Good afternoon. Curiosity killed the cat. It's a saying we've heard for a very, very long time. Now, I'm not really sure where it came from or how it started, but I imagine it was some crotchety old adult who was annoyed of some kid of asking too many questions or playing with something he shouldn't have been playing with.
And I imagine the old man felt a little like this. Oops. A little like this. Well, there's an old man up there, and he's really annoyed. Use your imaginations.
Now, this saying has been around for a long time, like I said, and I'm here to tell you that it should go. I don't like it, and I just don't think it's necessary anymore. I'll be talking to you about...
the importance of something called intellectual curiosity and why it's so great. Before I go on, I want to show you these three men. You've got Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney, all three really fantastic men. Now, if you take a second and think about what they have in common, you'll find a few different things.
They all single-handedly changed their industry. They revolutionized it. What a lot of people may or may not know is that these people also had a crazy amount of intellectual curiosity. They were very passionate, and they were very curious.
I believe the combination of these two things is what made these men so great and why they were able to change their industry. They even talked about it, too. Albert Einstein said, I have no special talent.
I'm only passionately curious. Steve Jobs knew the importance of understanding and digging a little deeper, deeper, and through that you can find a common ground. complex things are actually pretty fairly simple. Walt Disney said, when you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.
So I'm not a math person, so I don't really like math, I'm not very good at it, but when I became curious about it and started asking the million and one questions that I typically did, I found out, hey, this is actually pretty cool stuff. And then I started to enjoy it. The one last thing all these men have in common is they had something known as dyslexia. Does anyone here know what dyslexia is, or has dyslexia? okay, I'm really happy there's so many hands raised right now.
When I was your age, we didn't really know what it was or how it related to the brain and how that affected your learning styles. So I remember in fourth grade, I raised my hand one day, as I always did, and I was like, hey, hey, I've got a question. The teacher looked at me and she goes, Tara, not right now.
I don't have time for your silly questions. I was dumbstruck. Like, what do you mean you don't have time for my silly questions?
I don't think that question was silly. How was it silly? Why was it silly?
I'm at school. aren't I supposed to be asking questions? So my mind was blown. I didn't get it. So continue a few more years down the road.
Once I discovered I had something called dyslexia, I realized that's why I was asking so many questions. I was very curious about everything that I was learning, and I had to ask questions to figure out the concept, idea, or whatever I was being taught in school. So if you don't know how the dyslexic brain works versus a regular person's brain, I'll give you a quick crash course in Brain Workings 101. So, how does a brain work? In a regular person's brain, information enters in, and it goes from point A to B. Congratulations, you get the idea.
For a dyslexic person, it works a little bit differently. Information enters your brain just as it does everybody else's, but it takes a little bit of a different path. It goes from A to L to F to Y.
It just goes all over the place. It's like a pinball machine just going from place to place until it finally lands on its intended destination, point B. So then you... Then you finally understand what you're trying to be taught. I believe that because dyslexic brains are wired so differently and our brains are a lot more active, this is why we're so curious.
This is why we ask a lot of questions. So if you are dyslexic, if you raised your hand earlier, then I want to encourage you that this is actually a wonderful thing to have. It allows you to see things in different perspective and put ideas together that somebody else may or may not have necessarily thought of.
So why is it important to be curious? Why can't? I just learn the things I need to learn, get the grade I need to get, and move on. So a couple different reasons.
If you're curious, you learn a lot more about the subject, and you have a greater understanding of what you're being taught. It makes learning a lot more fun, and it makes you more creative. Being creative is really great. So how does curiosity give you a greater understanding of the matter? So when you're curious, you ask questions.
When you ask questions, you find answers. When you find answers, you find understanding. Anybody can learn. learn and memorize facts, but memorizing facts isn't learning.
Understanding is learning. Even as Albert Einstein says, logic will get you from A to B, but imagination will take you everywhere else. Memorizing facts will take you to A to B.
Curiosity will get you everywhere else. So being curious and asking questions makes learning a lot more fun. It's kind of like when you're playing a game and you're losing, you don't like playing the game.
You're like, oh, this is silly. I don't like it. Let's just quit and give up, right? But once you start winning, you're like, this is the best game ever.
Like, now I want to play. play, go to the next level, and it just ignites this whole level of excitement and passion, and you want to play the game more. So it's like learning.
Once you start understanding it, once you have a more intimate understanding of the material you're being taught, then you like that material again. I'm not good at math still to this day. I use my calculator every day.
But I still find it very interesting and fascinating. So being curious and asking questions allows you to be more creative. How is this possible?
Well, as David Silverstein says in his book, that asking questions is like collecting dots. Collecting and connecting the dots is how people who are intellectually curious solve complex problems and provide breakthrough strategies. Thank you. So how do I maximize on my curiosity?
I'm a dyslexic person. I can relate with Tara because I'm always that annoying kid in class who asks questions. Keep doing that, okay? Identify your interests. What are you interested in right now?
Whether it's math, science, arts, I mean, animals, anything, how the brain works. Do your own research outside of school. We're in the age of the Internet. We can Google just about anything and everything, right?
So use that to your advantage. Get online. Look at blogs. See who's talking about the same things you're talking about and collaborate with them to see what they've learned, what they've discovered. And keep doing what you're doing.
I mean, today, you had to apply and interview, and you got to this conference. This conference is all about ideas worth spreading. So you're already a lot further along the road than you think you are.
So I encourage you to take this day to your full advantage. And acting on your curiosity can lead to great rewards. Just as these three men that I showed you earlier in my slide, they were all very passionate people, they were all very, very curious, and they capitalized on their curiosity.
Because they were able to capitalize on their curiosity and follow it with a lot of passion, it led them to discover the things that they discovered, and what made them revolutionize their industry. So, I found my passion when I was in high school, and I followed that into college and made a career out of it. I love people and I love brands, and more importantly, I love my job. of connecting people and brands together. Now I get to work at an advertising firm on some really, really fun accounts, and I've learned so much from it.
So my challenge to you today is to find your passion and to follow it with a great deal of curiosity. Thank you. Thank you.