Be Curious, Not Judgmental
Walt Whitman said this. Ted Lasso repeated it. Now Jake Wilson is the third layer of quotation marks.
Up until I saw episode of 8 of season 1 of the show Ted Lasso, I never realized these were in fact in opposition to one another. Before you try and disprove me by saying that you can be curious and judgmental, let me show you how in life, you genuinely just can’t.
Have you ever felt insecure about an opportunity? Have you withheld love, or emotion, or passion, or connection, or even effort due to fear of judgement? Being judged is heavy should you choose to wear it. That is the weight the most public professions require and the cost of having a following… or should we say influence? On any scale judgement is heavy. The captain of a high school football team has influence deeper than the person with 2 million social media followers. That captain is intimately known, and when he fails everyone who judges him is choosing to erase the depth of what has been built over time… The social media star can much more easily be misinterpreted or misrepresented which also hurts tremendously.
Regardless of the case, should you have influence of any level… even with just one person, carrying around the weight of judgement is heavy and toxic. You won’t be able to pull an Ironman forever. Everyone has influence over at least one person, even if they don’t recognize it.
Curiosity on the other-hand represents hope. The captain of the football team works hard and wants to get better because he has hope for his team; for his own game. He has work ethic because he is curious to see through what the team and himself are able to accomplish. He leads by example and he holds you to doing the same. He is curious for the future.
His failures are easily forgiven should he not chose to carry their weight and seek reconciliation. But should he let his curiosity die and reap the sour fruits of his judgers, then he has a long way to go. It looks like a dark road where he must now begin the curiosity journey once again from the starting line.
The social media star is clearly in the same boat. Should they choose to oppose their curiosity and feed off their judgement they will never last.
A CEO of a public company who starts to read all the negative analysts' reports is not doing what got them in that seat. Their curiosity for business and ambitious nature is the path that got them there and it is the only path that will keep them there.
Following your curiosity is the only way to live life. Your happiness depends on it. Your community depends on it. You yourself depend on it.
Be curious! Oppose judgmental thoughts, because the last thing you should ever want to do is to kill someone else’s curiosity. Together we can create a society that is curious once again and changes the scope of what defines this era of history.
The Great Greek Freak, Giannis Antetokounmpo, said this in a press conference recently:
“When you focus on the past, that’s your ego.”
“When you focus on the future, that’s your pride.”
And to paraphrase the ending: A competitor’s humility comes only in the present. Staying curious requires value to be placed on the present consistently.
Here are some tactics to stay curious:
- Focus on the present
- Stay out of your own way
- (and above all) — Oppose Judgement
-JW