Learning and Exploring the Uninteresting: Igniting Curiosity and Transformation

Ever venture outside your comfort zone and discover something unthinkably profound? That's what this podcast episode is all about. I share personal stories, like my own eye-opening experiences in England and the Czech Republic, where I discovered the power of immersing myself in unfamiliar cultures. These moments, initially uninteresting, led to a transformation in my worldview and ignited an insatiable curiosity about the unfamiliar. 

We also delve into fascinating tales of cognitive flexibility and the power of creative thinking. Hear the inspiring story of a businesswoman who rose from homelessness and a high school student who turned her history class into an exciting journey of discovery. I unveil how seemingly mundane subjects can be gateways to personal growth and a deeper comprehension of the world around us. So join me as we celebrate the power of the uninteresting. And if the episode resonates with you, feel free to share it with three people who you think would enjoy it.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hey, welcome to the bartender's perspective. I'm so happy to have you here. Work is done for the day. Pull up a chair, have a seat, I'll pour you a drink and let's get started.

Speaker 1: 0:16

Tonight's podcast is about something that we all go through, whether we're here on high school, college or out in the adult world. I want to talk about the power of learning the uninteresting and why it matters. You know, this topic teaches us the many depths of human curiosity and the importance of learning beyond our interest. I think it's important to discuss what's crucial about it, things that you may not be interested in. So let's do it.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Let's take a moment to talk about the thing we all love the comfort zone. We often find ourselves comfortably nestled in, like a baby bird in the nest, in our own areas of interest. But what happens when we venture outside this comfort zone? Taking the time to look at subjects we're not drawn to can broaden the horizon for us or even stimulate intellectual growth. Take traveling to a foreign country, for instance. When I was younger, I traveled outside the country with my family. My dad generally took care of everything. He flew our family to England when I was much younger man. That was definitely an experience the idea of a three-wheeled car. That terrified me as a kid and I will never understand the concept of riding up the left side of the road versus the right. You pick up some interesting things.

Speaker 1: 1:57

The English, for those of you who don't know, they call their fries chips and then they call their chips crisps. Here in the States we've got this snack or at least we did, I'm sorry, back in the late 80s. I'm pretty sure you can still find it in stores today Munchies and crunchies. When we were visiting England my sister was hungry, walked into a market of sorts and she asked the lady for munchies and crunchies and the lady gave her this perplexed look and she's like what the ladies like. Okay, we have them, but do you want munchies or do you want crunchies? You know so in England they they don't have munchies and crunchies. They have a snack called munchies and then a separate snack called crunchies. Random, you know the place where we stayed. Well, we were over there, you know, to have a TV with exactly four channels and generally nothing on. I Was 11, so it was excruciating. And I tell you that the exploits of my family, especially when we're all together this one I still like telling to this day.

Speaker 1: 3:15

We were in this little tiny English car traveling up the left side of the road. You know, I got my sisters on either side of me, with me in the back seat and my parents up front, so my mother was particular about getting to where we were going. You know, my dad likes to take pictures of everything practically, and we were coming up on the welcome to Scotland sign and my dad wanted to pull over and get a picture. My mother said no and they argue for a moment. So my dad just shoots the car off the side of the road, mind you, we're not exactly going slow, slams on the brakes and Y'all. The side of the road is all gravel, slams on the brakes and we're all screaming at the top of our lungs as this car is sliding like a bad episodes of the Simpsons, as they're about to crash, stops within it's probably less than a foot, two feet of the Scotland sign. My dad got out and got the picture, I got my picture and we went on our way. That story it's fun to recap.

Speaker 1: 4:28

But yeah, traveling abroad, yeah, that's important. I tell you I wasn't really much into it, you know, as far as an interest in travel, because I Then, you know, I got motion sickness on the plane, you know, and then there in back. It wasn't quite as bad then because I had medicine on the way back, but anyways, later on, when I was in college, I Took this course called history and systems in psychology and I was gonna revisit it with this topic. Remember this day my professor taught me she'd expressed the importance of traveling abroad and seeing how another society lives. You know this endeavor, it was important, you know, because it'll change your perspective to see how another society of people lives. You know textbooks, the elections, they can only teach you so much. It's the companionship of experience that drastically changes things for the better.

Speaker 1: 5:28

You know, later on, down the road I mentioned this and I think several, you know Pat past podcasts, you know I finally took her advice and I took a trip to the Czech Republic and Just to see how different, you know, their society was from ours, I Tell you what, how forceful those people can be beautiful city, great food, cold drinks, but definitely not the nicest people in the world. And I tell you what they're driving. Laws are ridiculous. We're walking to the city center like in a populated area. This man comes gunning it down the road, probably almost 40, 45 miles an hour, through the city center and this woman just walks in the middle of the road. I don't know if she was expecting him to stop, but sure enough he's. He did slam on his brakes at the last minute and she jumped up and landed on his hood. I kid you not y'all, this actually happened. It was just wow. That's all I can say. You know another thing about the Czech Republic their crime rate is less than 5%, or at least back in 2018 it was less than 5% and it was just the most amazing thing to me and a friend of mine and I were coming out of a blacklight putt putt place.

Speaker 1: 6:49

It was 1 30 in the morning. It was one of those places you can play like as much as you want. We played for a couple hours and then we're leaving at 1 am In the morning. It's dark. We're coming out of, you know, is a dark alleyway and Literally this group of kids probably 7, 8, 9 and had to have been around that age bracket was still out at that hour of the morning. You know, I just Really put into perspective. You know that would never happen. Here I mean one, maybe, not everybody, I just. But you know, from my perspective, in this case that's just not something that you see all the time. I Just blew my mind. So yeah, if you want to step out of your comfort zone, travel y'all. It's worth it, and you only live once. So you know it's so cool. Our world is incredibly interconnected and you just never know when you know seemingly unrelated Knowledge might become invaluable.

Speaker 1: 7:47

A couple of my bar regulars John and Sarah, jack and Coke and 16 ounce Stella Provided me the opportunity to share their story about becoming Professionals in the field of digital marketing. You know John, he was a marketing professional. He went to a digital marketing conference During one of the sessions and he ended up in a conversation with Sarah. It was also attending at the time they discovered that they'd had a deep interest in social media marketing and ended up exchanging contact information and then, over the next few months I mean, this was such a cool story, you know John and Sarah stayed in touch, sharing articles, insights and things they were passionate about or they had in common. You know they collaborated on social media marketing projects and they ended up doing one at one point for a nonprofit organization here in the city. Their successful collaboration Caught the attention of a marketing agency, an executive who back then had also attended the same conference and, impressed by their work, the executive, you know, gave them both positions at their agency and this, this led to a new career opportunity for both of them. Lots of check. I see the members are often there currently doing some overseas work, now running their own agency. You know, this chance meeting at a professional event not only deepens their shared interests but also opens doors and it's exciting career prospects and I mean, my goodness, that's driving collaboration in the field of digital, digital marketing. I Miss you guys.

Speaker 1: 9:38

So learning about topics now that don't initially, you know, captivate us, can, can help us foster empathy, understanding and experience and a perspective of another, even if it doesn't align with our interests. It's definitely a fundamental step, you know, towards, you know, building a bridge to a more, I don't know, compassionate understanding society. This is pretty big, you know. Let's consider the topic of homelessness and for many it might not, you know, homelessness might not be a subject that naturally interest, you know, interest you. But looking at the perspective of somebody who have a homeless individual, you know, and a challenge they face, I mean understanding the underlying cause of homelessness, the struggles that people go through and the efforts of organizations and those individuals to address that issue. I mean it's just help you develop empathy for those who are less fortunate. You know, this understanding it can inspire you to get involved in charitable advocacy work in the process of helping somebody else or helping yourself and getting to know yourself better, and this helps you to help those people who would have been happy with having a landline while you're worrying about the next app uploading on your phone.

Speaker 1: 11:05

I had a mother that used to come through. She worked at Bank of America. My mother, she was a mother too. She was a successful business woman, and so she moved. She came in every day, you know, talking to her. I got to know a little bit about her, as it turns out. When she was younger, you know she was homeless for a number of years. She and her two children were living shelter to shelter, you know, never knowing where their next place or their meal would be. There was a couple of times I mean it broke my heart she even dug to the garbage, you know, outside of restaurants, just to find food to feed them. You know, when soup kitchens weren't an option, I was shocked, y'all, to learn all this from such a successful woman. You know and that's only a handful of what she told me. But I can tell you this I had a much deeper appreciation for the roof that is currently over my head in the job I have. So, wow, it's an amazing story.

Speaker 1: 12:09

So let's talk about cognitive flexibility. It's a great concept. It's essentially the ability to adapt, you know, our thinking to different situations. You know using this, you know it helps you to be a better problem solver, you know, and ultimately, a decision maker. You know this is used, my goodness, politicians, doctors, lawyers, service industry professionals. You know lawyers use this in their everyday affairs, as far as you know. Let's say they're in trial and they've got to do a line of questioning and maybe somebody objects. You know the judge says sustained or overruled, or to rephrase. You know it's essentially guiding the narrative, but they're adapting to the situation as it goes along. You know the same could be said for salespeople or headhunters, you know, adapting to who's in front of them.

Speaker 1: 13:04

And, of course, in the service industry, you know you can't leave us out. You know servers and bartenders I mean for the ones who want to be observant you know we're looking at when somebody walks to the door. I mean, what are they thinking when they sit down? Do they straight away look at a menu, or are they looking around? Are they smiling, are they slouching? You know, if you ask them how they're doing, you know this is a useful skill, you know, cognitive and flexibility, you know, because it does. It helps you to adapt, to learn, to grow, you know, and the process of becoming better problem solvers, you know it makes us give and helps us give better service. So, yeah, it's a really cool concept.

Speaker 1: 13:52

You know, sometimes diving into the uninteresting can lead to surprising moments. You know, joy and wonder. I used to work closer to the arts district. I had a regular. She had an accounting job. It was dull and uninteresting and you know she talked about it all the time. Well, complained about it, if you will. Then one day she came through with a friend and she was so happy. They wanted to have drinks and, you know, celebrate and you know I'm like, wow, what happened? Her friend got her involved in a local community theater production that was going on nearby. She volunteered to help with the financing and budgeting for the play.

Speaker 1: 14:37

She was a little shy at first and a little hesitant because she didn't want to step out of the accounting world that was her bubble, she began to get into the financial aspects of the theater production. She found a fascination for budgeting and financial management. In the arts she learned about the unique financial challenges Apparently there are unique financial challenges that are faced by theaters and creative projects. And over dull, dull, boring, just general accounting. Because of this, that led her to explore courses in arts management and at the end of the day, she's in New York now. She pursued a career as a financial consultant specializing in the arts and the entertainment industry. So in this unassuming endeavor she not only found joy in her work but also developed a deep passion for supporting the arts. Young artists and theaters thrive financially. This unexpected journey taught her. Sometimes looking into the seemingly uninteresting can open doors to surprising moments of joy and things you just did not know that you would ever be interested in. This led to the discovery of that new passion and career path she's doing well.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I had a young lady who was attending school at a local college a while ago talk to me about history and how dull it was, but she told me something about something she did to make it interesting. This was one of the original stories that led me to this particular topic. It was a great idea. She was required to take a history class in high school, even though she had little interest in the subject. She found the topic of ancient civilizations and timelines to be dry and unengaging. But rather than complain about it, she decided to approach her learning a little bit differently. So she starts a blog. She documents her journey and just tries to make it history and more interesting for herself. She had talked about her struggles in her blog, created mnemonic devices to remember historical dates, find modern day connections to the past. She interviewed her history teacher and classmates to gather different perspectives. But over time her blog it gained a following. They appreciated her creative approach to learning an interesting topic. She made fun of it like it was really fun to do. She was doing a double major in history and social media, if I remember correctly. But she's a great example. With the right mindset and creativity, it's possible to share your experience of learning something so uninteresting, not to everybody and even make it engaging for others. Yeah, it was such a great story.

Speaker 1: 18:07

One last thing I want to share, sharing a bit of humility about my learning about life. I was a musician. I'm still a musician, but when I was younger, when I started school as a musician, then I took jazz class. It was just an elective that I decided to take and I think about jazz, it had a lot of sharps and flats and a lot of dissonance to it and at the time my young, naive self, I just in my writing style. I didn't like things that were dissonant. So I took the class for about a week and I just expressed to the professor that it wasn't interesting. It was just, yeah, I dropped the class, but I look back on it now.

Speaker 1: 19:02

This was the other, you know, a blaming example of why I did this podcast. Because I look back and realize that, despite not being interested in jazz, learning how to read and write those sharps and flats, it was learning something new that I didn't already know and, even if I didn't necessarily like jazz, it would help me to become a better musician. It would help me to read better. You know the great thing, at the very least. You know it's never too late and you know I've, since I do listen to a good bit of jazz and I've started reading. You know a lot of jazz music and it has indeed helped me to be, you know, a better player on the piano.

Speaker 1: 19:50

So it's just really important, you know, even if it's not something that you're interested in, you know, just go ahead and learn it anyways. You never know what you might find. But as we navigate the vast landscape of knowledge, you know, let us remember, curiosity doesn't necessarily always kill the cat. Definitely keep an open mind Next time you come across something that seems dull and mundane. You know, give it a chance. You might find a treasure trove of wisdom, you know, just waiting to be discovered, like in the Indiana Jones movie.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Remember that the pursuit of knowledge is a journey and sometimes the most valuable destinations, you know they lie beyond our interest. Learning the uninteresting can be a powerful tool, you know, for growth, empathy and you know, you never know what kind of connection you're going to make. And also keep that in mind, y'all, as you deal your daily lives. So, starting closing, if you like my podcast, please feel free to tell at least three people about my podcast If you think they'll get something out of it. This will help me to continue to get my message out there to more people. But unless you want to know the drink. Thank you for stopping in. Here's your check. My regular podcast hours are always every Sunday night at 7pm, so you can come back and see me then. Have a great night.