Why Curiosity Still Matters (Even When You’re Tired of Asking Why)
If you’ve ever been around a three-year-old, you know that it can be an endless stream of
Why?
How come?
But why?
Their naturally curious energy is amazing… and utterly exhausting. Over time, the adults around them tamp it down, not always on purpose, but in a state of exasperation of having to answer SO MANY QUESTIONS. As a parent to now older kids, I was definitely guilty of an “okay let’s pause on the questions for a bit!”
We were all once that relentlessly curious kid.
Fast forward to adulthood. We grow up and it becomes so tempting to stop asking so many questions. We’re met with too many “that’s the way it is” or “that’s how we’ve always done it” responses.
But as marketers and creators, if we stop asking questions, we stop doing our jobs to their fullest.
When I see a really clever/outrageous/hilarious/touching piece of content or marketing campaign, I try to picture sitting in the room talking about it out loud. Did people laugh at an idea's absurdity before they slowly realized that maybe they were onto something? Did someone voice concerns about a concept hitting too close to home? Did someone almost not speak up, but when they did their idea became THE idea?
I've been in those rooms too throughout my career. I’ve seen both great ideas die by committee and ideas that started as an off-the-cuff comment turn into something bigger.
Those moments taught me something simple but powerful: every great idea starts with curiosity.
At Indie we build a culture of asking curious questions.
What if…
How might we…
Why do they…
What makes them…
What would happen if…
How could we reimagine…
Why haven’t we tried…
What’s stopping us from…
Questions fuel curiosity, making us better marketers. By being truly curious, we don’t just make ideas better. We make strategies smarter and results stronger.
But curiosity doesn’t just happen. It’s something we have to intentionally make space for. When we stay curious about people — our audience, our clients, our teammates — our work becomes more empathetic. And when we stay curious about ideas, we often generate the ones that move a business forward and truly make a difference.
In the end, smart marketing and creative thinking doesn’t begin when we open a blank slide or a new file. It begins with a question. And we’ll keep asking them.
