The Fuel of Curiosity

Fear has a powerful voice in our internal dialogue. It’s neither a scream or a whisper. It’s more like a sly negotiator in a tailored suit, always ready to pull us aside to have a chat while the board meeting of our brain is conducting business. The moment we give fear our ear, even out of politeness, is the moment ego starts filling the time. Fear isn’t just a normal primitive reaction, it’s a master manipulator. It cloaks itself in the cover of assumed expectations, speaks the dialect of doubt, and pitches us worst case scenarios with the charisma of a veteran closer. When fear gets the mic, ego occupies all the airtime. Fear and ego are collaborators in the art of self protection and self promotion fooling us to think making decisions based on their input is wisdom.

If we are sincere in our pursuit of growth, if progress is not just a motivating slogan printed on a locker room banner but a real desire, then we must develop the discipline to discern who’s doing all the talking in our head. We must look ourself in the mirror and ask what in my existence is contributing to my evolution? What moves me forward in this moment?

Because often, it isn’t failure that holds us back, it’s our commitment to running errands in our head ego has convinced us we need to get done. What in our lives keeps us tethered to the dock while we daydream about open seas?

Is it a person?

A team?

A culture?

An environment?

A sport?

Or is it your identity so deeply intertwined with these things that questioning them feels like heresy?

These are not just casual questions to make us feel like we are doing the internal work. They are diagnostic tools for the soul. The answers to these questions often reside in our blindspots, which is precisely why they matter. Growth demands vision, and vision requires the willingness to turn our head and see what’s around us that we missed. But just seeing it isn’t enough. After we discover what’s in our blind spot we then need to decide what to do with our new knowledge, even if what we see rattles us.

There’s a popular myth floating in the mental performance, leadership space that people are afraid of the questions. I’ve sat in too many rooms with too many athletes to believe that. People aren’t afraid of questions they’re afraid of the answers.

More precisely, they’re afraid of what the answers demand.

The consequences.

The shifts.

The reassigning of values.

Because answers often lead to an uncomfortable freedom. The kind that severs you from mediocrity but also from the excuses that made mediocrity so tolerable.

When a team, truly and collectively, begins asking high quality questions, something magical happens. The culture shifts. Not because the environment changes per se, but because the individuals within it become architects of their own consciousness. They begin to develop their own direction. Curiosity becomes the fuel, and awareness becomes the compass. Perceived progress no longer hinges on the scoreboard, it hinges on the courage to confront the crap everyone has been avoiding.

The path of development is marked by these quiet but earthshaking moments when we realize a chapter is ending. You feel it before you articulate it. And what stops people from stepping into the next phase is often their own resistance to the questions echoing inside them or voiced gently by someone in their circle.

This resistance has roots. Deep, tangled roots. Roots that wrap around the bones of your identity and whisper, “Don’t change. Change has too many unknowns.” But true growth comes from transformation. And transformation is inherently disruptive.

In these moments of insight, we are presented with an adaptive challenge. These aren’t problems you solve by downloading a new training app, or hiring a better shooting coach. Adaptive challenges require a restructuring of how you think, how you relate, how you are. They require that you acknowledge the outdated manual you’ve been using, and choose, sometimes painfully, to rewrite it. This isn’t about abandoning discipline or grit, it’s about you evolving.

To embrace adaptive challenges is to lean into the paradox that letting go is not the same as giving up. Freedom comes from letting things be what they are, not what we need to assign them to be so they fit in our perspective. Real progress often feels like loss before it feels like liberation. The deeper you go into the uncomfortable space of self reflection, the closer you come to the truth that holds the capacity to move you forward.

So let us not fear the questions.

Let us fear what happens when we stop asking them.