The Curiosity Engine

What is a sure fire way to find and apply your superpowers? 

For me, it comes down to activating your curiosity engine. Have you ever been so fully involved with a task that the concept of time fades away? It’s called flow state. 

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was credited with defining the concept called flow.

“a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”

Flow happens when your skill level is slightly challenged, but you're confident enough in your abilities to dig a little deeper. It is possible to access flow states, but you have to activate and charge your curiosity engine.

Your curiosity engine is the means to identify your superpowers. It is fed by meaningful content and powered by a playful willingness to meander. What makes content meaningful? It aligns with who you are and who you want to be. Find this alignment by knowing yourself and what excites you. For me, writing without expectation helps identify those fundamental pieces. Through a daily writing practice, you start to identify themes that keep rising to the surface. Those themes will help identify meaningful content. Remember, there was more content created yesterday than you can consume in a lifetime. Too much content equals noise. You are looking for signal. Writing discerns signal from noise, and becomes your filter for meaningful content. Before you know it, your curiosity engine is powered and well-fed. 

How can you put it into action?

What if you approached your day with curiosity?

Start by asking yourself great questions.

What would it be like if I had my boss’s job?

What if I started my own business that did what one of my customers does?

What if I figured out a way to help that homeless man I walked by every day?

What if I spend ten minutes today coming up with bad ideas?

How would I fix the problem the managers discussed at the meeting?

How would I lead this team if I were in charge?

What do I love about this role?

What do I dread about this role?

These are fun to consider, and you’ve actually just given yourself two weeks worth of writing prompts. While asking great questions, try to identify little flashes of your potential superpowers. These are situations where you exceeded expectations (both internal and external) and loved every minute of the experience. Try to describe each experience. Is it repeatable? How else could you test it? How can you apply this spark of brilliance to all of your interactions? 

Kick start your curiosity engine by putting pencil to paper.