The wonderful pain of being morbidly curious

In David C. Baker’s excellent book “ The Business of Expertise “, he encourages curiosity. In fact, he demands it. If you want to stay relevant in what you do, you need to stay curious.

I work hard to stay curious, and David gives an analogy that I found to be very accurate. I find that when I’m in places where it’s not as easy to jot down a note (when I’m driving or running, for example), sometimes the thoughts will pile up to the point where I just need to stop and write them down. David compares it to this:

You won’t be relevant for decades unless you are morbidly curious. In that pursuit, there are times when the urgency to write down a string of thoughts is as painful as waiting far too long to pee, and you’d better find a solution in a few minutes or someone’s going to be wet and warm.

While his analogy is kind of funny (and a bit gross), it makes total sense. I’ll feel that urgency to write something down grow and grow until I simply need to do something with it. While I don’t have a perfect answer for how to do that in every situation, here are a few things that help.

• If I’m driving with the family, I’ll ask my wife to email me. I’ll usually just say “email me experts don’t cold call” or some other out-of-context nonsense, but it’ll be enough to trigger my memory next time I’m at my…