What Makes Us...
A podcast exploring in how we develop as people through our experiences and connections between individuals, with groups, and amongst society. Our guests will choose the topic of discussion and share their journey of becoming who they are.
Join us as we explore What Makes Us...
What Makes Us...
Curious About Life
What happens when we approach life with genuine curiosity? How might our lives transform if we questioned not just the world around us, but our own deepest assumptions about who we are?
Anupama Giri joins host Brian Hooks for a profound exploration of curiosity as a fundamental life force. Drawing from her childhood in Varanasi (one of the world's most ancient cities) where she witnessed life and death ceremonies happening side by side, she shares how early questions about existence shaped her approach to living fully.
"Without curiosity, there is no learning," Anupama observes, revealing how this quality connects to courage, hope, and even our neurological development. The conversation weaves through fascinating territory—from the challenges of learning to swim as an adult to why professional titles often become limitations rather than launchpads for growth. Perhaps most compelling is their discussion about the top regrets of the dying, with the number one regret being not trying rather than failing.
In an age where information overload has many taking things at face value rather than questioning deeply, this conversation offers a refreshing counterpoint. Brian and Anupama suggest that curiosity isn't just an intellectual exercise but a practice that opens doors to authenticity and fulfillment. Their exchange culminates in a powerful reimagining of an old adage—perhaps curiosity didn't kill the cat after all, but helped it find the milk.
Whether you're feeling stuck in your career, wondering about your purpose beyond professional achievement, or simply seeking to recapture the natural curiosity we all possessed as children, this episode offers gentle guidance and profound insights. As Anupama puts it: "Be curious, and you never know where you will land."
Want to connect with Anupama Giri? Check out her LinkedIn page at linkedin.com/in/anupama-giri-a24b1116
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If you would like to connect to the host (Brian Hooks), please reach out to bchcoaching@gmail.com or check out or website at www.bchcoaching.net
Thank you, welcome to what Makes Us. I'm the host, brian Hooks, and today with me I have the amazing person I'm really, really excited about, anupama. She has been working with me the last couple of months now and we've been doing a Get Coached podcast, and so I just had to ask her to come on and do what Makes Us us, because she is absolutely amazing. So, uh, please, anupama, please, introduce yourself to our lovely audience.
Anupama:and uh, we can, we can rock and roll thank you, brian, first of all for inviting me to be a guest on your podcast, and I really love the title. Right, even you say that what makes us? And then there is so much to fill in, so I'll just introduce myself. I'm Anupama and I would say I'm a student of life and I'm a coach. I work with corporate leaders, mid-career professionals and people who are seeking growth beyond success. I come with 15 plus years of corporate experience. I started as a computer science student and then moved into different management roles, and I'm generally very curious. I like to explore different things, learn new things and, above all, I'm a mother of a 10-year-old daughter and I think that has been something that has added as a dimension in who I am. So that's a little about me.
Brian:Awesome, thank you so much. And this episode, as she said, it's about curious about life. So what makes us curious about life? And that's going to and thank you for your introduction, because I think that beautifully goes in with this conversation, right. So, as we got started here, what made you choose this topic of curious about life?
Anupama:Yeah, that's interesting, right, when we initially started this discussion about what can we choose about the topic, and I was just wondering and I took some time to just reflect how my life has been um, it has never been. You know that straightforward line. I have tried different things. And when I thought, okay, what made me, um, you know, uh, try these experiments and all that, and then I realized it was nothing but just the curiosity of life. About life, there's so much to learn, there's so much to explore and so much to wonder, so that made me choose. Okay, let me come up with what makes us curious about life, Because without curiosity, there is no learning, and that's what made me pick up this topic for today. Yeah, without curiosity, there's no learning, and that's what made me pick up this topic for today.
Brian:Yeah, without curiosity there's no learning. That's really. Yeah, it's so true, right, because interesting enough, right, as we're both coaches, and Anu and me have been doing coaching sessions now for a while, so we always go into coaching with this sense of curiosity, right, that you know that's the premise, that's one of the like, the foundations of our coaching structure is we need to be curious. But how do we be curious about life? And that's, I think, that's the interesting part, as you're saying, and I was reflecting about my own sense of curiosity in life, and I just did Gallup Strengths, which is an area that I'm going to be specializing in, and one of my first things is belief.
Brian:You get your top five strengths and my top five, my first one, is actually belief, and it's just as you're talking about curiosity of life, for some reason or another, that belief came into into my thought process of, like, that word and the meaning of belief. I don't know. That's just where the direction I was going with it. Where, where do you feel like you have been most curious so far in your life and, as you said, your journey has kind of gone through all these different areas. At this point, where is that curiosity at?
Anupama:Yeah, so I would say that it's very interesting. I'll just give you a bit of context that where I come from. So I hail from a city called Varanasi, also known as. Banaras. It is one of the most ancient cities in the world and actually a lot of people come there. Um, I hope you will not be surprised to know that if you die there, you will just get salvation.
Anupama:So it is a city, yeah, where life and death are celebrated equally okay and I used to live, um, just on the guard heart, is something like where you have river Ganges flowing and then you have steps and you can just sit there calmly and look at the river and a lot will be happening. So you know, at one of the steps a taunturing will be happening for a child and on the next ghat you will have all these cremations happening. And one day, from my terrace I could see I mean those days we didn't have such tall buildings and all and I could just see one of the chimneys through which there was a cremation that is happening and I saw all those dreams going out and that just made me wonder. I was probably a teenager quite early, but this question came to my mind that okay, one day everyone has to go there like that. And it just came and went.
Anupama:I won't say at that age it was a lot more exploring, learning, partying and all that, but this question has stayed with me. So I always feel that when there is something towards the end, what this life is all about has been a question that has stayed with me at the background. But apart from that, I felt that, okay, let me try as many things as possible and learn, and that has made me a lot more curious about trying. And recently, a couple, couple of years back, I read a book called as the top five regrets of dying, and reading that book I felt that probably the most important thing is, if we look at at that time, when we will be there, is there a feeling that I've tried it all, that I wanted to, or will I leave this world with a regret?
Brian:so I think, um, that gave me a lot of courage also to be curious and not to worry too much yeah, yeah, that's a really interesting experience that you've had right of growing up and seeing these two aspects and and tonkering I don't know if I said that correctly that's when the child gets their, their hair all cut off, right, and that's generally what my, my nephew had his cut out, his hair cut off and ears pierced at about one one years old, right. So to be able to see both the symbolism of life and then to also be seeing death in the almost in the same spaces, that's such a unique experience and being able to kind of come to grips in terms with that, with that. Now, this, this is a very spiritual place. I'm guessing right, if you're getting salvation if you die, you get salvation if you die there, which, if you, I may have to go there to make sure.
Anupama:But just to add, brian, there is, um, not a moment where there is some mourning, or I mean it is there, but it is a place where life is all phases are celebrated equally. So you know, there is always a lot of joy in whatever is happening and you can it's like okay, whatever is coming, you just experience and move on yeah, yeah.
Brian:I mean no, thank you. No, it's good because then you know, you can almost get this sense of, like this gloominess that's coming around, because people usually refer as, like you're in mourning versus you're in joy that this person has extended their life into something else. But I guess the question I have for you right now is like, how has that shaped your, uh, perception of death, of life and of seeing, of experiencing this and seeing this as you were growing up?
Anupama:Yeah. So I think somewhere it has created that question okay, what is life all about? And I think that is the biggest curious question, that, what is it all about? I mean, like all other creatures, we also come into life and then just leave. So in between, what happens? That is the curiosity tale trail, right? So so that's where I, um, I would say that I, I was never settled, I would say, for whatever was happening, and wanted to try and experience different things, for example, I mean, it can be.
Anupama:I'm not saying that, okay, all the big things, okay, I just go do this program, that program, but it can also be sometime, um, just trying pottery and you know, experience it, what it is, what does it take, how do you feel about it? And questioning a little bit, for example, if it comes to education. For example, when my daughter was born, there were so many questions when I looked the kids around and all I just started questioning the status quo can there be only this way for education or is there any other possibility? So that that is what it has shaped me to question and be curious about what more can be offered in that space or what can be learned, what can be done differently so this?
Brian:so this push of curiosity has opened that door of being able to question what is going on around you and and what is what? Is that status? How, you know, I I love that because, truthfully, that's one of the things that we all we all strive to do, right? Our experiences in life push us in a space to hopefully question and not take things just at face value. I truly do not mean to make this into a political forte right now, but for me, right now, even though I'm not in the States and I'm here in India, I cannot not talk about the fact that there's so much that's happening in my country and the lack of questioning, the lack of curiosity that we're seeing and people taking it at face value versus really questioning what people are telling them.
Brian:And you can even see this in social media, right? Like the amount of things that we see on our phones, youtube, everything else. I feel like now you have to question because you don't know if it's AI or not. Right? Is this really? Because you see the sensational? Right? The baby all of a sudden turns buff and is walking down the street, or a cat is talking, and to another person?
Brian:right, I've seen a couple of those I'm like okay that's ridiculous but then there's others that are like I can't tell whether or not that's actually real and the curiosity people are now taking that at face value. So curiosity is, I feel like is is in danger. People aren't as curious and they are not questioning what's going on. And it's just as you're talking about it curiosity being on a level of being able to question what's happening around you, and so that's, you know, that's just where you know I think we're headed right now, which is really, you know, it's not really all that great.
Anupama:Yeah, I totally agree and I think yeah, I mean one thing is the knowledge that you gain about different things and all that and seeing facts as facts. But I'll just give a very simple example. Right, we see that a lot of crime or things like that are happening. The curiosity trail can be okay what made that person to commit it, for example? Or we can just say, okay, I know, okay, something like this has happened. Or, for that matter, somebody has just won one of the great awards or something, okay. So then there can be curiosity what has made that person to do that? So when it comes to about the curiosity, you will do a bit of research, and this I'm talking only about the outside world, but a very interesting part is the curiosity about yourself.
Anupama:I think of late, last few years only, I had started with the curiosity about myself, who I am, and I think that is something that we bring in coaching for sure. But and I I receive a lot of coaching and that's where I realized, okay, there is so much deep inside and if you are curious about yourself, there is so much that can be revealed. And I mean the next question can be that okay, then, what is it all about? Even if you go understand yourself, I think that once you have that awareness about yourself and you start exploring your different feelings and what's happening actually within, something magical starts happening, where you get certain answers and then, based on that, if you are trying to bring in some change in your life or want to do differently, you get a lot of momentum about it.
Brian:Yeah, I guess this is the opposite of this question, the opposite of where we're headed here. What if you are deep diving, you're curious about what's going on about yourself and you don't like the answer that has come? What do, you do.
Anupama:Ah yeah, I mean it's never, I mean it's not that. Um, you will always be comfortable with it and, trust me, it takes, um, it takes you to moments where you just wonder, oh really is that me? And, um, like you, to moments where you just wonder, oh, really is that me? And like. I will just take as an example that, see, I've there was a tough time in my life, say I four, four, five years back, when I lost my mom, and that time I did not know what is there is, there was a kind of sadness in me and I didn't know what is it all about. But I knew that, okay, something needs to be explored and checked out and during that time, I would say I was courageous enough to go and take therapy and in that there was one word that came out ashamed really and definitely it was not a pleasant feeling.
Anupama:I was like, no, that word doesn't even exist in my vocabulary. Where is it coming from? So I would say that when you start exploring within, yes, there will be moments and things that you may not feel comfortable about, but when you face them, I think you become a much more courageous person.
Brian:Mm-hmm yeah it gives you a different dimension altogether no, totally, totally, you know right, that's the, the resilience, the being able to, to be resilient, um, especially if you're doing that deep dive and you find yourself facing a space that you don't like in your own, in your own sense of being. When I was doing as I was doing, uh, training for diversity, equity stuff, uh, one of the descriptions that my teacher is a kathy obear, uh shout out to her that she talked about was, uh, peeling back an onion, right, like that. An issue is like peeling back an onion and as you peel that onion, it very potent and each layer is a stronger smell and it brings tears. You know all kinds of different things, different emotions are coming, but when you get to the middle of the onion, there's no longer the smell. Right, the root of that issue has been discovered and it's no longer has that level of power over you and you are able to work through those things.
Brian:But you have to be curious to keep peeling back the onion to understand how much those layers are. You know like what to get to that core. And that's that's what is really resonating with me when you say, when you talk about, like you, you got to figure it out, you gotta work through it and to get that resilience. And and that's what came to my mind was peeling back this onion yeah, I mean, that's a beautiful metaphor.
Anupama:Thanks for bringing in brand, because, yeah, that's exactly how it happens that you have to just speak radius and, yes, there will be tears. Um, but that's what makes it fun, right? I mean, it's not always um that okay, it has to be boring, or um, I think. See, one thing I would say is that many of us or at least I can say for myself try to, I try to avoid, I used to try to avoid certain part of me, right? So I always say that, as much as you have to accept your good parts, or your strength, the strengths, and all knowing, okay, what you are not good at, or even the things that you don't like about the parts, then there's something that shifts in you, and I would invite almost anyone. If you can explore this, life just changes, and I think I use the word courage a lot here, but trust me, that courage gets built up when you get curious, you uncover what's happening within. You will be much more courageous is what I would say.
Brian:That's great. Courageous and curiosity, that's a very interesting combination, right, I didn't think about it in that context. The more curious you are, the more courageous you will become yeah, absolutely, I mean that also came.
Anupama:I never thought, okay, I'll be talking about this, but as this is the beauty of coming on a podcast like this, that you also don't know what will come out. So, yeah, I mean I I feel that a lot of fear has gone down, brian, I would say. And in today's world there's so much of uncertainty we are living in one of the most uncertain times. I think having those awareness and ready to face anything, when you know who you are, this kind of fear just goes down a bit.
Brian:Yeah, I agree with you. You know, as I'm thinking about my clients and some of the areas, that they're affected by the fear, the fear of uncertainty, but then it really comes down to the lack of confidence in themselves. Right, Something has happened and they've lost the ability to be curious about what they can do. You know, to push forward through that unease and everything else, there's no drive. So the courage, you know, the courage to be curious, the courage to to look into things and into your life, I think that's a really yeah, I think that's a really huge aspect that is somewhat missing right now, or I wouldn't say it's missing, but it's, it's really hard to find.
Anupama:Yeah, and it's, it's very interesting, right, we are trying to kind of make our life more and more secure. Yes, insurance and I'm not like I do have life insurance, health insurance, all that is good, but I think this fact that, okay, yes, you can do all that you want to do and try to put all those tools into practice that secure you financially, health-wise and all that but I think, beyond a time, that security has to be just let go. I mean, do do all those basics and then, after that, be ready to embrace life as it comes in and, trust me, once you start doing that, there is another beauty in life that uncovers. When you give you, you can become open, because if you don't, if you are just living that same life day in, day out, without being curious and all that, there is a time when that stagnation comes in yeah a lot of people even, and it doesn't mean that always we have to jump the jobs or change our um you know career or domain, etc.
Anupama:But something when it keeps happening, um, I feel. And being a psychology student, also right, I'm pursuing masters in counseling psychology. That also is another curiosity trail, uh, where I wanted to study psychology since long, and there also they say that even the neurons that we have they can always they have this way of just getting changed with time.
Anupama:So it's not that okay. We have aged and now we cannot learn, and all so that keeps you your brain much more fresh and open. So if we just talk from the biology perspective as well, thank you.
Brian:Thank you for that. Yeah, adding a little science into this, this is good. This is that's that is interesting.
Brian:As a, as a fellow uh masters in counseling, you're a uh, that is one of the curious things, right, the thing I found really exciting about doing counseling in psychology was how you know, how do we grow, how do we develop, right? Uh, you know, a lot of my emphasis was in college development, college students developing, and it's all you know. Like, how do we grow, how do we develop, right? You know, a lot of my emphasis was in college development, college students developing, and it's all you know. Like, how do you develop your moral character, Like the ethical and moral being, as well as also, how do you build up as a leader and all these different things? Truthfully, as we're talking about it, curiosity is really a backbone in there, because you have to be curious about the experience, of what you're going to experience, to be able to do it. If you don't have that, you're not really going to get what you really want out of that experience. And so, as you're talking through that, I was just sitting there I was like, yeah, as we are moving through, if we're not curious about ourselves and how we change. I think that's the biggest piece, because if we don't change, then we become stagnant. Right, we hit that wall.
Brian:As I was working in colleges, I hit a wall and I needed to figure out what I can do. Or you know, like, what was that all about? I also went to went to counseling as well, because, you know, I couldn't do it on my own. I needed, I needed an outside perspective to help me kind of figure out what was going on in my brain and, and, more importantly, in my heart, cause I was just all over the place. Yeah and yeah, and I was able to figure it out, thankfully with help, and and made a change to move to India, and that has reopened a lot of curiosity in myself that's a very brave step, I must say, brian.
Anupama:I mean, uh, we are leaving um, a land where most of the people from India want to go. Those, those are one of those US dreams that many of the Indians have. And then you have left that and came here. I would say, without curiosity, that wouldn't have been even possible. Right, and I think it is there. It's the basic element in all the human beings, just that we have to ignite it a bit to move forward. And yeah, I would say just. I would also take an example of swimming, and don't laugh, but I just started learning swimming, it's my seventh class and I took it and I always wanted to, but somehow I never learned.
Anupama:And now I think this is again. This curiosity is telling me how, in the learning process, how my brain works right. I mean, logically, you know everything. You will not. You cannot get drowned in a pool where you can just stand and your neck is above the water. But yeah, it's all.
Brian:Just letting go of all those conditioning in your mind oh, that's a, I mean, that's a great, great segue right into coaching, right, as you were saying, I was like, well, that's exactly exploration and talking about those limitations, right, yeah, so it's really unique, as we were talking, because we, as you said, we really didn't do too much prep on this topic, this topic, but it leads, it's leading to so many different aspects of our lives and that curiosity is is truly like I never really I always thought of it as like, yeah, I'm a curious person, I like to know what's going on, but I never really thought three or four steps down the road to what that actually brings into your life. And as a practice, right, a practice of continually growing, continually challenging yourself versus, you know, staying with the status quo and not questioning and not being curious about what's out there, yeah, yeah.
Anupama:I would just add, as you were saying, some other thoughts also came to my mind is like I think curiosity is very much related to hope as well. Right? Because, um, and I would just certainly that, um, I'm a big fan of disney movies and of late have been watching a lot with my daughter.
Brian:So if we look at movies like moana and all.
Anupama:It's like you don't know what lies there and until you go and experience it you would never know what's lying there for you. And I'm not saying that all those big ones that okay are. You just jump somewhere into, totally into the unknown. But then okay, let me just go experience it, and doesn't mean that you have to be an expert, I mean in everything that you are trying. Some things are just taste and move on.
Brian:Oh wow, thank you for that, Because that brought in, you know, my daughter five, right About to turn six. Her level of curiosity is really interesting, so we were watching a movie and her curiosity went to something bad is going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm afraid about that. And as you're talking about it, I'm sitting here like, oh man, how do I give that hope, give curiosity, hope, a more positive outlook versus something bad happening, and that just really triggered and that just kind of that, that just really triggered for me and that like, okay, it's, you're right, curiosity is about hope.
Brian:It can be about hope and it doesn't have to be about always being something bad happening.
Brian:Where, where my daughter was thinking about, with this very, very simple movie it was, it wasn't too much, it was a little bit of challenge, but in that challenge she was fearful of it and I was just like, oh, wow, okay, we gotta, we gotta work on this, right?
Brian:Like, how do you have that positivity and and be curious and see it in a way that is a good thing, versus being curious and seeing that, you know, I think the cliche that comes to my mind curiosity killed the cat, right, because it puts it in this negative context, because that's always what I was told. You know, hey, curiosity killed the cat. I was like what does that mean? Right? But now, if I think about it, it's meaning that you shouldn't be curious and you should just take the status quo and just leave it as is. You shouldn't be questioning things, and so, if that's the case, I don't want that. I want to be curious and and take the chance versus, you know, being fearful of it. So, as you're explaining that, that's what just came for me yeah, and I'm glad that you brought your daughter.
Anupama:I feel that we learn so much from children, right, and that's that's the biggest proof that if you look at children, they are so curious by nature and I think, all right, with all this happening, and then you know, making a life, getting settled somewhere, that curiosity just gets lost. But once you reignite it, there's always something happening in life.
Brian:Yeah, no, no, that's great. I you know, at the beginning of our conversation you brought up something about reading a book around your five regrets. As we're talking about curiosity, we're talking about this space of hope and inciting courage. What are these things that we end up regretting? Is it because we lack the curiosity to go out and go do it, or is there other things that are coming up? So I just kind of wanted to bring back that conversation, that thread there around this.
Anupama:Yeah, so one of the things that is there in that book is is that, lord, the biggest regret is of not trying it's not about failing, and we stop because there is always a fear of failure in most of the cases.
Anupama:Uh, but if you look at, not trying is even worse than failing and that's what many people have, um, the regret about it's also about you know, sometimes it can also be about working too hard and not taking time off just for the things that you always wanted to do. So thanks for bringing that, because it also brings one more thought that a lot of time we think that, okay, we will just get things done, do our jobs, and then we retire and then we start exploring when we have all the time. But remember that the body is not the same. As we are aging, our body is also changing and we don't know at that time that zeal will be there. So I feel that, okay, let's have that happening in the parallel rather than keeping everything towards the end. And also, we don't know when tomorrow we'll wake up or not. Nobody knows. That is the ultimate truth. How much bad it may sound, but that's the ultimate reality and the ultimate truth. But we don't know if tomorrow we'll wake up or not. How much?
Anupama:time we have.
Brian:So yeah, so keep get things done a little bit rather than just piling that up towards the end I think that's, I think that's really important, because you know, uh, my wife and I had this, uh a phrase that we, we would use, and we still do Do you work to live or live to work?
Anupama:Yeah.
Brian:Right, and that's always. That turn of phrase has always been helpful for me. And when I feel like I am focusing so much and it's moving, moving me away from my goal right Of living, like am I, you know, am I just about the job and doing the job, versus that's just a means to the end, which is living right? Am I actually using that to live?
Anupama:Yeah, we sometimes get so much engrossed into there that that becomes totally life. And I mean, I really like, like we as coaches, we love our jobs and even before, when I was in the corporate career, I used to really like, uh, working on and being with people, but it doesn't mean that okay, that is it. There's a life outside as well, and when you connect with curiosity, um, then you realize there is so much more out there. Otherwise this will just consume it. So it's very important to draw those boundaries out there yeah, yeah, no, no, I think that's I.
Brian:I. I think that's so true because leaving, leaving my position, I didn't realize how much it became my identity. And then, when I left it, I was, I was literally like just stranded. I felt like I was just adrift because I, I didn't know what my anchor, my identity, was anchored to. It was anchored to my position but not my life. And so now it's like, how do you realign, you know, and, and I had to be curious about myself again, I had to, you know, I thought I knew myself, I needed to learn more about myself. And so, yeah, when you, curiosity and courage are are just so strongly tied together now in my brain, you can't have one without the. You know, without the other, we are. What is our lives? You know, it comes, it comes down to what is our lives, what do we want our lives to be and and how do we want to live it so much anchored into the title right our identities, right.
Anupama:So, actually, that that is what has motivated me to curate a program that I called as grow beyond titles.
Anupama:So I just feel that, see, success is there, people have been there, successful, but still I see a lot of times that joy is not there in the life. People are still feeling that something is missing, despite having is not there in the life. People are still feeling that something is missing despite having all that success that is visible from outside and people have done great, but still there's something that that kind of a void that gets created, especially, I feel, in this. Each group I mean if you look at by the hinduism as well as if you look at world of philosophy it always says that there are different phases in our life and no matter what, when this transition happens, when you have done all those, like you know generally, typically I'm talking about people would have gone for college, work, married, if needed, children, all that beyond.
Anupama:After that, it starts. This question arises okay, what after, hereafter? Is my life going to be just like this or is there something more? Again, that that is when the curiosity gets um, you know, started and and then this is a great opportunity to explore further. So grow, grow beyond titles is like, okay, you already are successful and you have a title, which is great, but is there something more? Who you are beyond that title?
Brian:what is your authentic self?
Anupama:and I think coaching is a great space to explore it yeah, yeah, no, no, I love that.
Brian:Grow. Grow beyond your title because you know it's, you know our, our culture puts so much emphasis on what we're doing and it becomes who we are and that, and that is super limiting because you know, then you, then you don't have the ability to explore and to be curious beyond what is being told, that that you are, this, yeah and, just just as you were saying, is it's whenever we meet somebody, generally the first question that we ask, or being asked I'm not saying that I'm an exception.
Anupama:It's like what do you do? Where do you work?
Brian:exactly, exactly you. You know what a friend? Uh, we, we went to a party with a group of friends we do like a game night, and and someone, someone said, instead of saying you know, what do you do for a living, they're like what takes up what takes up your time? And. And that just blew all of our minds, cause we're like that's the perfect question to be asking someone that to remove this fixation of we are because of what we do, right, what takes up your time? I'm still flabbergasted by it, like I haven't used it, but I think I think I should use it now more than anything else to open that door, because Love that, I mean.
Anupama:Yeah, that's such a beautiful way to ask Right About somebody rather than just asking, uh, what do you do or where do you work at? I'll try that too I'm sure people will be startled. I mean, even if somebody suddenly asks like that even yeah it will take some time to you know, think about and then answer, but I think, yeah, that's a great space to bring in the change man yeah, yeah, I think okay, so we'll, we'll go ahead, uh, we'll steal that.
Brian:Thank you, friend. We're all gonna steal that now and say what takes up your time? Um, because I I I'm just thinking about that now. I'm like what, yeah, what takes up my time? What am I really doing in the day? Uh, and it makes you reflect, and it truly does make you reflect about where, what you're doing and why you're doing it. I think sometimes we we don't ask that question of why, why are we spending our time doing this? So that's, yeah, that's a nice question it is.
Anupama:It is, I mean, my. My parallel processing is still going on. I'll sit with that question.
Brian:Perfect. No, yeah, definitely. Well, as we're kind of coming close to time. Thank you for this amazing conversation. What would you like to leave?
Anupama:with our listeners as we kind of wrap up. Yeah, I truly enjoyed this conversation. Thanks, brian, and I think just one thought that I would like to leave with is that, as I said right, curiosity has always been there in us and in children. If we look, that is a constant reminder. Being curious helps us to take the steps that we thought we'll never take us, to take the steps that we thought we'll never take, and it may take us to the paths, opportunities and a sense of fulfillment. So just one word be curious, and you never know where you will land in. And just as we discussed right, there is so many things. This curiosity is connected to the courage, hope and, of course, biologically also, your brain will be insane. So, be curious and be happy.
Brian:Great, Thank you. Thank you for reminding us that and really I think it's needed. It's needed in this world. Right Curiosity isn't what killed the cat, it's what made the cat grow.
Anupama:I'll find the milk.
Brian:Yeah, there you go. Curiosity the cat found the milk, Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
Anupama:Thank you, Brian.
Brian:Thank you for listening to what Makes Us. Make sure to rate or review this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or send it to a friend who you think will enjoy this podcast. Thank you for sharing your time and see you soon.
