky is blue or how, exactly, gravity works, or who invented cake?
Curiosity is a desire to know and understand other people and things outside of ourselves which happens to be the exact same path to gaining rapport with our clients and prospects. I've definitely had periods in my life when I had no interest in what was going on in the world around me so in no way am I suggestion that having periods of introspection is 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 extreme.
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.
Pay attention to the details. When you're curious, you can turn the mundane into an opportunity to learn something.
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of wealthy prospects using http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in http://www.maxpersuasion.com/ persuasion techniques.
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