2026 May 26 Curiosity to power life

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com — the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me to talk about curiosity. Let's get started.

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Curiosity. It's a simple word and sounds pretty self-contained — but is it really?

Cats are curious. Little children are curious. Mice are curious. Inventors are curious. Pretty much everything in our world is curious. Except somewhere between being a child and becoming a grown-up — and especially becoming an older adult — somehow, somewhere, that spark of curiosity seems to go into hiding. Notice I said go into hiding, not that it died.

There's another interesting relationship with curiosity: it's often influenced by whether or not someone is feeling hopeful. It's been said that curiosity is the engine of hope. Hope sets the destination or goal, and curiosity provides the methods to bridge that gap.

There's a third component — gratitude — but I'll leave that for another day, because we've talked about the power of gratitude in the past.

Focusing on curiosity, or the lack of it: it makes sense that if you aren't hopeful about the future, there's little reason to be curious. If you think the only outcome is that tomorrow will be the same as today — or worse — then what is there to hope for? If you think things aren't going to improve, why look for other possible outcomes? Without curiosity or hope, there's little reason for gratitude, and gratitude is what gives us the energy to stay curious.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that's often started by external forces. But like all such things — although we cannot always control the world — we can usually control how we react to it. As we age, instead of focusing on ageist comments and being hyper-focused on what we can no longer do, we have the ability to ignore the meaningless noise and recognize all the new skills and advantages we actually do have.

There's a company called Coursiv.io that has been advertising heavily on YouTube recently. They're offering AI training in just 15 minutes a day. They obviously have mixed reviews, and 15 minutes isn't much time to master any platform. But what caught my attention is that at least some of their ads — all the ones I've seen — are targeting mid- and late-career individuals. In one of them, a guy who is clearly in or near his 60s is advising a mid-career colleague about how to catch up to the AI boom, the same way he did.

And the ads don't have those Walt Disney, happily-ever-after endings either. People still have to work, and they still have to improve. What I like about them — irrespective of whether the courses are useful or not — is the life model they're setting: be proactive, take control, and life won't suddenly be perfect, but it will be a lot better. In other words, you will have hope. And by being curious and learning new technology, you'll have the tools to power that hope.

That's an important message for all of us as we age, because society's message is to focus on the negatives — when in reality, there are a lot of positives.

As the older guy in the Coursiv ad says, you'll gain new skills, and you already have 20 years of experience it'll take others 20 years to get. That's really true. And that advantage isn't just in the job marketplace — it's in every aspect of life. That experience should be helping you see through shallow and simplistic political arguments and attacks. It should be helping you evaluate social media posts and so much more. But only if you choose to be curious about what you hear and read.

Because curiosity is the basis of so many important traits, and it can guide you through so many decisions.

Casey Neistat, the well-known YouTuber from New York City, has a video — I think it's fairly recent — called Never Ever Surf in New York City's East River. The East River is really just a random shipping channel. There's nothing especially thrilling about it. But the video starts with a visit to a friend of his named Ben Gravy — spelled just like it sounds, G-R-A-V-Y — a fellow YouTuber who surfs in the East River, which really doesn't have much of a surf at all. But Ben goes surfing pretty much every day. And if New York City is where he is, then that's where he goes.

The important part is that he's always thankful for the opportunity to get out and surf — to do what he loves — even if it's not some world-class wave. And he's always looking for ways to bring surfing to other people and to help them find joy in life, the same way he finds it in his own.

He's curious in the very best of ways — making the most of his life and sharing it with others.

Using your own curiosity to help yourself and to help others is often simply a matter of choice. We can choose what to believe, and from that, how to feel — which drives how we act. This is why one of our new taglines starts with: podcast conversations for the curious older adult, navigating what comes next.

Curiosity is a really important part of life. It keeps moving us forward. It brings new joys into our lives by showing us new and satisfying aspects of the world. We have the ability to keep that curiosity alive and growing through our choices — and that will create opportunities to see the hope where others see nothing.

The homework segment is going away from the podcast for now, because we're working on some courses and challenges — so stay tuned for those. But clearly: stay curious. Get out, look for new things, and always find ways to improve your life and share that with others.

Remember, one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. Please visit UKR7.com for links to help the people of Ukraine, and WCK.org — World Central Kitchen — who go into disaster areas, usually among the very first people in. Local charities are always looking for support too, and even a simple smile can change someone's day in ways you can't even imagine.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along — and please subscribe and hit that like button. If not, drop me a comment and let me know what you'd like to hear.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dreamed of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone.

See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.