How to develop and satisfy an unquenchable thirst for knowledge
My parents always told me to "read more books" but along the way, I forgot how curiosity worked. Here's how I found it again -- a question from Quora.
This is part 3 of 4 of a series called, “Live Outside the Box”.
In case you missed it, here’s part 1 and 2.
Develop
When I was a teenager, I thought I had life figured out, I thought I reached the epitome of knowledge, and I had little reason to convince me of otherwise.
When dropped out of college, started working with nonprofits, and traveled the world, I quickly began to realize how little I actually knew.
I had conversations with homeless guys who hitchhiked across the U.S. and told me about the crazy experiences they had.
I found completely different cultural norms in Finland, in South Africa, and Thailand. I realized that the Midwest was a completely different world compared to Silicon Valley. My box was blown over and over and I began to appreciate the diversity of the human experience.
I became extremely curious about people's journeys, their stories, their perspectives, and experiences.
5 years ago I talked to a woman during one of my layovers who lived in Santa Cruz, worked as a wholesale food distributor, and was on her pilgrimage to India.
4 years ago, I sat on a plane next to the Head Coach of Biola's men's basketball program -- Coach Dave. He had just gotten back from Asia running a coaching program with a few friends. We talked during whole flight about leadership and his coaching philosophy.
3 years ago, I met a lady who worked in a women's correction facility as a counselor in Florida -- we were both speakers at an event in Thailand.
2 years ago, I met a Nigerian couple who were visiting Kansas. They were senior leaders of a growing church in Nigeria and we spent an afternoon talking about leadership and how to develop a mentoring culture within their organization.
It's experiences like those that have led to an insatiable curiosity about how the world works, how people work, the scope of how it all works together and how I can fit into the picture.
Satisfy
The easiest way to satisfy your curiosity is to put yourself in environments where there are many different ideas and perspectives, and people who are passionate and excel in their field of expertise.
Quora is one of those environments, I share who I intentionally learn from here.
Perhaps you can join a network of other high performers, work in a high-touch industry like real estate, or learn to intentionally talk to people sitting next to you on the plane, when you donate blood, or at dinner events.
Maybe read blogs like www.farnamstreetblog.com (Shane Parrish) or www.brainpickings.org.
Over time, when you realize that certain topics resonate more than others, you'll begin to notice it everywhere and begin curate all the material and compile into a personal database for reference.
But this isn't about information consumption. Anyone can spend an entire day reading their Quora newsfeed but never put their newfound knowledge to use.
For me, the satisfaction of accumulating this knowledge really comes when you find real-world contexts to actually apply it, otherwise it's no different than being able to memorize the first 10,000 digits of Pi -- admirable, but relatively useless.
This answer was originally published on Quora and had over 13,100 views.
I have 500+ answers on Quora and will be curating, IMO, the best answers I’ve written here for your convenience. All my Quora reposts will have this section for transparency and context, original content will not have this section.
After 10+ years of blogging all over the internets, I’m currently working on a book! If you resonate with my writing, you can sign up to get my book updates here.
When’s the next post coming out? I publish weekly on Sundays at 12pm Pacific (3pm Eastern, 3am Singapore, 8pm UK)