Why curiosity is your most underrated career skill

This is the fourth and final article in a four-part series written by Leon Ler, one of the mentors in the Femme Palette community. In the first piece, he gave us a framework for turning difficult conversations into productive ones. In the second, he showed why solving the problem before investigating it changes everything about how teams work. In the third, he explored the challenge of communicating what is in our head in a way that truly lands for someone else. Now, in the final part, Leon turns to something just as essential and often overlooked: curiosity. In a world that rewards quick answers and certainty, he makes the case for why staying curious may be one of the most powerful professional skills we can build.

Knowing Is the Enemy of Learning

Curiosity as a Tool to Empower Your Growth Mindset

In the early 2000s, a small startup came to Blockbuster with a proposal. They had built a DVD-by-mail service and wanted to partner. They wanted to plug into Blockbuster's distribution muscle and build something together. Blockbuster's executives laughed them out of the room. They believed they understood the business. Late fees were profitable. Physical stores were dominant. Streaming sounded niche.

“We know this business,” they said.

The startup was Netflix.

By 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. What would have happened if they were open to listen to what they "already know"?

"I Already Know"

The moment you decide you already know something, you stop receiving information about it. You are still nodding, still in the room, but you are not listening anymore.

Think about the movie Inception for the first time. You leave the theater convinced you’ve cracked it. The dream layers make sense. The spinning top is obviously symbolic. You explain it confidently to your friends.

Then you watch it again. You notice small details you completely missed. A glance, a line of dialogue, a shift in tone. You realize your first interpretation of it might have been off. Then you read discussions online and realize entire threads of meaning never even crossed your mind. You watch it again and it is practically a different film.

Nothing about the movie changed. Your willingness to keep looking did.

The feeling of already knowing is a trap. It is surprisingly hard to catch because it disguises itself as confidence. You are not zoning out; you are pattern-matching. You are not being dismissive; you are being efficient. Except you are also shutting down a chance to grow.

The good news: even if you fell in the trap, we all once had the ability to get out of it.

Channel Your Inner Child

Watch a five-year-old find a leaf on the ground. They pick it up, hold it to the light, trace the veins with their finger, ask why it went red, wonder where it goes after. Then they ask three more questions you cannot answer. Then they throw it, pick up a slightly less red leaf, and start the whole thing over.

Children have what researchers and Zen Buddhists call a beginner's mind. The ability to approach even familiar things as if for the first time.

As we grow up, we lose this skill. Partly because experience is useful and shortcuts save time. Partly because admitting not knowing something feels like a social risk. We get rewarded for having answers. School tests correctness. Work values expertise. Adulthood trains us to believe that not knowing equals incompetence.

So we stop asking. And with that, our curiosity muscle starts weakening.

The ones who protect their curiosity don’t just keep learning, they outgrow everyone else.

In an interview, star basketball player Giannis Antetokounmpo shared advice he got from the late Kobe Bryant. "Be like a child," he said. Ask why, stay curious, keep learning. Because asking why is the only thing that actually moves you forward.

If it's good enough for elite basketball players, it might be good enough for the rest of us. Beginner's mind is a superpower.

The Beginner's Mind

Curiosity is the heart of beginner's mind. The genuine belief that insight can come from anywhere. The junior colleague who asks a "naive" question that turns out to be the question nobody thought to ask. The student who plays the piece wrong in a way that accidentally reveals something new in the music. The mentee who pushes back on your advice and, if you stay open long enough to hear it out, shows you a blind spot in your own thinking.

Or when someone more experienced is telling you something you think you already know, resist the urge to skip ahead. Experience and understanding are not the same thing. You lived through something; they have had years to figure out what it meant. That gap is where the learning is.

It is not about pretending you are a blank slate. It is about holding your expertise loosely enough that new information can still get in. It is about being curious enough to leave yourself room to grow. Expertise should be a foundation, not a ceiling.

There is an old saying some educators use as a mantra: "I've learned from all my teachers, and from my students most of all." Not all learning comes from a predictable direction. Every interaction is an opportunity to learn something new.

Three Things Worth Trying This Week

• Find something you already know and ask why. Keep asking until you find something you cannot answer. That is where the learning starts.
• Say "tell me more" instead of "I know." Even when you do know. Especially then.
• Get comfortable with "I don't know yet." Not knowing does not suggest incompetence. Not learning does. The word yet is a declaration of curiosity. A declaration that you are willing to grow.

Every day you get to choose: be the person who already knows, or be the person who is curious to find out more.

Blockbuster knew the video rental business. Netflix was curious about it.

You know which one is still around.