As I spend time with Mos and Robi in Nairobi, I am constantly surprised by the number of questions they ask.
“Is Batman stronger than Superman?”
“Would a lion beat a cheetah in a fight?”
“If a baboon carried Baby Coco, what would happen?”
“Which team is better – the Atlanta Braves or the Toronto Blue Jays?
And just when we answer, there’s another question. And another. And another. It’s relentless. It’s playful. It’s pure curiosity.
It made me think of something I read recently by Peter H. Diamandis:
“Your Brain’s Learning Rate: Why Curiosity Is the Most Powerful Upgrade for Your 100 Billion Neurons.”
A five-year-old asks about 107 questions an hour. As they grow older, the number drops steadily until it drops to almost zero in adulthood. Let that sink in.
We don’t lose intelligence as we grow older. We lose curiosity.
The article compared our brains to AI. Not metaphorically but literally. Our brain – with its billions of neurons — learns the same way AI does: It predicts. It gets feedback. It adjusts. And AI is getting smarter at a breathtaking pace because it is constantly learning, updating, adjusting and re-training.
But here’s the critical difference. AI has engineers controlling how fast it learns.
We do too. That dial is called curiosity.
When curiosity dies, learning slows. And I’ve seen this – not just in research – but in real life.
I’ve sat in boardrooms where leaders had all the answers, but stopped asking questions. I’ve worked with teams that were efficient, but not evolving.
And I’ve caught myself doing the same thing sometimes. Running on experience. Relying on what I already know. Not stretching to learn something new.
But here’s the good news.Curiosity is trainable.
And this is where it gets personal for me. Because my life – especially the last few years – has demanded curiosity.
When you’re living with an incurable illness, you don’t have the luxury of autopilot. You get curious about your body, your energy, what actually matters, what brings you alive
You start asking better questions. Not “Why me?” — because that leads to frustration and helplessness. But curiosity-driven questions like. “What now?” What is this experience asking me to learn, change, or see differently?
We live in a world where answers are everywhere. And the quality of the answer depends on the quality of the question. That’s where curiosity-driven questions shine to bring insight and even transformation.
So how do we rebuild curiosity? Here’s what I’ve been practicing:
- Trying something new instead of defaulting to what’s comfortable
- Taking a different route, just to see what happens
- Cooking something I’ve never made before
- Asking one more question in every conversation
- Letting go of needing to have the answer
Simple but not easy.
That small shift – from knowing to wondering, is where growth lives.
Here are the curiosity-driven questions I have asked myself over the years as I have transformed my life:
- What’s one assumption I’ve held for years that might be holding me back?
- If I had no fear of being wrong, what would I explore that I’ve been avoiding?
- What’s the most surprising question I could ask today that would unlock a new perspective?
So here’s a question for you:
When was the last time you were truly curious Not scrolling. Not consuming. But genuinely wondering?
Because curiosity isn’t just a skill. It’s a way of being. And in today’s world? It might just be our greatest superpower.