We were once told, being a Jack of all trades, master of none is bad. But so is being the master of just one.
Steve Jobs won’t be able to revolutionize the PC industry if it wasn’t for his calligraphy and aesthetics sense in design. Warren Buffet won’t be the most successful investor of all time if he wasn’t able to speak well and convince others.
How do we excel in a few domains to solve wicked problems or create something really extraordinary out of them? And turn that curiosity switch on for an unlimited flow of input?
I searched around and read numerous articles on how to develop curiosity, but none fit the bill. Admittedly, those were all sound suggestions, but something was missing, something that’s more than just a list of ideas from “keeping an open mind” to “visiting the bookstore”. Specifically, I needed a framework to build my curiosity muscle.
A framework that teaches me how to fish, rather than giving me the fish.
I dug deeper, digested a few scientific journals, and experimented on myself. And here is the answer:
CGE
Words of caution: I test drove this framework on my personal ‘ice-cream project’. I wanted to be more curious about the ice-cream-making process — not just following recipes blindly to churn out an “obedient ice-cream”. But to be able to invent my own recipe at home. So my examples are very much about ice-creams. Do not enter if you’re allergic to ice or cream! Just kidding.
What is C.G.E.? And why?
C = Clues
See problems as clues to uncover insights
I recently screwed up a batch of ice cream by using an artificial sweetener to replace sugar. The end product turned into a piece of solid rock to be thrown at people I hate.
“Problems are opportunities”, they said. Sigh.
It sounds more like a self hypnotizing statement to me at this point in time.
Then I came across this study...
2 groups of students were tasked to click on the backside of 5 grids on a computer screen individually. Both groups are shown with 45 grids on their respective screens.
Upon clicking, the grids flipped over uncovering:
On the left: Group A - Photos of individual animals in each grid;
On the right: Group B- Photos of a small part of an animal in each grid.
At the end of the study, the researchers found out that Group B’s students clicked on more than the initial request of 5 grids, even after minor penalization that comes with each click.
What drives these students to click on more grids than requested was their curiosity to find out what’s the animal behind the grids, especially after seeing clues from the first 5 grids.
We too can apply the same logic to fire up our curiosity brain — to see problems we face as clues to find out the ultimate answer to mastery. The more clues you discovered, the more curious you are about the subject!
Back to my failed ice-cream-making experience, it was painful to have wasted my time and ingredients but I finally understood why sugar is important in ice cream making that I would otherwise miss out if it’s not because of the failed ice cream. Now, I’m one step closer to my goal of creating my own ice cream recipe!
“Problems are clues to uncover insights”, sounds much more exciting and motivating. Because now, we’re ready to solve this mystery!
G = Guess
Make a guess before you start
“Place your bet!”, and everyone did.
Never have you felt so invested in seeing the outcome that was about to show up on the table, if you did place that one little chip on either side of the casino table. All because of that bet you’ve made.
At my early-stage ice-cream-making journey, I assumed and went around telling others that sweetened condensed milk is a must-have ingredient in a smooth and creamy ice cream.
One day, my boyfriend’s Browned Butter Pecans came out really extraordinary — the texture was perfect! And guess what? The recipe did not call for any condensed milk.
How many times when someone told you that you were wrong, you went all out trying to prove to them that you’re right?
Yes, I did just that. And I bet you do, too.
When students with controversial views were teamed up to study a given topic, they ended up being more likely to spend their recess studying about that topic. In fact, 45% of the students in an experiment did that, as compared to 18% from the teams that shared similar views.
When we’re surprised to see contradictions between what we believed in and reality, we impulsively feel the need to close the gap.
That’s why in a long run, to learn better, it is always better to pick a side, rather than not choosing at all. Because if you’re right, good for you! But if you’re wrong, congrats, you earn a chance to learn best!
We should make learning fun by guessing and creating surprises, even if there’s no 100% money-back guarantee on what we said.
Oh, and only after a good round of searching, I found out that condensed milk is not what makes up a good texture, but its composition of fat and sugar content with the least amount of water, is what makes a good texture.
Another golden nugget unlocked! After placing the wrong bet.
E = Expose
Expose yourself to collect more information
Subscribe to relevant subreddits, or YouTube channels, or podcasts. Or any platforms that you visit almost daily for some downtime.
It serves two purposes — reminder; and familiarity.
Curiosity is generally categorized into two different types — Perceptual and Epistemic curiosity. Perceptual curiosity is triggered by external stimuli like the time you see a chocolate lava cake in the bakery and you feel hungry. Whereas Epistemic curiosity comes from our internal human desire for knowledge.
In an ideal world, of course, we wish for an endless desire to be inquisitive. But the truth is, it rarely happens.
Given all the circumstances of our day-to-day commitments, relying purely on our epistemic willpower to stay curious is no easy feat.
Instead, make use of that super well-engineered, highly addictive tool — social media to our advantage. For example, use that daily digest email from Reddit in your inbox that craves your attention as a reminder to check out that subreddit on your topic of interest.
Even if it is just as simple as hopping onto that subreddit to see what’s going on, you might come across words, concepts, perspectives, frameworks that you aren’t aware of, and picked up new knowledge in that 5 minutes break time.
In the long run, you would have familiarized yourself in that domain.
Picking up one small chunk of information casually every day is simple, and learning something new every day could be fun. The alternative is to go for a 6-hour course or study a 500 pages book which could otherwise be terrifying and intimidating.
We’re unlikely to be curious about things we know nothing about. But once we hear or see more of it, we start to FEEL like we know them the next time we come across them again.
Starting off at zero, we zoom in to look at what we know. As our exposure increases, we focus on finding out what we don’t know instead.
By then, that shift in focus made things easy because we’re so pumped up in finding the missing pieces to complete a reference set (just like completing a puzzle).
So the next time when you come across something you don’t understand at all, just remember to hang in there!
Putting them all together, we get this — CGE:
When you see a clue, make a guess, then go out there and collect more information. Eventually, you’ll end up with even more clues, more guesses, and wider exposure.
It becomes a positive vicious cycle that keeps reinforcing your curiosity in that specific domain.
And that’s how I finally managed to churn out my first batch of ice cream using my self-invented recipe successfully!
Thank you for being curious! Enjoy the little boost of dopamine by staying curious!
