As young children, we asked around 300 questions a day. Those WFH with children can verify this. But how many questions do you ask now? “Curiosity is the engine of achievement” — Ken Robinson. Curious people excel through asking questions, learning from others, and looking for ways to do things better. When they fail, they look at the reasons why to increase the chances of success the next time round. Their minds are actively looking for ways to improve and grow. They’re able to see new possibilities, become better listeners, and ask more relevant questions to facilitate deeper connections.  

Curiosity is the driving force behind lifelong learning. But it’s more than that. When we feel frustrated or blocked (especially by situations out of our control) it’s hard to think beyond that. Unlocking a curious mindset helps us move forward towards a purpose. In times of uncertainty, a curious mind asks “how am I feeling”, “why am I feeling that”, “where do I go from here”, “what do I really want”, and “what if…” to create new opportunities. Curiosity feels open, expansive, it provides openings and new pathways. It opens doors.

Feedly your curiosity

Feedly is a news aggregator. Follow unlimited news sources, organise them into collections and never miss out on a topic of interest again. Feed your curiosity with news that's relevant to you.

Harness curiosity to build better products — snippets from class

Here are some best bits from our syllabus:

• Every problem is an opportunity for design. By framing your challenge as a “how might we” question, you’ll set yourself up for an innovative solution.
  Discover: Understand what should exist and why.

• Visually generate a lot of high-level solutions for a product or service, then filter and narrow down into the best, most practical, or most innovative one.
  Define: Explore ideas and find the best solution.

• Market research should answer relatively simple questions those sum will answer larger questions. It should then be presented graphically and comprehensively, explaining important insights that have emerged and recommendations based on those.
  Market Research: Identify your unique business advantage

• Everyone is lying to you. To access accurate insights talk about their life instead of your idea, ask about specific past events not opinions for the future and talk less, listen more.
  How to conduct meaningful user interviews

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Find your career sweet spot — Community Murmurs

Are you giving more than you get at work? Being able to identify what you're looking for out of your career allows you to make better decisions when choosing how to advance. Career orientations is a concept developed by Dr. Brooke Derr, global business and careers scholar. It identifies five distinct career orientations, each bearing different motivational needs, potential problems and strategies for success.

Our community got together with Worksome and Jon Younger this week to discuss how to use career orientations as a freelancer.

• View the recording of the discussion here.
• Find your career orientation here.

The Library

What we've been reading this week:

• Time alone (chosen or not) can be a chance to hit the reset button
• Why you didn't see it coming
• Why do you believe what you do? Run some diagnostics on it
• The curse of genius
• 📚: The Mom Test — Rob Fitzpatrick  

Keep it inquisitive folks ask questions: seek out new knowledge and exercise your mind muscle.

Let us know which section of Vitamin J's your favourite by sending an email to nina.gordon@jolt.io, we'd love to know. Or, tell us if you think we're missing something you think would be pretty neat to include.

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