Be Curious

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

Setting aside your partner or spouse or your 15-year old daughter, when was the last time you asked someone a direct question and they flat out refused to respond to you?  I’m guessing… never!  Well, maybe not never, but it’s a rare occurrence.  While the response may have been, “get lost,” when asked a question, people tend to answer.  As such, in networking, leveraging curiosity through question asking, sparks discussion which, in turn, ignites relationships!

I’ve always been fascinated by the boundless curiosity of children.  Their brains are absolutely soaking in tons and tons of data every second and they can’t ask “Why?” enough.  I don’t know when we lose that propensity for gathering more and more information, but we must work hard to maintain that sense of wonder and keep up that thirst for knowledge. 

The beautiful thing about relationship building is if you ask your contact a question, you are actually communicating a lot about yourself:  You’re interested in getting to know more about them.  You’re eager to know what is important to them.  You’re willing to identify commonalities and differences between you.  You’re ready to help.

As for how to engage people in conversation, here are a few of my current favorites:

• What is the best thing to happen to you during the time of Covid?
• If you could vacation anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
• What is the best recipe you have prepared in the past six months?  What is the worst?
• Who would you like to meet?
• What are you most looking forward to in 2021?

What are your hip pocket questions that you use to generate conversation and demonstrate your curiosity?  The CLC Community wants to know!  Please take a moment to leave a comment at blog.CoffeeLunchCoffee.com.

Be curious.  Ask questions.  Happy Networking!