“Go from know it all to learn it all.”

This past week I was fortunate enough to connect with some incredible leaders in our Retirement and Income Solutions lines of business. I was surrounded by so much expertise and experience with a hunger to explore how we continue to elevate ourselves and our teams. For us to elevate our game, one of our guest speakers hit such a critical mental element to this success – “go from know it all to learn it all”.

Whether our view is through the lens of an individual, team, or organization, there are certain skills we need to invest more in to raise the bar for the future. I realize we can brainstorm a list of a million skills that we feel are most important for our future – analytical, influential, strategic, etc. All have their own defendable answer but the one that I believe sits above the rest and aligns with our theme is curiosity.

When we’re curious, nothing is a finality. We’re never anchored to believe the world around us can only have a singular view. And when we meet change, we see opportunity. We begin to wonder what we can evolve into without feeling the pull of the anchor from the past.

This doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate and understand the past but we’re also confident enough to understand pushing ourselves to evolve is a part of exploring what we’re capable of becoming. Whether it’s facing change in your organization, challenging yourself to a new health and fitness level, or tackling challenges in your community, curiosity is such a key part to unlearning our past limitations to discover what can be.

When we think about raising the bar for the future, it’s never just one skillset that leads to success. It’s a collection and never a singular factor that drives success but the best way to make raising the bar a norm is to be curious.

With curiosity comes openness.

With openness comes exploration.

With exploration comes new ways of looking at the world around us.

With this new outlook comes the discovery of what we’re capable of evolving to.

Take your step: curiosity sounds relatively easy until we come to a belief we’re anchored to. Then curiosity becomes a test – stay anchored to a belief or explore if there’s a new perspective? Take time to reflect on a belief you have been anchored to and maybe holding you back. Acknowledge your current belief and then move onto the ‘what’ if moment. The what if moment is self-reflection exploring the idea that my current belief isn’t fully developed. What if there’s more insight and perspective that should be considered? What if I combine my perspective with additional viewpoints to get a better understanding of the world around me? It can be powerful but first we need to be curious.