The Secret Within: Chapter 6, Being Curious

The Secret Within is a book I’m writing about the art of finding happiness and peace amidst personal difficulties. 

This is the Sixth installment. Previous installments can be found here.

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6. Being Curious

A persistent theme in this book is Self-transcendence.  

We become who we think we are. We like to follow a well-worn path in life, and the perspective we acquire becomes that path. Open minds deviate from the well-traveled path to pursue questions beyond current knowledge and beliefs. This is the doorway to Self-transcendence. 

Emotional suffering is universal. Things happen we didn’t expect and don’t want. Misfortune is an unavoidable part of the ubiquitous change accompanying life. Here’s the critical point: Perspective and suffering are complimentary. Self-transcendence is the road that leads beyond suffering, but it’s not easy to follow. 

The central challenge we all face is how to break out of the prison created by our perspective.

Before my retirement, the company I worked for was acquired by a similar-sized competitor. It was communicated to employees as a merger of equals, but I knew there was no such thing. In corporate mergers, one firm is always on top; we would be on the bottom. I had risen to a senior level in the original company, and it was clear that I would not retain my executive status. Sure enough, when the merger was completed, I was shunted off to an area I had little interest in. 

The following two years were the most difficult of my career. After feeling down and perhaps a bit sorry for myself, I caught wind of a rumor circulating in my team regarding my performance. As a senior functional leader, I was someone people looked up to. However, according to the rumor, I was no longer engaged. A respected employee let me in on the particulars: “People are wondering what happened to you. You’ve lost your former confidence and edge!”

That hurt! I wasn’t the only one going through a difficult transition, and as a leader, I was disappointing people in my area. From that point forward, I committed to pull my head out of my butt and get busy!

My first step was to learn every nuance of the new area I was responsible for. It wasn’t easy; I had never worked in the area, and everything was foreign, but I decided to be curious. Being curious requires admitting you don’t know, which was uncomfortable for a department head. I started asking questions that began with words like what, why, and how. 

The Toyota Motor Company has a practice called The Five Whys. The practice is based on the assumption that a problem can’t be adequately understood unless why is asked five times to uncover foundational issues. I adopted the practice and began inquiring about details I had previously ignored. After a few months, something amazing happened. What previously seemed dull became interesting. As my interest and engagement grew, our performance as a team improved. Soon, my team made fundamental changes to our operations that improved overall company performance. 

I learned a valuable lesson from this challenging experience: It’s impossible to simultaneously be truly curious about something and negative. Curiosity is a context killer. It puts us in a seeking, witnessing, and learning mode beyond the judgment of our all-knowing Self. Several years later, when asked to move to another area of the company, I was sad to leave the area I had grown to love. Maria Popova, the author of my favorite blog, The Marginalian, was right, “It is the boundaries chosen or imposed that give shape to our lives.” 

To transcend the boundaries we create for ourselves, we must suspend judgment for investigation and knowing for learning. Curiosity and transcendence are complimentary.

If you find happiness has gone missing in life, try something new.

Be curious!

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Installments of The Secret Within can be found here.  

Former blog posts can be found here by subject category and here chronologically. 

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My first book, Towards A Life Well-Lived, can be purchased by clicking this link. Proceeds from sales are donated to Peace In Schools, a Portland, Oregon-based organization supporting mindfulness training in high schools.