Tell me about your vision. My vision is that we are going to have a world where people practice
more curiosity with themselves and with one another. And Harry, I described this curiosity
as a practice. It's not something we just have or don't have. We actually have to practice it and
that we strive to practice it more. Wow. What do you mean? I'm having a hard time describing
it. How do you stay curious and practice at the same time once you've already figured out the
curiosity? Well, I don't think we can always stay curious. That's the thing. I think actually there
are going to be some times where I don't want to be curious. It's just I'm actually feeling very
judgy right now. And I actually think it's powerful when we acknowledge that. When we acknowledge I
am not ready to practice curiosity right now because I've got a lot of hurt feelings or I'm
confused or I'm angry. I think that when people say, oh, just be curious or stay curious, it's
just it actually doesn't acknowledge how hard practicing curiosity can be. And so I describe
it as a practice. And I actually think of this practice as having these three elements, the first
being self-awareness, the second relationship building, and the third is clear communication.
So I'll just elaborate a little bit more. That self-awareness part is practicing inward curiosity.
It's getting curious about myself. Why am I, what am I feeling right now?
What's that based on? What are my, even I've got a book on respect. How do I want respect and why?
The second part, relationship building is, is this is the part where it's a bit of outward
curiosity, learn about other people and learn about where they're coming from and then share
myself with them, share my reactions to their, my interpretations, to their experiences, and also
share my stories. And so they can, they can react and interpret, and that is back and forth. That's
reciprocity. And so that we need to have that inward and outward curiosity for the relationship
building. And the third part is to, is clear communication. So this is about sharing specific
examples and stories. And so that means actually, I mean, when I talk about respect, people all say,
what does respect mean to you? And I've heard people say punctuality. Well, why is,
why is that important to you? Because it is, well, why is it respectful? Because that's what you're
supposed to do. And so they don't have a specific story. So it can be hard to tell stories. It can
be vulnerable to tell stories. And so all of this is getting at how curiosity is a practice
and so my vision is that people will not take curiosity for granted, that we will appreciate
how difficult it is and acknowledge when we're not ready to do it. And we maybe need to pause
and say, let me get back to you. I have to think about that, which means maybe I need to think
about it for myself. Yeah. Wow. That is powerful in which one, which I'm understanding,
but let's go to the next question. And I think it will get more depth of things.
Julie, where did this vision of being curious and these three steps come from?
So, well, first I'll tell you about why my focus on curiosity, and then this kind of one of my
epiphany moments here. So I, a lot of my work comes from community organizing. It's from bringing
different volunteers together. And I remember I had this fellowship and there were some people
who did really well and some people who really struggled and what after the third cohort, I
realized, oh, the people who are really struggling were fixated on a particular outcome. They wanted
things to go to plan and the people who are really thriving were just, wow, look at what we're
learning. I had no idea. We made something out of nothing. And what I saw on Teams was that if you
had a critical mass of people who, and we identified this as curiosity, if you had a
critical mass of people who wanted to learn, it could uplift the morale. And the inverse was true.
If you had a critical mass of people who are so focused on a particular outcome, it could take
down the morale because there are a lot of people who are bystanders. They're just waiting to see,
huh, what are the dynamics? Who's going to be talking the loudest? And so actually there are
a lot of people who are just waiting to see. And so that's when I identified, oh, curiosity is so
important. Now, so that's when I identified curiosity. And then the practice of it actually
came from a really painful experience I had. And I actually talk about this in my TEDx talk
curiosity as a practice where I was presenting on my work and I had actually, I was already in my
business for a few years and someone just basically said, this is a waste of my time. I don't know why
we're doing this. And this is in front of all these people. And that's when I realized, wow,
I think I've been taking curiosity for granted because I knew this person was really a very
curious person, described herself as curious. I knew. And yet what was it that was so difficult
at that point? And why was I having the reaction I was? Because it wasn't just her reaction. I was
kind of freezing up too and feeling a bit defensive. And that's when I realized there's this
gap between what we expect to happen and what we actually get. And sometimes we were so stuck on
what we thought should happen. We actually can't go to the other side and really see, explore,
oh, this is what we have. So what does that mean? So in any case, that's actually what led me to
start talking about curiosity as a practice, because I think it moves away from this false binary of
people who are curious and people who aren't curious. Because actually we need to create
environments where curiosity can thrive and people feel safe.
Wow. Let's play a little game on this. Let me explain something. So
one of my very best friends, the owner of First Class Business, if you see the logo at the top
right corner, he started a community called Opportunities for Latinos, where
their goal is to bridge the gap between the United States and Latinos in South America when it comes
to financial resources. Because some of them, if you go down, like Mexico is still that low,
but if you go south of that, people are struggling hard. There's a lot of struggle. So he created
these resources where he realized that people could be hired as virtual assistants, but they
don't have the skills or resources to do so. So he's like, hey, let me create those resources so
they can learn this and I'll give them all these opportunities and my time and this university
experience. And I think it has taken off to a great extent. And I am starting the same thing now
for India. The crazy part is I just got done talking to one of my first, I want to say mentees,
who he's in India, he's a good friend of mine that I had a chance when I was in India to talk
to and spend time with. And he's very curious. He's struggling in finances per se. And I think
this way of curiosity, how you put it, I think would be a very good addition to him. And this is
what you're curious about. You expect this out of this, that you can get hired and support your
family. But if you turn your vision to curiosity here, oh my gosh, there's so much more you can get.
And I'm hoping that the group expands and people see the power impact of it. I think they will
see that part and they'll get more out of it. So thank you for sharing that. This is something I
can apply. I don't know how to apply yet. Maybe I'll get along with that. So thank you for sharing
that. Awesome. Yes.
Perfect. So my next question for you, Julie, is what is your vibe? What gets you out of
morning in the bed and keep doing what you're doing every day?
It's learning. It's learning. It's that desire to just be surprised and feel, oh, this is something
I didn't know even about myself. I didn't know that I was going to be doing this.
And knowing that any time I can have a conversation with someone who can give me that
interpretation that just surprises me, I get a lot of delight from that. And then I also say
just connections with people. I'm really grateful for all the people in my life and to be able to
have those relationships is very meaningful to me. And that's where I think with curiosity,
when we, curiosity isn't just about accumulating knowledge. It's actually about building
relationships. That's that second element of practicing curiosity, because when we are
learning together, that's actually when we have to make ourselves a bit vulnerable, because it's
just, oh, I don't know. Or I'm going to ask you a question that might be kind of risky. And yet in
that risk, that's when we actually deepen our relationships. And I truly believe that our world
could be so much healthier with more social connections, with meaningful relationships,
with real ones, not just followers on Facebook or something like that.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.