Why Curiosity is Your Key to Freedom

How can curiosity liberate us in our lives, leadership, and relationships?

We all get stuck, feel shame, become paralyzed by fear, and shrink under the weight of insecurity. But what if one pursuit could free us from all of these maladies? What if we could learn one approach that could - like eating the cookie in Alice in Wonderland - make us feel strong, confident, and free? We think we have the answer. Tune in to today’s episode. 

Transcript

(00:00:01):

Maybe cause I was so curious Amy about knowing about other people, but I wasn't curious enough about myself. Like I, I should have been, you know, asking more questions about myself and then I wouldn't have been. So like, this is the way you're supposed to live your life. And, you know, cause I had a mother that I really thought was Hollywood. Like she was so fab and she walked around with everything. So prim and proper. And so I was my mom, I created my mom's image, you know, and I had to be that perfect person. So whereas I was looking at everybody else who was free to live their lives. Like all my girlfriends, I wasn't free in five for me. [inaudible]

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Hi, this

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Is Adina here with today's episode of courage, to be curious with Adina Tovell, our weekly podcast show, which is replacing our previously named podcast show wonder you're way too brilliant. Instead of replacing, maybe we just call it a continuation. So when you subscribe to Courage to be Curious with Adina Tovell, you will get all of the wonder, your way to brilliant podcast episodes. We are in the month of July and we have been talking about the relationship between freedom and curiosity all month long. If you missed our previous episodes, you can go back and listen to them. But today's episode. And the fourth episode in every given month is a conversation with some of my courageously curious peers and colleagues. And today I am absolutely thrilled to have two of the most curious women I know together with me on the show for what has to end up being an amazing conversation because when you put three intensely curious people together, how could you end up with anything else?

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No pressure, no pressure. Right? So let me just take a moment to introduce my two guests here. And so the first guests I have, and for those of you who are listening, you're going to hear about them. If you're just dying to know who are these people and you want to have a visual, you can hop over to our YouTube channel where the video of this podcast is also available and you can see them in full life color. But our first guest is Amy styler, who is a professional perspective. Shifter. I love that. That is awesome, Amy. And she is an emotional intelligence coach and consultant. And I absolutely love Amy. She is one of these people when she saw courage to be curious on LinkedIn, she reached out and said, I have to know this person and we could not stop talking ever since. So Amy, it's so great to have you here

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To be here. Thanks so much for having me.

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And our second guest is Carlos shell Ali. And as you might see as a theme for me, when somebody comes in, who really like has the curiosity thing, it's like, that's what happens. We just start and there's no stopping. So Carla, I met actually, because as those of you who listened last year might have heard, we interviewed somebody who she works with at SEPTA, the CEO of SEPTA now Leslie Richards and Carla arranged all that, organize that because Carla is the chief officer of integration communication programs at SEPTA, which means she connects people and she does a remarkably good job of connecting people as she did. So as we were setting up to talk to interview, Leslie, and we had a great conversation, if you missed it, go back and find it. But Carla and I just could not stop getting curious together about curiosity. We just started talking and it hasn't stopped since. And so Carla, it's so exciting to have you here. Well, thank you for having me Edina and I promised both Carla and Amy, that I would let them elaborate on their introductions by responding to the following question. When is it that you first knew or acknowledged or felt really connected to the fact that you were a curious person? And so Amy, I'm going to start with you. When did that, when did you, can you imagine that first happened for you?

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No, it wasn't that long ago. Um, I had a conversation with a friend of mine this weekend. She and I came up through coaching training together and I was telling her that I was going to be doing this. And she said, oh, that's a perfect fit for you because you're such a naturally curious person. And I was like, actually, I'm not like I was raised to not ask questions. Like it wasn't polite, especially if a question might ask someone to reveal something about themselves or make them a little uncomfortable. So asking questions was not my thing until I finished coach training and began to coach and realized that the only way to succeed at that was to develop this, you know, a wide ranging, um, curiosity about who people are and the language that they use, the things that they say, the things that they do and see if I could get below the surface on the things that I was just, you know, sort of see. So it, I want to say it's within the last 10 years that I recognize that I have that capability. It wasn't like, oh, look at me, I'm a curious person. That's like, oh, look at me, I've worked, develop this curiosity. Why is it working out well for me?

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And what's nice about better. I like listening to the story because it wasn't so dissimilar from my own experience where I was always acknowledged for all the answers that I had for doing well in an academic environment where it was all about the answers and not about the questions and very similarly for me. And he is when I went to coach training and suddenly opened up this world of what a really powerfully or well-constructed question can do and sort of unleashed that curiosity. And it hasn't gotten the plug back put in yet or put back in yet.

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What about for you, when did you first acknowledge or know or become aware of your own sense of curiosity? I think for me, um, I'm like, I think I've always known ever since I was a little girl because I was always asking questions. I was always, and it just, it seemed like I was just interested in knowing what people did for a living or, um, what made them the personality that they are. I was always watching people. I was curious to know. And there's a difference between Dina curious and nosy, you know, cause nosy, I think nosy is kind of meddling and curious is kind of where you're excited truly about finding out more about that person. So I used to, as a young girl, like literally cross my arms like this and just ask all these questions. And, and I think that I knew that there was a word for it, but I don't think anybody defined it until I really got to SEPTA.

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Believe it or not. It was the last general manager at SEPTA who says, gosh, you're such a curious person. And it was like, boom. It was like, you know, like, and I was like, you know, and it made me think that, oh my gosh, that's what it really, it is. It's um, it was, it was that. And then of course I meet you and then you have this whole thing, you know, about being courageous and curious. And I was like, wow, I found my place now because I can absolutely say this is what or who I was all these years. And so I guess that's why I went into broadcasting because I was always asking questions and always wanting to know about things as a reporter and all those kinds of things that I did over the years. And I think that's, that really is, is, is who I, who I was just never knew it.

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I love that. And I remember the first conversation we had, Carla, when you said like, oh my gosh, like, yes, curiosity, I did all these things and I didn't really know what it was. And then we started to talk more and you're like, I love that. There's now this label. And I love the label of being a curious person. It's like being diagnosed, you know, like, you know that you have something and then it's like, Dr. Dina comes in and tells you that this is what your prognosis, you are going to live. Carla, you are going to live. So yeah. Spectacularly and courageously because you've got it right. You've got right. Absolutely. So that's actually a really good transition into our next question that I want to ask each of you, but how has curiosity really impacted or transformed your life? We're going to be talking the whole rest of this conversation about the way that curiosity can be a catalyst for freedom, freedom in life, freedom in leadership and freedom in relationships.

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And so, you know, I'd love for you to just be able to share one really poignant way in which your own sense of curiosity has really transformed you up until this point. So, um, Carla, let me ask you to start. Yeah, I think it's just liberating for me. I remember just not too long ago, about a couple of years ago, holding, um, a family secret, um, can't tell you about what that was, but there was nothing that happened to me, but I was keeping a secret for another family member and I knew it was something that would be impactful, um, later on in my life. And I was curious too, to see if I, if I kept a secret and didn't tell anybody what would be the impact of it. And, um, and it was for years that I, I did this. And finally when I let that secret out and told what and stop trying to protect that particular family member, and I let that out, it was just like, so freeing for me, you know, it was just that, that curiosity of what it felt like to keep it, um, bottled up and the impact that it would have later, it actually was liberating just to let it go, you know?

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And, and, and, and then asking myself all these questions as to why did I keep it? And, you know, um, it was just kind of an unveiling of myself. Um, you know, just why I would hold onto it for so long. Um, and you know, it just helped me to kind of grow up a little bit and just, um, the, you know, it's hard to kind of say what it is because you don't want to say what the secret was, because it does impact someone else's life, but, you know, keeping all of those things inside of me for all that time, and finally letting it go and help, help, you know, liberating that was, and by asking those questions of myself, made me more aware of, um, uh, just, just why I would do it. This is why I did that. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it sounds really the powerful thing is that the curiosity became the growing catalyst for you.

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You know, it was first, I should keep, you know, I'm keeping this because I said, I would keep this. And then you became curious, why am I keeping it? What impact is that? Having what might be the impact? If I do something differently, I did do something differently. What can I learn? And so your questions became this catalyst. And what I was thinking to myself, as you were telling the story is that you could have gone in afterwards to either beating yourself up. Why did I do that? And being angry with yourself, right? You could have gone into some shames three, you could have gone into something and you chose to go into curiosity and you felt liberated at the end badly at the end. And that's really powerful. Yeah, it was, it was definitely a moment where I was thinking to myself, gosh, you, um, I, I grew up in, in a matter of days because of that, you know, and just, I can't even tell you, it just, it was so freeing for me that, um, looking back on it, just like what you said, Edina, it just made me think that, um, if I had told him earlier that it would have been, it would have been tough.

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It would have been finished, but holding on to, it just helped me to know more about myself, I guess that's what it is. So that was a good thing. And having to forgive myself too and having to forgive myself. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, even as it's a very sensitive place for you. Yeah. Yeah. So, Amy, what about for you? How what's one example of a way that curiosity has transformed you or you've been transplanted by curiosity?

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I have to make this connection before I start, because I mean, the first thing that Carlos said was, you know, how free it was, how liberating it was. And I'm noticing already how inextricable curiosity is from freedom. And, you know, I have this hypothesis that I want to test out today with us, that that curiosity is really the ultimate key to freedom. I mean, it is the way that we free ourselves from so many things, because that's thinking about today. I was like, wow, there's so many things that I have freed myself from. I going to curiosity. So I'm going to answer your question in terms of how it's changed my life. I use it as the cure for judgment. I mean, I grew up in a very judgmental home. There was a lot of contempt for other people. And, um, you know, I hope I'm not bearing too much soul here, but this is how it was for me.

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Right. So, you know, in our family, it was sort of a thing where we wanted to feel like we were better than other people, and that helped us deal with our own feelings of smallness or whatever it was that had been passed down through the generations to me. And there was, I had such a distaste for it at some point, it just wasn't my natural state to be that way. Um, and yet I was that way, very much growing up, very sarcastic in my teens. And I will tell you that switching to curiosity has opened up friendships and depth of relationship that I could never have had any other way. So for me, it is the way that I have, um, created relationships that are so solid. And so like, there are some people in my life that we would do anything for each other and more than I ever thought there would be not tons and tons, but like when we had a house fire, there were two families that said, come live with us, who does that? Right. Come live with them. That's pretty awesome. But I think all of that came from wanting to know who they were over the years and giving them that glimpse into who I was and who we were, my husband and I as a couple. So I would say cure for judgment, um, sort of that freedom, uh, from the heaviness of walking through the world that way.

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So since we're sort of in the live segment, we're just like kind of flopped ourselves right into the live lens of focusing on, um, the relationship between curiosity and freedom. I'm curious Amy, about what it is, what was your relationship with friends before you encountered curiosity? And very much, because I think of my own personal experience, you know, not so dissimilar where there was so much judgment. I had a very hard time sustaining friendships because that judgment thing and the comparison lens, you know, always comparing myself to them, instead of being curious about me or curious about them, there was so much comparison, so much judgment that it really made it difficult for me to get close to people. And I'm curious as to what you are, if you was your experience of that similar, how would you describe what was going on for you?

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Absolutely similar in a way that I would frame it up now with all of this stuff that I know, because I've trained for 10 years as a coach, is that curiosity frees us from the story that we're making up in our heads. Right? So the way that my relationships were harmed was that I would make up a story about what that person, you know, how they done me wrong and they all done me wrong. And I was single until I was in my late thirties. I was 39 when I met my husband. We didn't get married till I was 41. So I could not sustain a romantic relationship for all of those years because I had a story about how they'd done me wrong and you know, what was all their fault. So when I switched to curiosity and I can say, okay, what's my part in it.

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When I switched to curiosity and I could say, well, what else might be going on if I switched to curiosity? And I actually asked the question, Hey, what's happening here? You know, this is what I'm observing. Um, and the story I'm telling myself is this, can I check that out with you? Everything changes. So I think my experience was similar idea that, you know, it's really hard to get close to someone, if you can't separate yourself from the stories that you naturally make up back and say, well, let me just get curious about this for a second. Write myself out of the, the middle of the frame, so to speak. Yeah.

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Yeah. And I think for me, I, I, I, my, I had people like I was a magnet for people. Like everybody kind of wanted to be around me because I was so curious Amy about knowing about other people. But I wasn't curious enough about myself. Like, I, I should have been, you know, asking more questions about myself and I wouldn't have been. So like, this is the way you're supposed to live your life. And, you know, cause I had a mother that I really thought was Hollywood. Like she was so fab and she walked around with everything. So prim and proper. And so I was my mom, I created my mom's image, you know, and I had to be that perfect person. So whereas I was looking at everybody else who was free to live their lives. Like all my girlfriends, I wasn't free in thigh for me. So I put this undue pressure on myself to be this, this, this apitomy of perfect. Like I couldn't make a mistake, you know? And I carried those even, you know, I, I try to not do it now, but I do. I, I, I try to, everything has to be right. And, and I don't know how I developed this over the years. And my mom, she screwed up all the time. She said, she goes, really, you were looking at me like that. And Michael. Yeah.

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And so she kind of was like, I, I take that back cause that's not true, but it's just the image I had of my mom. You know, instead of asking her more questions as I was growing up, you know, like, do you try and do you, do you feel anxious or do you feel fearful? And all those questions that I should've been asking my mom, because that would have helped me to develop as a person. I was asking me all of my friends and my friends were loose. They were like, you know, Hey, you know, that kind of thing. And I was, I couldn't be that way because I always felt like I had to have this image. And, um, yeah. Yeah.

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I see them all the time in my practice. I think I was the same way to, you know, again, what we're talking about. Freedom, I think curiosity is the key to freedom from perfectionism, right. Is the way we can let go of all I got, I get the Carlos,

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I just want to like, underscore two things. You said you started out and said, I was like a magnet because I was curious and just socially. Right. That's totally what I've discovered too. People want to be in your presence if you're curious about them, you know, when we're asking about them, when we're helping them to know that they're interesting and that they're brilliant in their own ways or they're intriguing. Right. That creates magnetism. And sometimes I, you know, I didn't realize that that was a big reason why I was struggling in relationship. I was so self concerned, but I went as then asking anything about anybody else. Right. And then you said this piece about, but I was curious about everyone else, but I wasn't curious about me. And I see this, you know, too a lot is that this idea of a balanced scale, right?

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Some of us are so much more comfortable being curious about other people or serving other people or doing for other people, all of those things, but when it comes to us. Yeah, no, right. No, but like anything else, and I will always forever quote Rodney, ye the person who kind of taught me yoga over the 15 years that I was raising my children. You know, life is about a dialogue with balance. And I kept that in my mind, in my heart. The, no matter what we're doing, it's think about what's on the other side of the balance scale and are we balanced in the two things? And so anything even being curious, am I equally curious about myself as I am about someone else and how that can create a really healthy experience in the world? Oh, I've never even wore my hair like this.

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I mean, in broadcasting, this is not acceptable. Do you know, like even getting to hold in my ear was kind of like risque for me, you know, it was like had to get more curious about what if I did and what if I do. And that's how I got past it. It was being courageous to be curious about me. Awesome. So we've talked a lot through the life lens here, you know, how can curiosity free us in terms of our lives, each of us sharing in some ways, our own personal experience with this, all of us also work with leaders. I mean, SEPTA, you are excepted correlation. You know, you work with leaders there, Amy, your entire coaching consulting practices, really working with leaders. And so I wanted to delve in a little bit and talk about, because there's so many different lenses here, how does curiosity free someone in their role as a leader? Like what's the relationship between curiosity, leadership and freedom. So Amy, you know, take it away here. What have you noticed?

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I think the biggest freedom is the freedom from having to be right. You know, and I started, I grew up, I had to be the smartest person in the room if I was wrong, like there was something wrong with me. I mean, I've really had a hard time with that for a long, long time reading Adam Grant's new book called think again, if you haven't read it, it's awesome because there's a piece in there about how being wrong can be a joy because you get to say, oh my gosh, I'm wrong. I've learned something new. So now I'm less wrong than I was before. So that's sort of the perspective shift on, on being wrong that I really loved. So, you know, from a leadership perspective, turning to curiosity brings you that sense of ease, not having to be right. Every moment, not having to carry everything on your own shoulders, curious about what others think that they feel, what they see, what are their hypotheses, right.

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So I'm thinking more about, um, Tri-City in terms of how a scientist thinks about, all right, what's the hypothesis here? What are we testing out? Right. So, you know, the whole hypothesis of courage to be curious, you know, what's, what is it that you are looking to find out? Um, so I, I want to think about leadership in terms of what are you as a leader, hypothesizing, what do you think might be true? And what are the questions do you need to ask to find out what, what are the decisions you think might be the best ones? What are the questions you need to know? You need to get answered in order to make those. And I think the other thing that came up for me when I was thinking about it earlier, we talked about it a few minutes ago. Was that getting rid of perfectionism, you know, as a leader, not trying to get it all right, but just trying to find more questions, more possibilities,

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Maybe Amy, there was a story you were sharing with me not long ago, where you were doing some work around diversity and you had such a powerful question that you pose to somebody who wasn't quite sure that what this training was about applied to them. That really liberated them from the narrow space. They were operating in an expanded that space to something so much wider. And I'm curious if you either can summarize or at least share the question that you asked because there was a liberation that happened in that moment. For sure.

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I think there was, I get a little emotional when I talk about this, because it was the first time that I've really had a conversation like that. And this was a man in his, I'm going to say in his forties, from the deep south, I didn't really understand when all of the talk of racism was, he didn't see it because he treated everyone the same. And he didn't see color in Minnesota of those trips that we hear. And, um, he didn't understand what he was seeing in the videos of people who, and he called them people because he couldn't quite wrap his arms around black people being pulled over and you know how they were mistreated on camera, but we don't see what happened before the video show, why they were mistreated. And he sort of caught himself saying that, that it was okay for them to be most treated.

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Like there was some reason that they should have been mistreated and I stopped him. And I said, you know, just because you haven't had this experience doesn't mean that we can't find a way to honor other people's experience. So what could be your sub-question, what could be 2% true? He was just afraid that someone was going to try to change his opinion or tell them how to think. But I asked him what could be 2% true and it stopped him dead. And he kind of looked at me and he said, oh, you know, and he sort of P understood that there was like a 2% that, that it could be true, that they had done nothing to deserve mistreatment, nothing at all, except driving their car. And I think that, that the really huge emotional part of it was that he in front of 20 other leaders at the end of a two week leadership program, that I was co-facilitating, that's the thing he chose to talk about that conversation where he was so deeply uncomfortable with diversity conversation and he admitted it and said, I was so uncomfortable about it until I had this conversation.

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And Amy asked me what was 2% true. So I just, that's just a moment that I don't think I'll ever forget, you know, either he needs to, he needs to open this crap and he did it, he was willing to do it. So it was courageous. He's got a way to go, but it was courageous.

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Got it. That's huge. Yeah. There was something in that story of like the way that the curiosity without, you know, you delivered it with no judgment. I'm just asking that courageously curious question, just open the door. It like liberated him from a smaller range of perspective and freed him into a wider and perhaps continuing to grow range of perspective about something and how beautiful is that. And when we talk about the power of questions, like, that's it, right? That's the power of a question. Yeah. That is, it is, you know, I even look at it when I ask my employees more questions about their personal life. I find out what their strengths are because they might be doing something that they're not comfortable with, you know, like you've assigned them something and they just can't seem to get it. You're not, you know, it just, you, you, you go over it again and they're still bringing it back the same way.

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So I, I continue to ask more questions about maybe if it's their upbringing or maybe it's, um, uh, what they find interesting, you know, on the train, you get to find out so much about your employees because you're riding with them back and forth. You know, if you happen to be on the same train or the same bus or whatever. And I just remember asking things about their personal life without getting too personal, but just asking deeper questions and those questions cause me to learn about them as a person. So I started signing things differently because of the fact that I'm finding out who they really truly are and what they really aspired to be and how I can bring out the best in them. So I started to change how I even, um, just like what Amy was saying, you know, when, when you ask that question where they go, ah, I, I, I didn't think of it like that.

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It's just, you can see that light bulb moment. Um, and this is learning about me as a black woman being in a leadership position. And, uh, they being at either a Latino or, um, you know, or, or, you know, just someone that, um, is not comfortable with their even own sexuality. I had, I've had people like that, you know, I've, I've, I just come out and I just ask those questions. Um, and it just frees them from being so, um, careful of how they even spoke to me. Do you know? And when I, when I let them know that I'm, I'm okay with you being uncomfortable about who you are and, and they know that I can be uncomfortable about who I am. That's what that bridge is. That's that integration part of it. And just so it's so free and it really is, you know, I'm so glad you brought that up, Carla, because one of the things that happens in workplaces a lot, right, is we put on the suit of what feels like it's going to be safe, right.

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For this environment. And we all make a judgment, right? When we walk in some place, you know, what's going to be safe here. And typically, especially in workplaces, we can have pretty, um, thick, protective garb on, right. You know, anywhere from like a Knight's uniform to a Bulletproof vest, uh, you know, something that's keeping us, it's keeping us protected, but anything that keeps us protected also keeps us from being known and seen. And there is, you know, there's a lack of freedom in that maybe I'm protected, but if I'm not known and seen, and if I'm not known in seeing that I can't be fully valued, I'm not really liberated in this place. And so what you're describing is this idea of being curious as a leader, asking those questions, creating a safe environment for people to share who they are, facilitates a liberation for both you as a leader, but also for them to be able to be who they are.

(00:30:55):

And therefore probably do much better work. Yes. Oh my gosh. The productivity, boom. All of a sudden, they're, they're churning out the stories. They're writing the narratives, they're doing all this extra work there and they, and they want to, they want to come back to you and say, look what I did. And you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know you had it in you, you know, that's what I get excited about, you know? And then the incumbent and the freedom of laughter. Like, I, I don't think I'm a funny person, but people think I'm funny, but I, you know what laughter is freeing, right? I mean, I think that's the thing that sustained my relationship with my husband for 25 years, because he's extremely funny. And the two of us crack up laughing over the dumbest stuff, you know, and it's just like, gosh, this is, this is why I married this dude.

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You know, I'm in love with the fact of, he makes me laugh, you know? So I don't know. I got, wait and look at us, we got on this call and all of us were like, what's going to happen. So when you put three curious people together, for sure, and Carly, you definitely you've been providing me the most beautiful transitions here. So let's transition into the relationship piece, right. Is how can curiosity be liberating and relationships? And in a sense, we've been talking about relationships. You've been talking about relationships with coworkers, right? We've been talking about relationships with people in a professional sense here, we started off sort of talking about relationships with ourself. Then we started talking. Then we talked about relationships with people in a professional setting, but then we have like our intimate relationship and intimate meaning, anything close to this is with children.

(00:32:34):

It's with friends, it's with parents, it's with, you know, partners and spouses and things like that. And how can curiosity really liberate us in terms of, and be freeing in the context of our most precious and intimate relationships. And, um, so, you know, I want to just share a little story here, um, personally, and then pass it over to the two of you is I'm sure that you will have things to contribute here as well. And there's, I mean, I'm sitting here going through my life about how I could tell a story after like Amy, I learned to ask questions, how I've liberated so many relationships in my life, but, and I know my mom listens to this podcast. So I'm going to tell one about her and hopefully she'll be chuckling on the other side. Um, but most of my life with my parents was very practical and pragmatic, right?

(00:33:34):

They took care of the things. I was a kid, how are you doing? What do you need? We reported on what happened over the events of the day and things like that. And there was this piece about, we never really asked questions about the things that at this point in my life, I would say really matters. And I know that it kept me in a place of, I told myself the story is why that was. I told myself the stories about who they are. I told myself the story is about, I made up my stories about why I believe they didn't ask more about me or things like that. And then, you know, I went to this coach training thing and it was actually just a few years ago where, um, my father had passed away and I had a lot more time to just sit with my mom and we would start having conversations and I would ask her things and I would ask her things about her past that I'd never asked her before.

(00:34:30):

We had a big conversation that I've written about. In fact, it was a recent blog article that I've written about it that about the role of happiness and our lives, because we were an immigrant family and, you know, business, uh, family or business and things like that. And do you know what came out? Because I suddenly knew how to ask questions, but I didn't know how to ask before. And we had some space and time is one. I learned these things about my mother that I never knew, but our relationship it was, I mean, she was in her eighties and I was in my fifties. And it was the first time that I was really feeling close to my mother.

(00:35:11):

You know, it had been a relationship of, you know, functionality. I mean, I'm sure she loved me and adored me and I loved her way, but it didn't have that depth that it acquired once I started asking those questions. And as soon as I started asking questions, something else that changed is she started asking more questions about me and becoming much more attentive to the answers than she'd ever been. And where it's led us in the last few years has been having the most beautiful and closest version of a relationship than we have ever had in our lives. And now I can see that some of what kept us imprisoned in the old relationship, not all of it, but some of it was even knowing what to ask. I'm like, I didn't know how to ask questions like that. And I don't believe my mother did either.

(00:36:06):

Okay. And as we learned and acquired more skills and some other things changed there was this freedom. And does she think I'm not interviewing you, but you're the one with the host, but just tell me this. Did she, did she acknowledge that to of herself? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Mom, if you, when you're listening, you know, you get to write a little comment is Carla and answer that question for yourself too, but, um, yes, no. I mean, she absolutely can feel the change and the relationship and acknowledge the fact that we just didn't talk that way. We just didn't discuss things that way, but it kept us all in a very functional place then not in a deeply connected place. Interesting, interesting.

(00:36:49):

You know what I love about the Edina and I'm probably gonna call you and ask you for advice on that someday. Um, not just not knowing what to ask, of course, how would you know that if she didn't know, then you didn't come up knowing that those questions were asked of all. But the thing that I think is your bit of genius here is how to ask them, you know, again, I think language is so important and I think hopefully going into the future, we'll talk more about the choice of language and how important that is. So how you ask the question is just as important as asking the question. So I'm being thoughtful about that. So I just wanted to give you props for that. Cause that's something I'm learning from you. I do notice that it's not just ask the question. How do you ask the question in the most nonjudgmental way that, that opens the door for someone to choose to walk through or not?

(00:37:44):

And I'm learning that too, Amy from Edina, because I've always asked questions. It doesn't mean that I've always asked them properly. Do you know? So I'm learning how to restructure some of the questions that I even ask and, and to sometimes not be, um, so blunt, because that could have very well worked in my reverse when I, you know, asked either past colleagues because I suspected something. And the way I asked the question could have very well, if they, weren't not connected with me, they might have reported me even resources, but it gave us a deeper connection, but it's only because of my, I always call it vegetarian since they kind of get away with a little bit more because we're supposed to get the free spirit in and we can kind of ask these questions, but, um, I'm learning from Medina, how to be mindful of how that comes out and how it can be translated. So I agree with you. I appreciate both of your saying that. And yes, we talk a lot about how to ask and where, and when, right? The entire context, there's the language component, there's the context around it because all of it matters. Um, and so Amy, let me ask you, in terms of relationship, the relationship lens, like how do you see curiosity as a tool for freeing people? And maybe you have, again, a personal experience where you've just observed and seen in the course of things, how curiosity can liberate or free people.

(00:39:11):

So I'm going to try to tie this in as best I can, but one of the things that my husband and I realized early on is that the key to success in a relationship that, that you love each other's crazy, right? We're all Carlos in there, you know, we are all a bit neurotic. We've got these grants things that we do, but to be able to have the sense of acceptance and say, I know that for the rest of my life, this man is going to leave a little piece, the end of a carrot on the bookshelf, there'll be a pear or an apple core behind the telephone. That's how it's going to be. Right? The trash will be on the counter, really close to the trash can really close, but it never makes it out. You know, so whatever, and that's just, you know, sort of the surface crazy, but you know, the more, uh, the deeper issues, uh, to be curious about those so that we're not like talking to each other and saying, what is wrong with you, but able to go back and say, I know what happened to you.

(00:40:19):

I know what happened to you coming up, growing up. I know what happened to you in your early life. I know what happened to you in your quest for relationships. So I can get curious about why you're behaving the way you are right now, rather than again, going directly to my story about how you're doing me wrong and you know how this has got to stop it it's unacceptable. So I think for me, curiosity is the cure for that sort of, again, the sort of things that go from being annoying to hugely big issues in a relationship, you know, that go from, this is annoying too. I have contempt for you, which is as we know the relationship killer. So we have to love each other's crazy. We have to think about, you know, not what's wrong with people, but in what happened to them, what, what brings them to this place in their life? What, what created the, the, the situation, what created the conditions for us to be here in this moment, having this particular conversation in this particular way.

(00:41:26):

And I just want to do a little quick shout out here, right? To the book, um, that Oprah Winfrey. And I think it's Bruce Perry put out recently with that title happened to you and they do a lot of work around childhood trauma. And the impacts on that and pose that as a more productive question, instead of what's wrong with you, which is immediately full of judgment and, you know, severing a relationship to what happened to you, which represents my desire to understand you and how that can be the catalyst for connection, whereas the other, you know, is destructive. So thank you for sharing that. And that's, and that's important with Amy because, you know, with all the crazy that my, you know, I put my husband through, or he puts me through whatever the crazy might be. It's how long does it take you to get back to that center?

(00:42:15):

Do you know? Like, it's just, that's my barometer. If we're not curious enough to want to know what made us trip out and go crazy in that moment. And we don't talk about it ever, then that means that there's something missing. And we always, we might not talk about it that day, but somewhere down the road, we care enough. We're curious enough to bring it back to where we have a discussion about it. And I think that's normalizes our relationship. And, you know, it's so funny that you talk about crazy because I just found, I was cleaning up in the office, um, a day ago and I found a card that my dad, my husband never gave me about crazy. And he said to my crazy wife on mother's day, he never gave me this card. And it does say our crazy family schedule has us running here and there. And when it comes to crazy things, I'd say, we've done our share at times I drive you crazy with the things I've done or said, but, you know, I love our crazy life and I'm crazy over you. And that's like, oh my gosh, that was just, you know, so you were talking about crazy and he knows that we had that really kind of relationship, but what does it take to get back to that center? And that's, what's so important. That's the key. And I think

(00:43:26):

For you, Carla, what I love is that you you've already started that process of being curious about yourself, right? So how is it viral and how am I contributing to this? And what was I doing in that moment that caused him to react in that way? I mean, I'm talking about myself here, right? Actually doing that, caused him to react that way, because I know that my husband has this way, that he believes that his job to take care of my feelings and make sure I'm happy at all times. You know, I didn't want to disabuse them of that notion. I mean, that's lovely. There's someone in your life that wants to make sure you're happy at all times, but it gets us both into trouble. It's like, you know, it just because I say, boy, that really frosted my pumpkin doesn't mean you've got to fix it right now. Right. Let me have that emotional that we have whatever's happening to me. That's just both be curious about it.

(00:44:23):

Yeah. Yeah. We've learned to kind of walk away for a while from each other in order to do that, you know, just go into separate rooms or whatever. And, um, we find our way back. So that's very good. And isn't there a liberation on both sides. If somebody being able to not have to be the fixer, like sometimes it's our inclination. We thinks it's the easiest thing. But you know, I, once I've worked with people and training them that what hap, what might happen if you gave up the need to be the fixer in every situation. And inevitably it's always a very liberating experience. Like you mean, all I have to do is actually listen and empathize. Like once they realize that that that would be something as an alternative and they're like, oh my God, that would be so much easier than what I put myself through.

(00:45:03):

Trying to fix everything all the time. And you parlayed that into your kids because you don't try to fix everything that they do to, you know, like they come home with an issue. You just want to have them talk it out. That's all you care about. Like, talk to me, what else happened? What did she say? And what did he say? You know, that's what I do now. I don't, I don't try to fix anything. Yes. That's the ultimate, it's a great liberation story, right? It's just being able to move away from the fixer. So as we're winding down, like we could be here for about three hours. I'm not sure anybody would listen to the episode. They might have, maybe we have to create a series, right. That, uh, the serial podcast. But, um, I wanted to just close here with us closing some, um, just quick, funny questions, two quick questions to each other. What would you want to ask each other? And I'm going to pose one totally out of left field here, just because, you know, inquiring minds want to know. I have a very bizarre relationship with donuts. The very specific in particular relationship with donuts, I'll tell you what it is after it. But I am curious about each of your relationships to donuts. So Amy, what's your relationship to donuts? Oh my gosh.

(00:46:12):

Off again, kind of thing. Um, I noticed for my husband, it's a thing like, he'll say, you know what? I should, you know what I wish I had right now? And nine times out of 10, the answer is that donut. Um, but I will tell you one doughnut story, one pivotal donut story of my life. So when I was in high school, we sold speak creams as a fundraiser for, um, I don't know what swim team maybe it was. And at that time I could eat an tire. Doesn't scream

(00:46:47):

Over the course of the day. If you're on the audio, she's like covering your face and chain

(00:46:52):

It's part shame. And it's part. I can't believe that I was ever able to do this and not gain an ounce. Like I, first of all, that much sugar now, I don't know, but was the thing I could eat an entire dozen glaze donuts, um, you know, and had to pay for it out of my pocket. I did it. That's my relationship to donut. Awesome. What about you, Carla?

(00:47:20):

What's your relationship to donuts? I don't think I haven't. The only relationship I have with a doughnut is then it would be nice with, cause I'm not a coffee drinker and I'm not really a drinker, but if they, they have to go together, I have to have a donut with a cup of coffee. Something about the donut in the coffee is just, it's a beautiful relationship. It's a beautiful right?

(00:47:42):

Yep. It's the sweet and that sort of exactly. Yeah.

(00:47:46):

If I do both, that's what I would do. All right. Well, I love you. I'm going to try to take lessons from both of you. I have had a very contentious relationship with donuts. Most of my life and my kids all know it's the funny thing, like, yeah, you could bring it. I would say to them, like, I'd rather you smoke pot. They need to donate. You know, they know that if they came home and I discovered them with their friends, like with jello shots, I'd be happier than if I discovered them with a bag of Oreos or a dozen donuts or something like that. So I'm very strained relationship with donuts and with sugar and things like that. So I'm trying to liberate myself from that by getting other people's perspectives. Thanks. You thank you for being part of my journey of liberation, that my relationship with donuts. So Amy, anything you would like to add?

(00:48:32):

I got a question for Carla, because the very beginning when she was talking, when you were talking to Carla about being a little girl and being curious, I got this absolute picture in my head of you in a children's book. So if you were a character in a children's book, that little curious girl, can you either tell me the name of that children's book or a scene from that children's book?

(00:49:01):

Oh goodness. Oh gosh. That's a good one. Oh, um, um, um, I guess the, the, the book cover might be hi, I'm Carla. Um, I think the, the, uh, the character in the book would be just to introduce myself because I, I, I never thought that I was particularly smart growing up. So I always thought, um, cause I, I hung around really smart people and they always were straight a students. I was never a straight a student. So I think that the part I would play in that book is just, hi, I'm Carla. Like almost like, because I want people to know my name and, and, and, uh, that if I just got through that introduction, then we could have a, you know, relationship. I think that's, I don't know if that,

(00:49:52):

Of that. I thought that because there's such energy behind that hot, Carla, you know, I'm relating to my own childhood where I couldn't have done that. Like, I didn't want to be seen, I didn't want to be known. There was no break training. Hi, I'm Amy.

(00:50:08):

Yeah. I was shy growing up. It's just the fact that I did that because I wanted to include, I was never, I was always about other people and wanting to always include both. So I would always say hi and introduce myself, you know, so that they can come into my phones and never leave. That's awesome. All right, Carla, so you could either ask something of Amy of me, both of us. What question would you like to ask? Um, I have a relationship with my bed. I just love my bed. Every time I get into my bed. I just feel like after a whole day there is just a slide into it and I just feel just so good. There's the protection about it. Can you tell me both of you just tell me the relationship you have with your bed. Is there a relationship at all? That's what I aim to get to every single evening is to my bed. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So Amy, you want to go first?

(00:51:08):

I, I think the first thing that happens when I slip into bed is this overwhelming sense of gratitude. Like here in this safe place, this quiet place, there's my husband, the two cats are here. We're all in this place together. And the only thing we have to do now is rest. We have no other responsibility, but to rest. So I love that there's something really comforting and safe. And I think about, you know, humans throughout time and how they made a bed and what they made it out of and how luxurious what we have is now. And there are people all over the world that don't have that kind of luxury and safety and comfort. So it's a huge, big whopping doughnut full of gratitude every night. Like gratitude donut. That's a good one. I'm like that.

(00:52:10):

I will say my relationship with my bed right now is very multifaceted, right. I have a real relationship with sleep as an incredibly important restorative experience. And so whenever I get into that, it's like, I am really sinking in, I was a big star Trek next generation fan. And when you, the board would go into like their regeneration centers, I totally took that to heart. Like, yes, this is like the regeneration center where you get to restore or regenerate refuel. So I have that, I tend to, my partner says to become just much more intimate and how I speak when I'm in bed, which is nice. And I guess a good thing, you know? Um, but lately being in the throws of menopause and hot flashes and things like that, I have to say that I sometimes am a little tortured in my bed. So the last couple of years, because I can't seem to get that solid, full night's rest. Um, as much as I would like, so all that restorative stuff that's supposed to be going on. And sometimes I just lie there wanting to like throw things. And so it is a bit of a multi-faceted and complex relationship right now. I'm hoping the bad can move past me.

(00:53:23):

I think Amy Bennett, a Dina. It's about the gratitude. Once you do get there, I mean, you have that, you go through those periods. It's like a relationship. You're not having a good relationship with the bed right now, but it will change, you know, but right now it's not your rest and restore place, but it won't be, it won't be, yeah. If people get to their bed every night, I feel like, you know, just to, to know that you've done a good day's work and you can get to a place where you can rest and, and fill yourself up for the next day. I just think that that's a blessing. Yeah. Well,

(00:53:56):

The idea that, you know, there's a, there's a place to be curious about the discomfort, right? How am I sitting with discomfort? How am I in this discomfort? Because that point did you know, man, there are moments when I'm ripping off the covers, but you know, how do we, what's our relationship with discomfort and for leaders, you know, you've heard, uh, Renee brown say we have to normalize discomfort. How do we get curious about being in that discomfort and what, what we, what, what am I thinking about this discomfort? That's making it worse, you know? Yeah.

(00:54:33):

Well, that's a really good question that we're going to save for the month. When we talk about discomfort right now, we're in freedom. So we're going to [inaudible] and I'm going to get, keep a thing of like ice water or something next to me. I think I lasted, it actually lifted up the fan and like just pulled it right over my head. Um, for a little bit,

(00:54:52):

Before we go, do you know, I had a question I wanted to ask you, I got my Carla questions in about her children's book. Do we have time for one last question about for you? Absolutely. I almost gave it away earlier. Cause I realized as I was saying it, oh, this is the question I want to give Medina. Yeah. Which is, what is your hypothesis for this podcast? What, what are you thinking this might do in the world that we're, that we're testing out?

(00:55:21):

Amy is so amazing. Right? So Amy, that's a beautiful question. What is my hypothesis in the world for this? And you know, I often talk about it this way. And I think about, I, I finally looked it up. I think it was, I was sung by a group called the seekers and released in 1971. Um, and it was called I'd like, you know, it all went, I'd like to teach the world to sing like a nice little folk song. And I have said, I would like to teach the world how to be curious, because I do believe in the experience and the ways in which curiosity can liberate us. And so through this podcast, the conversations about curiosity is to hopefully inspire some of that, like, huh? You know, what is that thing? How much of it do I have in my life? How might it be part of my life?

(00:56:15):

And then also to do that piece of, in order for us to experiment with things, many of us need to have a little bit of a comfort level with it. Like, how do you do it? You know, I know when I try something new, I always liked there to be some model. I mean, I didn't go to, unfortunately I didn't go to Montessori. We just lash in light, just go throw stuff on there. I like to have somewhat of a model. And I know that many people do. And so that this podcast would serve as a model through conversations like this, through the episodes that come earlier and as to, how do we go about doing this thing of being curious and really productive, courageous ways. And you know, earlier use the word, um, Carla doing it properly. And I never think in terms of properly, because that gives a, puts us in the right and wrong place.

(00:57:03):

Right. I like to think of it in terms of effective or productive, because there is no right or wrong, there's only, huh? I did. What did it lead to? Did it get me closer to what I was seeking? Did it get me closer to something that was expansive or expanding? And so in this podcast, my hypothesis is to inspire that curiosity, inward curiosity about oneself like Carla was saying she didn't have as well as the curiosity about others that Carlos just share with us how much she did have even from a young age. And then how can we do this productively together? That's my goal. That's great. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love you with Dina.

(00:57:47):

I am. So this was amazing. And so for the first episode of this nature, or since we relaunched courage, to be curious, but Gina to value to our amazing, I couldn't have asked for two better guests, or I think a more robust episode to fill that hypothesis out in the world, because you were both so generous and sharing from your hearts and your experience and hoping people to see and experience through you, what curiosity can be like and how it can impact your life. So thank you. Spoke so much. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. Cause I learned so much from you. I was up here writing notes down while she's talking. So I was looking down.

(00:58:30):

Thank you. What a pleasure. I made a new friend today, thanks to you. And Deena,

(00:58:36):

You've made the connection, right? It's beautiful. We all just, people need to come together, right? We have more power and influence and impact together. So it's a beautiful thing. And I want people who are listening or watching to know a few things. One is that Amy, I'm so thrilled to have her here. She will be a regular I'm sure credit will be back to Amy will be a regular. I'm encouraged to be curious to the Dina to avail as we will engage. I want at least once a month in some conversations, but you will definitely see her back on courage to be curious of the data's Novell podcast. If you've been listening. But now you're like, oh my gosh, I really want to see that. Just head on over to our YouTube channel. You can watch us in live and see it. See it there.

(00:59:16):

We also loved, we want to hear your feedback. We want to hear your comments. So our media handle all over the place is at urge to be curious, except on Twitter, where we are curiosity speaks. So you can find us on any number, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, all those different places. You'll find us in her courage to be curious, uh, handle and logo. And if you are inspired and you are saying to yourself, I am, I am driven. I want to think about this curiosity thing a lot more. If you head on over to courage to be curious.com, we have three decks of cards live with the courage to be curious, love with the courage, to be curious and lead with the courage to be curious. And Amy is holding up her debt, her lead deck right now on the visual. So you can see that and here is the whole love.

(01:00:03):

And she's got the love, the love and the live deck. There you go. Gold, yellow and black. And so if you want to start asking yourself questions, but you are, you want those models. I was talking about, how do you ask those kinds of questions? We have them for sale on our website at courage, to be curious.com or live lead love, courageously.com. Either one will take you to the same place. And of course we want you to make sure you are subscribed to receive our weekly podcast. And you can do that on your podcast app. You can also do that on our website to sign up for our newsletter. Then you will not only get the podcast delivered to your email inbox, but you will also get news about other happenings with courage to be curious. So if you have found your tribe here with us, we are glad to have you and connect with us so we can keep in touch with you. Thank you again, Amy and Carla for being amazing. And we will be back again in August as we will be shifting from talking about freedom to perspective. Okay. [inaudible].