Here’s the thing that’s been bugging me. I’ve been building stuff for a long time. Software, hardware, IoT platforms, weird pinball mods — you name it. And every single time I start a new project, there’s this moment where I think, “Didn’t I already do this part?” The setup. The boilerplate. The config files. The architecture decisions I’ve already made a dozen times before.

I call it the Groundhog Day Problem.

Your tools don’t remember you. You close the tab, and it’s like you never existed.

“Sixty to eighty percent of what you do on a new project, you’ve already done before.”

Hans Scharler

And yet, every time, you start from scratch. That’s not a feature. That’s a bug.

TL;DR

The Work Surface That Learns

Compound Engineering is the idea that your work surface — the environment where you actually do the work — should learn, adapt, and accumulate knowledge over time. Not like templates. Templates are dead things. I’m talking about living intelligence that evolves with you.

Think of it like compound interest, but for productivity. Every workflow you capture, every pattern you codify, every piece of knowledge you extract — it doesn’t just help you today. It helps you tomorrow, next month, and next year. It accrues.

I’ve been experiencing this firsthand. When I wrote about The Engineering Super Stack, I was already circling this idea — stacking the right tools so they yield something greater than the parts. But Compound Engineering goes further. It’s not just about picking good tools. It’s about tools that get better because you used them.

Five Layers That Stack

When I break it down, there are five layers to this compounding:

Workflows are the foundation. You do something once, capture the sequence, and now you can replay it, remix it, evolve it. That deployment script you write from memory every time? Capture it. Done.

Skills take it further — encoding your domain expertise into reusable, shareable modules. The stuff that lives in your head? Make it executable.

Commands are where you start to feel the leverage. Those ten steps you do every Monday morning? Collapse them into one. One click. Gone.

Agents are where it gets fun. Autonomous workers that carry your intent forward while you’re doing something else — or sleeping, which I hear some people do.

Knowledge is the substrate beneath everything. Context that doesn’t just persist — it deepens and connects across projects, across teams, across your career.

Each layer feeds the next. That’s the compounding.

Project 1 vs. Project 10

Here’s how it plays out in practice:

Project one, you build everything from scratch. You’re exploring, making mistakes, learning. It’s slow, and that’s fine.

By project three, your workflows are captured. Setup takes half the time. You’re not reinventing the wheel anymore.

By project five, agents handle the boring parts. Boilerplate? Done. Config? Done. You’re spending your time on the interesting problems — the ones that actually need your brain.

By project ten, you describe what you want, and the system drafts the first 70%. You refine, you polish, you add the creative spark. But the heavy lifting? Already handled.

Project ten shouldn’t feel like project one. And now it doesn’t have to.

I’ve talked before about how empathic AI prompting changed the way I work — treating your AI like a collaborator instead of a vending machine. Compound Engineering is the next step. It’s not just about how you talk to your tools. It’s about your tools remembering every conversation you’ve ever had.

What Actually Changes

This isn’t incremental. This rewrites the economics of work.

Onboarding gets transformed. New team members don’t get a wiki link and a “good luck.” They inherit the team’s compound knowledge from day one — the workflows, the skills, the patterns.

Expertise becomes portable. When your best engineer moves on, their expertise stays. Codified, not tribal.

The gap between “senior” and “junior” shrinks. Not because junior developers suddenly gain ten years of experience, but because the tools carry the seniority. The tools know the patterns. The tools remember the pitfalls.

Solo operators gain the leverage of teams. Small teams gain the leverage of enterprises. That’s not a tagline. That’s just what happens when you make expertise executable.

The Risk of Not Doing This

I’ll be blunt. If you’re not compounding, you’re falling behind.

Linear workers — folks doing great work but starting from zero every time — hit a ceiling. There’s only so fast you can move when you’re rebuilding the foundation each time. Compound workers hit escape velocity. Same talent, same hours in the day, dramatically different output over time.

Organizations feel this even harder. Institutional knowledge that isn’t captured gets lost to attrition, to time, to entropy. Your best person leaves, and a decade of expertise walks out the door with them.

The future belongs to whoever builds the flywheel first.

Where This Is Going

I see three things coming.

• Connected work surfaces… where your tools talk to your teammates’ tools. Work surfaces that negotiate and share context without a meeting.
• Skills marketplaces… codified expertise becoming a tradeable asset. A senior DevOps engineer publishes their deployment workflow. A startup buys it and deploys like a Fortune 500 company on day one.
• Career-long AI… a personal AI that doesn’t reset when you change jobs. It compounds across your entire career. Every problem you’ve solved, every domain you’ve mastered, every lesson you’ve learned.

Start the Flywheel

Here’s your homework. Codify one workflow this week. Just one. That deployment script you always write from memory. The project setup you’ve done forty times. The onboarding checklist that lives in your head.

Write it down. Automate it. Make it reusable. Watch what happens.

My approach to rebuilding my confidence is remembering that I control how I feel and act. My joy comes from surfing the endless waves of technology breakthroughs and figuring them out. I forgot that this is my superpower and might be the critical skill in this ocean of chaos.

Well, I am on top of the wave. It is a small wave now, but that’s how it works. One at a time.

My advice to you and me is to learn to surf metaphorically. What’s going on? Dig in. Talk with your friends. Reconnect. Explore. Network. Nobody knows where it is all going, but it is going.

As a baseline, here’s the AI-generated image from two years ago, created with DALL-E 3.

The original DALL-E 3 photo looks kind of crazy when you look back. I would never garnish a drink with a grapefruit wedge; it would have been a peel.

To remind you of the cocktail recipe for The Merry Manhattan:

Print

The Merry Manhattan

Recipe by Hans Scharler

Prep time

5

minutes

The Merry Manhattan is a festive twist on the classic Manhattan cocktail, perfect for holiday celebrations. This elegant drink features a rich amber hue, achieved by blending rye whiskey with sweet vermouth. The traditional flavor is enhanced with a unique addition of smoked cherries, adding a subtle, smoky sweetness. A sprig of rosemary infuses the cocktail with a fragrant, herbaceous aroma, invoking the essence of winter. The drink is served in a rocks glass containing a large ice chunk. The finishing touch is a gracefully twisted grapefruit peel, adding a citrusy zing and completing the cocktail’s holiday charm.

Ingredients

• 1 oz Carpano Antica Formula Vermouth

• 2 oz Whistle Pig Rye Whiskey

• 2 dashes Sour Cherry Bitters

• 2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

• Fresh cherries (for smoking)

• Fresh rosemary (for smoking)

• Grapefruit peel (for garnish)

• Ice

Directions

• Prepare the Smoke:
  Gather a few fresh cherries and a sprig of rosemary.
  Using a kitchen torch, gently torch the rosemary and cherries until they start to smoke. Be careful not to burn them.
  Immediately cover the smoking rosemary and cherries with a rocks glass to trap the smoke inside. Let it sit for a minute to infuse the glass with the smoky aroma.
• In a mixing glass, combine 1 oz of Vermouth and 2 oz of Rye Whiskey.
• Add two dashes each of Sour Cherry Bitters and Peychaud’s Bitters.
• Fill the mixing glass with ice and stir well to chill and dilute the cocktail.
• Add an ice chunk to the smoked rocks glass.
• Strain the stirred cocktail into the smoked rocks glass.
• Finish and Garnish:
  Take a grapefruit peel and express (squeeze) its oils over the drink.
  Use the grapefruit peel as a garnish.
  Use one of the smoked cherries as a garnish.
  Use the sprig of rosemary as a garnish.

Notes

• Enjoy the smoked cherries as a treat, or save them for a future cocktail garnish.

Here’s the first try with Nano Banna Pro. I gave it the recipe card along with the prompt to create a realistic photo for a Christmas or New Year’s party setting.

I am still not in love with the photos. They are better for sure. Let me try a new approach. I am going to just send a link to the blog post and ask for the photos again.

This time it was much better. I like that it used a fancy cocktail cherry, like a Luxardo cherry, instead of one with a stem.

I found this an interesting way to visualize how a drink can come together. I like inventing my own cocktails for parties. This gives me a way to experiment with the visual presentation.

Now, Nano Banana Pro has way more capability than DALL-E 3 had, so I can do more things. I can make process diagrams for the recipe card. Let’s try that.

Now, we are talking.

A few takeaways:

• Models are improving rapidly.
• You can do something new with Generative AI models.
• And, the power of AND. I started with a photo, then pivoted to a recipe card diagram. I could keep anding. I could make it a YouTube video script. I could make it a series of cocktails. This is the most critical takeaway for 2026. It is not just about doing one thing more efficiently; it is about doing more things than you could before.

Buckle up. You might need a drink in 2026.

My friend curated an evening that filled me back up. They invited me to an event with the Revels community and a discussion with Gregory Maguire, author of Matchless: A Christmas Story and Wicked. You know, Wicked. The movement.

Gregory told stories, engaged with the moderator, signed books, and answered questions: he entertained us thoroughly. Everyone there had a story of Gregory. I met someone who recalls Gregory visiting their school before he gained Wicked fame, and even remembers him sitting on the front table, wearing purple Converse shoes. Gregory touched many people through his writing.

Gregory’s story, which he wrote for NPR’s All Things Considered Spirit of the Season series, has turned out to be the inspiration for a new Revels show for this midwinter season.

Have you been to a Revels show?

Revels brings together people of all ages and backgrounds through musical and theatrical celebrations of our world’s cultural and seasonal traditions. They believe that songs and stories passed down through the generations embody a collected wisdom that illuminates the past and informs the future.

This year’s show is a blend of music, storytelling, song, and dance, bringing to life the radiant story of Matchless. Woven together with festive Scandinavian song and dance performed by virtuoso musicians, actors, and an intergenerational chorus, the story tells the tale of a young boy finding warmth and light in the darkest days. Matchless and the new Revels show takes inspiration from The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson. Wait, did they invite me because my name is Hans?

“In selecting this tale for revisiting – illumination, perhaps – I hope to honor the original by finding a way to return to the story a sense of the transcendent.”

Gregory Maguire

The evening was a wicked good time… do you see what I did there? Thank you, my friend, that was plenty.

Collecting IRL junk is also like collecting other forms of junk. Those 10k photos on your cloud storage account. Old thoughts and feelings that percolate. I am learning a tough lesson. It is okay to have less.

So, over the past weeks, I have been focused on opening bins, bags, and boxes. I hired a person who literally sat with me and asked me the same question for each item. It was nice to work with a third-party who has no emotion for the things.

The process for each item: 1) has a place in your home, 2) needs to be thrown out, 3) will be donated, 4) will be given away, or 5) will be sold. There are no other options. It takes time to make this choice. It’s not a sexy process… we just tested each item with their process.

But, wow, after weekends of doing this, I feel so much better. I rediscovered some cool things I had forgotten about, including my first computer and the Morse code key that my dad and I built in 1984. I also shared a bunch of stories with my kid. It was such a joy to see what resonated with my 8-year-old. He snuck away an ioBridge bookbag behind his back. I let him “steal” it. When a friend dropped by, he told him all about ioBridge. I realized that the stories and a few items are all that’s needed to carry my story forward.

What if I refused the rite of passage, ignored the world’s most famous smirk, and let Leonardo’s leading lady keep her privacy for once? Would the Internet revoke my tourist visa? Would history forget I was ever here? More importantly, would I forget that she doesn’t have eyebrows?

Across the city, strangers juggle selfie sticks like kendo swords, ready to battle for a five-second angle on a painting smaller than a MacBook screen. Everyone is a content creator these days. Livestreaming the mundane to no viewers. Are bloggers the supreme content creators? Are we better than the others? Yes.

1. FOMO as a Service

Social apps run on the Attention Economy’s premium fuel: Fear of Missing Out. The “Mona Lisa photo” is basically the “Hello World” of travel bragging. Algorithms reward the recognizable; the Louvre’s lady is the ultra-recognizable. Post her, and the feed lights up like an airport runway.

But FOMO is loss-aversion in skinny jeans: we obsess over the 0.1% we didn’t do and forget the 99.9% we did.

2. Cameras, Cognition & Schrödinger’s Memory

Cognitive studies suggest that when we outsource remembering to a device, the brain files the moment under “external storage, optional recall.” In other words, snapping a pic can make you remember less of what you’re seeing.

So while 5,000 tourists aim their sensors at La Gioconda, they may be trapping the moment inside glass, not their gray matter.

(Somewhere there’s a farm of servers holding millions of photos of the Mona Lisa. Who is looking at those photos? Can you imagine at a dinner party showing someone a picture of the Mona Lisa like a humble brag?)

3. The Philosophy of Presence

Skipping the Louvre photo op became a small act of rebellion against the checklist mentality. Philosophers from Kierkegaard to Camus argue that meaning is handcrafted, not mass-produced. My Paris didn’t need to match anyone else’s template to be “authentic.”

What’s your Paris?

This is the essence of honest self-reflection—facing tough truths about yourself, your strengths, and your blind spots. Ignoring those truths doesn’t just keep you stuck. Not working on yourself on a regular basis leads to a path of destruction. Interrupt this pattern and take an honest look at yourself. This change empowers you to make conscious decisions about your life.

The Philosophy and Practice of “Knowing Thyself”

Socrates famously proclaimed, “Know thyself,” encapsulating the idea that understanding who we are is foundational to living a meaningful and virtuous life. If you don’t take the time to see yourself accurately—your habits, your triggers, your genuine desires—you run the risk of drifting through life on autopilot.

“Understanding what is true is essential for success, and being radically transparent about everything, including mistakes and weaknesses, helps create the understanding that leads to improvements.”

Ray Dalio

Modern folks echo this wisdom too. Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, advocates for “radical transparency.” He believes openly acknowledging your weaknesses and mistakes is the best way to learn and improve. Dalio’s approach to business and life emphasizes the value of self-awareness. If you don’t know where you stand, you can’t chart a path forward.

Honest self-reflection, then, is more than a philosophical ideal. You have to do a little bit each day. It pulls you away from blame, denial, or self-delusion and places you firmly on the path to positive change. It is also

How to Unlock Self-Reflection

1. Regular Journaling: Spend a few minutes each day or week writing down your thoughts, frustrations, and achievements.
   • What went well today, and why?
   • What challenges did I face, and how did I handle them?
   • Is there a pattern behind any recurring “things”situations”?
2. Guided Reflection Questions: Beyond daily journaling, dive deeper by asking more targeted questions.
   • Where do I feel the most resistance in my life right now?
   • What am I afraid of confronting about myself?
   • If I could change one aspect of my mindset or behavior, what would it be and why?
3. Seek Honest Feedback: Self-reflection doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Talk to friends, family, mentors, or even a coach who can gently and constructively show you what you may not see in yourself.
   • What do you think is my greatest strength and how do you see me using it?
   • What’s one area where you see room for me to grow?
4. Embrace Vulnerability: True self-reflection requires a willingness to be vulnerable. It’s about acknowledging your flaws, regrets, or insecurities without letting them define you. By accepting where you are right now, you can map out how to become the version of yourself you want to be.

A Clearer Road Ahead

Practicing honest self-reflection doesn’t magically solve all your problems, but it does give you control over your next steps. When you see your own role in your successes and failures, you can course-correct more effectively. You replace blame with responsibility and denial with insight.

While it can be uncomfortable to start working on yourself, it will yield different outcomes and agency.

This is the overlooked power of habits. They shape the trajectory of our lives, often more than big, dramatic changes. Habits are the invisible architectures of everyday living. They build us up—or tear us down—one small action at a time.

The Hidden Influence of Our Daily Choices

Habits may feel like background noise, but they’re more like background music, setting a mood that influences every step we take. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” A single habit can seem insignificant, but over time, it compounds. Good habits lead to incremental improvement that accumulates into substantial progress. Bad habits, left unchecked, create slow, steady declines that only become obvious once they’ve done their damage.

“All big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision.”

James Clear

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, calls certain routines “keystone habits.” These are the habits that carry positive ripple effects throughout your life. For me, that morning walk was a keystone habit. It reset my mindset each day. For you, it might be making your bed, exercising, or preparing a healthy breakfast. Keystone habits don’t just improve one area; they subtly transform how you approach your day as a whole.

“More than 40% of the actions people perform each day aren’t actual decisions but habits.”

Charles Duhigg

The Stoics understood the importance of daily discipline long before neuroscience caught up. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, stressed the value of consistent effort and virtuous actions in everyday life. To him, it wasn’t the grand public gestures that defined a person’s character, but the steady, purposeful choices made each day. In other words, much like Clear and Duhigg, Marcus Aurelius saw that the small building blocks of habits form the foundation of who we become.

How to Leverage This Unlock

Identify Your Keystone Habits: Think about the parts of your day that, when done well, have a positive ripple effect. Maybe that’s a morning workout that lifts your mood and confidence, or setting aside time to read, which inspires you and helps you think more clearly. Start small, and focus on a habit that, if consistently practiced, will influence other aspects of your life.

Start Small and Specific: Don’t overhaul your entire routine at once. Pick one habit and begin at a tiny, achievable scale. If you want to read more, start with just five minutes a day. If you want to exercise, commit to a short workout. Over time, you can build on this foundation. As Clear suggests, tiny changes add up to big results when repeated day after day.

Track Your Habits: Habit-tracking methods—like a simple checklist, a habit-tracking app, or a journal—help you stay honest. Knowing you’ll mark down whether you followed through provides subtle accountability. The act of visually seeing your streak grow can be incredibly motivating.

Reward Consistency, Not Just Results: It’s tempting to focus only on outcomes—losing weight, finishing a book, reaching a career milestone—but consistency itself is worth celebrating. Treat yourself to something small when you maintain a habit for a week or a month. Positive reinforcement helps solidify the habit in your brain, making it easier to keep going over the long haul.

Embrace Compound Interest in Your Life: Just as money invested over time compounds into greater wealth, small habits maintained over weeks, months, and years compound into meaningful transformations in your health, career, relationships, and sense of self. Good habits are like tiny seeds that, with patience and care, can grow into something far more significant than you might initially imagine.

Building a Life One Day at a Time

We often think big events or dramatic life changes define who we are. In reality, the future you is shaped by what you do day in and day out. Your habits are the subtle architects working behind the scenes. By harnessing their power, you give yourself the best chance to build the life you want. When you understand that small daily choices have a long-term impact, you reclaim a sense of agency over your future.

The next time you find yourself scrolling endlessly on your phone or skipping the walk you promised yourself, pause and remember: It’s not just a single choice. It’s a building block in your future self’s foundation. Nurture good habits, weed out the bad, and watch as your life begins to reflect the person you aspire to be.

Extra Resources: Atomic Habits

Earlier this year, I joined a book club to read and discuss the book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones. As the 6-week book club progressed, I blogged about the book and shared what I learned.

This isn’t just about enjoying dinner or focusing on a single event. It’s about learning to show up for your own life. Cultivating a mindful presence means embracing the here and now rather than drifting into the past or future. It’s acknowledging where you are and what you’re doing, and giving it your full attention—especially in a world brimming with distractions and worries we carry around like heavy luggage.

I also had a truly embarrassing situation come up this year with my closest friends. A group of us traveled to Indianapolis to play gaming events at Gen Con. There’s a bunch of us, and we try to find a game we can all play together. We found two Battletech sessions, and we got there early to ask the game master if we could combine sessions to accommodate our large group. As the game progressed, I drifted off. On my turn, I had to keep asking about what to do and how to resolve my actions after my dice rolls. The session lasted four hours, and I had never learned about the game. I chalked it up so that there was less action between turns. I picked up my phone repeatedly, opened Reddit, scrolled my feed, and returned to the game. Later that day, a friend asked me what was going on. I got the sudden realization rush of embarrassment. The rest of the crew were trying to make the extended gaming session memorable. We even made the local paper, as this was one of the first sessions of the con. I am in the photo, but I am not in the game. This whole experience jolted me into being much more deliberate about mindfulness.

The Wisdom Behind Mindfulness

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, once said, “The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.” This simple truth reminds us that we can’t rewrite yesterday’s script, nor can we pre-record tomorrow’s scenes. What we have is right now. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a pioneer of mindfulness meditation in the West, defines mindfulness as paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. It’s a practice of gently bringing yourself back whenever your mind wanders.

Modern leaders also advocate for presence. Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post and Thrive Global, often speaks about mindfulness and the importance of disconnecting from work to reconnect with yourself. She’s highlighted how even brief periods of meditation or being fully present in daily tasks can recharge your mind and help you perform better in all areas of life. In essence, mindfulness isn’t just a nice idea—it’s a practical tool that can enhance your relationships, boost creativity, and even improve physical health by lowering stress levels.

How to Leverage This Unlock in Daily Life

1. Start with Your Breath: We breathe all day long without noticing. To tap into presence, pause and follow your inhalations and exhalations for a minute or two. Notice the air entering and leaving your body, the rise and fall of your chest. This simple exercise anchors you to the present moment, giving your racing mind a place to settle.
2. Use Presence Reminders: Set a reminder on your phone or watch to check in with yourself every few hours. When the alert sounds, notice what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. Are you truly engaged, or are you lost in thought or worry? Gentle nudges like these can train your mind to return to the moment more frequently.
3. Integrate Mindfulness into Daily Routines: You don’t need an hour-long meditation session to become more present. Try being fully awake during simple tasks: washing the dishes, walking the dog, or taking that first sip of coffee in the morning. Notice the texture, the aroma, the temperature. What might feel mundane can become a moment of richness when you bring your full awareness to it.
4. Short Meditation Sessions: Start small—five minutes of sitting quietly, focusing on your breath, and letting thoughts come and go without clutching onto them. Over time, you can gradually increase the duration. Meditation apps, guided audio, or even quiet corners in your home can serve as your space for mental rest and recalibration.
5. Mindful Movement: If seated meditation feels challenging, take a mindful walk. Observe the way your feet connect with the ground, the sounds around you, the feel of the air. Or try a few simple stretches while paying attention to the sensations in your body. Physical movement paired with mindful awareness can bring you back into alignment with the present.

Stepping Into Your Own Life

Cultivating mindful presence isn’t about achieving a state of eternal calm or never thinking ahead again. Rather, it’s about weaving a thread of awareness through your everyday experiences. When you’re present, you catch more of life’s subtleties—a kind remark from a friend, the beauty of sunlight filtering through leaves, the satisfaction of a small task done well. You taste your meals more fully, hear people’s stories more clearly, and feel more grounded in your decision-making.

Before you know it, you’ll find that presence has a ripple effect. As you become more engaged in each moment, you’ll experience deeper connections with loved ones, become more effective in your work, and feel more at peace with where you are—even when life is hectic.

So, the next time you find your mind drifting mid-conversation or you’re skimming through a meaningful moment like an afterthought, pause. Bring yourself back. Notice your breath, your surroundings, and the gift of this very instant. Over time, these small habits can transform how you experience each day, unlocking a richer, more anchored way of living. And, speaking of habits… see you on the next post.

It’s not just about people, though. Curiosity invites us to explore unfamiliar topics, skills, and ideas. Instead of saying, “I know what that is and it’s not for me,” curiosity nudges us to ask, “What might I learn if I dig deeper?” Letting go of judgment frees us to discover hidden interests, spark new passions, and embrace lifelong learning. The world becomes bigger, richer, and more layered. I sit in a lot of design review meetings, and I try to take the position of, “How might this work?” instead of providing the semi-expected critique.

When our family, along with the whole world, watched Ted Lasso, I was compelled by Ted’s sentiment, “Be curious, not judgmental.” Curiosity pushes us to wonder instead of assume. We’re not just deciding if someone is friendly or unfriendly—we’re asking questions that unearth perspectives we’ve never imagined. And we’re not just glancing at an unfamiliar topic and dismissing it—we’re diving in, reading about it, testing it out, and seeing how it fits into our evolving understanding of the world.

I am not the first person to uncover the hidden power of curiosity. Philosophers and thinkers have stressed the power of an inquiring mind. Epictetus said, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” Being curious opens a window to learning because it acknowledges that we might not have the full picture. It keeps us humble enough to realize that each day is a chance to expand our understanding. Modern innovators thrive on this principle. Charlie Munger, the late business partner of Warren Buffett, attributes much of his success to constant learning. Charlie would continuously read books on subjects outside his field, seeking out diverse ideas and questioning his own assumptions. He found relentless curiosity that fuels new insights, better decisions, and unexpected breakthroughs.

How to Put Curiosity Into Practice

1. Pause and Reassess Before You Judge:
   Whether you’re meeting a person, evaluating an idea, or encountering a new skill, catch yourself in the act of quick assumptions. Instead of “I know what this is,” ask, “What might I be missing?” A brief pause can shift your mindset from rigid certainty to open exploration.
2. Ask Questions—in Relationships and Beyond:
   With people, trade silent assumptions for honest inquiries: “How are you feeling today?” or “Tell me more about what interests you.” And apply the same approach to new subjects: “What can I learn from quantum physics?” “Why are people so excited about this art movement?” Questions transform unfamiliar ground into territory to explore.
3. Seek Fresh Perspectives and Fields of Knowledge:
   Don’t limit your curiosity to familiar spaces. Read outside your favorite genre, listen to interviews with people who think differently than you do, attend a webinar on a topic you know nothing about. This broadens your view of what’s possible—be it understanding another human being more deeply or discovering an area of study that sets your mind ablaze.

The Bigger Picture: The World Expands With Curiosity

Choosing curiosity over judgment doesn’t just help you understand people better—it can transform your relationship with the entire world. Suddenly, you’re open to learning a new language, trying your hand at painting, learning some science, or understanding cultural traditions. Whenever you say, “I wonder,” you put yourself on a path of growth and discovery. Don’t outsource your curiosity to influencers on YouTube or TikTok. They are helpful, but the bit-sized philosophy sounds good and appetizes in 15-second clips. Curiosity takes practice. It will shift your mindset and get you ready for other unlocks.