A few weeks ago, I went back through every article I have written for this column. Not to edit anything or track what I had covered, but simply to read. And somewhere around the fifth article, I noticed something.
Curiosity was in all of them. Not as the main subject. But as a quiet ingredient running underneath. Adaptability needs it. Listening needs it. Design thinking is built on it. Teachability cannot exist without it.
Even the energy piece, the one about bringing 10% more than 90% of people, circles back to it. Every skill I have written about in the past six months has curiosity somewhere inside it.
Yet I never wrote about it directly. Until now. Most people think of curiosity as a personality trait. Either you are a naturally curious person or you are not. You either ask lots of questions or you don’t. And if you don’t, that’s just how you're wired.
I don’t believe that anymore. Curiosity is not a personality. It is a practice. And like every practice, it can be picked up, put down, and most importantly relearned.
Think of it like a door left slightly open. You don’t need to fling it wide. You don’t need to become someone who asks questions in every meeting or reads three books a week. You simply need to resist the urge to close it. Everything interesting enters through a crack. The warmth, the light, the new idea, the unexpected conversation, none of it comes through a locked door.
The problem is that something happens to most of us along the way. School rewards right answers, not interesting questions. Workplaces reward speed, not exploration. We start associating confidence with certainty, and certainty with closing doors. Before long, the door isn’t just closed. It is locked from the inside, and we have stopped noticing the draught we are missing.
I have met professionals with impressive titles and long CVs who have stopped being curious without realising it. They walk into meetings already knowing what they think. They read things that confirm what they believe. They have expert answers ready before the question is finished.
And I have met people who are technically junior, with less experience and smaller titles, who keep the door open. They ask one more question. They stay in the uncomfortable space of not knowing a little longer. They notice things others have stopped noticing.
Guess which group grows faster. Curiosity is not about being unsure of yourself. It is about being sure enough of yourself that you don’t need to pretend you already know everything. There is a kind of quiet confidence in saying “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” It takes more security to say that than to defend what you already believe.
Think of it like a muscle that has not been used in a while. It is still there. It has not disappeared. But it has tightened, shortened, forgotten what it was built for. Curiosity works the same way. It does not leave you; it just waits. And like any muscle, it responds the moment you start using it again.
Today, curiosity has become something else entirely. A survival skill. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can now give you answers faster than any expert in any room. What it cannot do is ask the right question. It cannot sense what is missing. It cannot notice the gap between what is being said and what is actually happening. It cannot follow the thread of a hunch. That is still human territory.
Think of it like a lighthouse and a ship. AI is becoming an extraordinary ship, fast, powerful, capable of covering enormous distances. But a ship without a lighthouse still gets lost. Curiosity is the lighthouse. It does not move, but it tells you where the rocks are. Without it, speed just gets you to the wrong place faster.
The professionals who are getting the most out of AI right now are not the most technical. They are the most curious. They ask better questions. They push past the first answer. They wonder what else might be true. And beyond AI – in strategy, in relationships, in leadership. Curiosity is what keeps you relevant. It is what lets you walk into a room and learn something instead of simply confirming what you already thought.
Rebuilding curiosity does not require a course or a framework. It requires one small shift.
Ask one more question before you conclude. When you think you understand something, pause and ask yourself, “What am I missing?” Read something outside your field once a week. Talk to someone doing work completely different from yours. When you meet resistance – in a conversation, a project, or an idea – get curious about the resistance before reacting to it.
Notice what happens when you do. Not just in your work, but in the way the day feels. Curious people do not get bored the same way. They find texture in ordinary things. They carry a kind of aliveness that has nothing to do with success or failure. Curiosity does not just make you better at your job. It makes the job feel worth doing.
Not certainty. Not credentials. Not the right title or the perfect plan. Just a door left slightly open, a lighthouse that never stops turning, and the willingness to keep looking for what the light reveals. Keep learning and growing.