🧠Weekly Mind Sweep #111 | Manage Your Mind | Curiosity
February 2024
Week 109: Curated Conversation; Curiosity
Week 110: Mind Your Business; Curiosity
*Week 111 Manage Your Mind; Curiosity
Week 112: What’s On My Mind; Curiosity
New to the Weekly MindSweep? Past issues live here.
Let’s sweep the brain…
Rather watch or listen instead of read? Now you can!
Understanding Curiosity's neuroscience can be a strategic way to leverage its use in your life and business. I’m here to make it more fun.
Would you like to discover your Curiosity Type?
I've found a quiz for you, but I've also learned about something called the Knowledge Gap [1], so you'll have to keep reading to find it!
Surprisingly, science isn't 100% sure about where Curiosity comes from. For the past few decades, they've spent their time attempting to decipher a single widely accepted definition over studying its biology. [2]
We do know that Curiosity is:
A wanting and state of craving. Curiosity supports the wanting and seeking of information. Curiosity causes a release of Dopamine (a pleasure chemical). Remember, Dopamine is all about the anticipation of reward, not the reward itself.
Deep in the brain. The Mid-brain and the Hippocampus, to be exact. The Mid-brain is where the wanting system lives, and it warms up the hippocampus, which helps us retain information. The two of them are in cahoots.
A fundamental element of our cognition [2a]. The mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
"Curiosity behaves in the brain like a hunger, recruiting the same brain areas whose function is to maintain motivation and drive towards a reward — in this case, a cognitive reward" [3]
What types of information do you feel driven to learn about?
Cognitive scientists have identified several types of Curiosity. I'm going to share four that I think are important to understand as entrepreneurs:
Diversive Curiosity - the Curiosity of children to the attraction of everything! It’s also the type of curiosity that sends us on the doom scroll of social media. Excitement in the novel with nothing to learn.
Perceptual Curiosity - Surprise: Expectation vs Reality. The itch to find out information to relieve the Curiosity.
Epistemic Curiosity or Confounded Evidence - A craving to understand what you do not. The pleasurable state is associated with the anticipation of reward.
Empathic Curiosity - the interest in the thoughts and feelings of others.
Where do you spend time looking for information?
Understanding what is biologically happening in your brain can support your Curiosity of why you may be passionate about an idea (Dopamine), where the appetite for Curiosity comes from (the itch to know and understand), and begin to gain awareness of where Curiosity can be a phenomenal tool in your toolbox as well as discern where it may get in the way of your productivity. More on that next week.
As we discussed last week, as entrepreneurs, we tend to have an insatiable curiosity that provides us tremendous opportunities.
Where do you find yourself spending the most time?
I've witnessed entrepreneurs in all four of these categories.
I've found business owners who can look at something from a new perspective or get lost in the novelty of social media. Some who sincerely desire to understand the difference between reality and what they had expected. There have also been quite a few that feed from the desire to know why something is the way it is. And lastly, we can all benefit from empathic Curiosity, which leads to kindness and compassion for others.
Now that we understand that Dopamine stimulates the hippocampus, which helps us learn and retain information, we can use this to our advantage.
When you communicate with your audience, tap into their Curiosity to gain their attention and ignite their hippocampus to retain the information and learn from you!
To invite Curiosity into your everyday life, here are four things for you to try this week:
Embrace the unknown. Your comfort zone makes you feel safe but might have you playing smaller than your potential.
Ask thought-provoking questions. When someone shares an idea with you, dig deeper than their words.
Surround yourself with diverse perspectives. Keep coming to Curated Conversations!
Keep embracing failure as a learning opportunity. It's a practice.
Which type of curiosity resonates with you the most, and how do you plan to leverage it in your personal and professional life?
Oh, wait!!
Remember that quiz I mentioned at the beginning of this Weekly MindSweep? Your brain has been curious to find it while you've been reading.
Click here to scratch that itch.
Email me and tell me your results!
[2] The psychology and neuroscience of Curiosity When we are surprised, we have an expectation that is foiled by something else happening. Curiosity surges to comprehend and fill the void between the expected and unexpected: Surprise is a temporary cognitive void. Anything that breaks the expectation or pattern. Confounded evidence' occurs where there are a multitude of possible answers to a problem or multiple possible futures to a situation. The instigation of uncertainty arouses Curiosity, and, as research psychologist Susan Engel writes, curiosity "is the human need to resolve uncertainty."
[2a] Cognition definition
MindSweep Mapping
If you'd like help cultivating your curiosity to maximize your entrepreneurial success potential, I've got the perfect tool!
The answers you need for your business are already within you.
If you’d like support in pulling them out to build a business you are proud of, I’m here to help.
Was this blog forwarded to you? Sign up!
MONDAY: 8 am - Curated Conversation - Zoom
Changing the world, one Monday Morning at a time. Learn more + Sign Up for a Monday morning reminder!
What I’m reading
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother
Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.
What I’m listening to:
ADHD for Smart Ass Women: How to Fall in Love with Your Neurodivergent Brain
An unprecedented guide for any woman with ADHD looking to celebrate her unique brilliance and to embark on a journey of self-discovery.
ADHD is one of the most common neurological disorÂders in the United States—yet a staggering 75 percent of girls and women remain undiagnosed. Due to the genÂder gap in medical research, which does not account for symptoms manifesting differently in women—leading to increased problems with anxiety, depression, workÂing memory, sleep, energy, and concentration—many ADHD women are left to navigate a society that fails to understand their struggles and gifts. But what if every woman had the resources and support to uncover the hidden wonders of her neurodivergent brain?
Collaborations!
MetroWest Chamber
Limited to 12 Spots
Friday, March 1, 2024
9am-11am
For 2024, we'd like to make a focused effort to support you and your business. In March, we'll discuss:
Guest Speaker: Liz Robinson of LRobInspires!
Join Shannon Dalton Giordano of Serendipity Social Media and me of Chickbook Creative for this two-hour interactive business community experience.
We’ll discuss ways to cultivate business through Sales, Marketing, and Communication methods that support relationship building, showing up authentically, and connecting deeper with colleagues and the people you serve.
9-10 am - Gain a new perspective or tool to support you and your business
10-10:45 am - Open discussion, community support, brainstorming ideas
10:45 -11 am - Clear and actionable takeaways to start your month in forward momentum
Join us to meet business owners in our community. Leave with new tools in your toolbox to help you make connections and build your business!
Free to Attend; Registration is Required
Mindful Connections
Connecting like-hearted entrepreneurs to build relationships, offering support, understanding their passions, and sharing their names in rooms of opportunity.
Every Thursday, 12-1 pm
12:00 - Take 5—a guided meditation with Terri Hamilton of Apparent Connection to ground your week with peace and focus.
12:05-1 pm Round-table Share
Who you are
The gifts you bring to the world
Who you serve
The answer to a Curated question to spark conversation.
If you found this on the web, sign up to join us!
In other news…
Feeling #FOMO about Curated Conversations? Join us!
