How Focusing On Curiosity Changed My Life
When I started writing for Forbes last year, I made a few decisions:
- To focus on fewer high-quality articles.
- To go longer than the suggested 800 words per article.
- To focus on intellectual integrity by researching the ideas and proactively searching for opposing arguments.
- Finding and sharing stories with honesty and vulnerability.
A lot of these are against the grain of traditional article writing. I made these decisions because I’ve been pursuing writing as a hobby and wanting to put ideas into the world that I’m proud of and that are helpful for others.
In a little over a year, the 23 articles I’ve written have been viewed nearly 1 million times and shared tens of thousands of times. My article published last week has been viewed over 20,000 times and shared 2,000 times on LinkedIn, Umano, Business Insider, and Forbes, and I’m going to be syndicating it in a few more places shortly. These numbers are way more than I ever imagined.
More than anything, I’ve learned that I deeply love writing and self-expression. My passion for writing has grown to the point where I proactively have to limit the time I spend on it because it is such a rewarding activity for me and takes over other things, even though I don’t get paid. As a result of writing, I see my life unfolding in a completely new and exciting way.
Here is one of my biggest lessons learned:
Sometimes it’s good to do things purely because it piques our curiosity and is something we’re really passionate about; even if we don’t have an endgame in mind. When we focus every activity through the lens of how much profit it will this bring in to grow the company, and we do this over 10 years, I’ve seen this help the company, but also sap my personal vitality.
Forbes: Open Relationship Building: The 15-Minute Habit That Transforms Your Network
Relationship building in the 21st century will be drastically different than it was in the 20th. In this century, it will be more important than ever to have a large, diverse, and deep network. Open relationship building is a unique approach to building this type of network in your downtime.
Harvard Business Review: To Create a Real Connection, Show Vulnerability
The hardest part of my business failing was not the loss of the business. It was the loss of the identity that came with being a successful entrepreneur.
I had become so attached to this identity that when others asked how the non-existent business was doing, I said, “Great!” The chasm between the image of being financially set for life and owning a failed business was painful. I felt like a fraud.
Why I Believe In Personal Transparency
I grew up with a feeling of being alone and misunderstood.
i saw others appearing comfortable talking, and I labeled myself as shy.
I was frustrated that people didn’t see me for me.
Over, the past 15 years, I’ve grown to have the exact opposite perspective on the world.
Yesterday, I had a fascinating conversation with Princeton psychologist, Emily Pronin (http://bit.ly/SBDbnb) that explains why. In short…
- People judge us by our actions and behaviors. We judge ourselves by who we are on the inside.
- We think others are outgoing, because we see them talking and appearing comfortable. We think we’re shy, not because we appear less comfortable, but because we feel our own awkwardness.
- The result is that we don’t share ourselves because we believe others are different. We feel that others will distance themselves once they see our ‘other’ side.
A leap of faith is required to eliminate this bias.
The leap is sharing our inner life with the world as it is a core part of who we are. It is completely unrealistic to expect others to see our inner world if we do not share it.
Going from not sharing to sharing is a process of finding our voice, expanding our comfort zone, and easing others into the change.
To others it feels like the ‘new’ us. In actuality, it is just the ‘real’ us.
By sharing with others, we create the space for them to share with us.
In so doing, we realize that we are all human and have the same emotions.
We can’t help but be transformative in our lives
I love time travel sci fi plots.
Many times, the main character is purposefully trying NOT to change the future, but they are always dramatically unsuccessful.
The smallest acts change everything.
Sometimes, we forget how transformative our lives are when we’re living it forwards.
The question isn’t just, “Will we be transformative?”
It is, “How will others be different? How transformative will we be?”
The Power of The Origin Story
In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. ― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
IMHO, the most important thing that people can do when they meet each other is to tell their origin story; the story that most helps others understand who they are. This is the story of how they overcame their major life challenge and what they learned from it.
What is your origin story?
Forbes: Why You Must Rethink How You Build Relationships In The 21st Century
The digitization of relationships has fundamentally changed what it means to build a network in the 21st century. Thriving in this era of confusingly rapid change and information overwhelm means embracing network literacy ; the critical, counterintuitive skill set that helps individuals and businesses systematically build their networks.
We All Have Two Networks We Should Actively Nurture
I believe that when we think about our networks, we should think about it as two networks:
- CLOSE NETWORK – Kindred spirits, friends, and family closest to us who we confide in the most and who we are most generous to time and energy wise.
- EXTENDED NETWORK – Large and diverse network of people we’ve met or who somehow resonate with who we are as expressed through our work and content.
IMHO, I think both networks are critical to career success and leading a fulfilling and rich life and both should be actively developed.
Many people criticize weak ties because they are shallow. I think what people miss is that shallow is not necessarily at the cost of deep. Also, a relationship being shallow doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.
This week, when I asked for a book recommendation (http://on.fb.me/O7k7tQ), introduction to a public company CEO (http://on.fb.me/P9x6vR), and received an intro to an author I interviewed (http://on.fb.me/P9xb2C); it was generally the weak ties in my network who I had never met or hadn’t connected with for years that gave the most support.
A book that makes a great case for the power of weak ties is Consequential Strangers.
This Is My Life Purpose.
My life purpose is to help create a world where people relate to each other as brothers and sisters and proactively help one another.
I plan to help create this world by finding what works, celebrating it, and scalably sharing it with others to create behavior change.
I currently do this through writing for Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsimmons) and through the organization I co-founded, Empact (http://www.iempact.com).
I would love to work with you to help create this world.
What is your life purpose?
New Forbes Article: The One Thing You Should Do After Meeting Anyone New
At 24-years-old, Francis Pedraza is the co-founder and CEO of a venture-backed company, Everest. In addition, he is an advisor to 10 tech companies, each of whom he does hundreds of introductions for in return for equity.
It is hard to predict how my Forbes interviews will go. Most top relationships builders are not able to articulate how they do what they do.
Francis does not fall into this camp.
