Curiosity: The Key to a Long Life

Don’t open this door! I wonder what should I do? 🙂

One of my favorite ways to learn is that there are still curious and eager to discover people on this planet for twenty years or more.

One of these people is my grandfather, who is 87 years old and can still take care of himself.

Also, thanks to my father, with whom I have been working since 2010, I have met very successful entrepreneurs. I had the opportunity to start a business with my father. It automatically gave me a network of great business people and investors, two of whom inspired me a lot.

One of them is a Dutch real estate investor, now in his seventies. He told me once that he never wanted to retire.

Another is a Florida entrepreneur we recently started working with. And you won’t believe it, but now he is 82 years old. Late last year, he had visited us in the Netherlands and alone. For him, age was not a limit.

But the car rental company didn’t think so. Because of his advanced age, they didn’t even want to give him a car! He said to us, “These people don’t want to give me a car. I really don’t understand them. Because I still feel like I’m 50 years old.”

I often ask successful businesspeople what “their secrets” are. “What is the key to a long life?” I would like them to answer such questions rather than their experience.

– You must be curious.

– You have to keep learning new things and making innovations.

– You should not even think about retirement because when you do, you will fail.

It’s not just people I meet in the business world. Most of my readers and students I teach online are over 70 years old. My oldest student is even 88 years old, and I’ve probably learned more from him than he’s learned from my classes.

Most of our lives are devoted to meaningless activities that keep us busy. However, a life spent constantly wondering and learning does not mean a life of wasted occupation .

I recently got a message from a man I work with. I don’t even call him a friend anymore, but we were closer at the time. He asked me how I did this. We texted a little, and I thought it was great that she got to me, frankly.

To give a more accurate answer, “Can I call you?” I asked. “I’m busy for now. I’ll get back to you”, she said. I haven’t heard from him since then. If I’m too busy for a phone call, I see it as a sign that I’m not in control of my life. I learned this from those old but still very curious guys I mentioned above. When you call them, they will definitely meet you on the other side of the phone, for example. When you send them an e-mail, they get back to you as soon as possible.

No matter how many responsibilities or how many people they employ, they always have time for you. This is one of the most important things I have learned in life. If I can’t manage my time, even for a day, I start to rethink my life and career.

If you can’t call someone for 10 minutes because you’re busy, life is controlling you. So other people are in the driver’s seat of your life. This happened to me too. And I don’t think people ever want to live like that. As if we are not living under our own control but under the control of something else. The point is: when you’re busy, you’re not curious anymore. After all, you’re too busy for that, right? This is a big mistake because preoccupation keeps you from the seat of curiosity.

More than anything else, I have been fueled by curiosity in recent years. In December last year, people who bought books in India through Amazon gave me lovely feedback about my book “Think Straight“. It was my most read book that year.

They even shared some promotional materials about my book that I could use on social media because it was really appreciated. It was obviously a great honor for me, and I wanted to share it with other people, even to myself, “Why am I promoting myself?” I thought for a while too. Which, frankly, didn’t even matter to me.

Of course, I care deeply that people enjoy reading my book. But this need not be talked about as a great success. When I see other people do this, I’m never impressed. Even though the social media posts from writers and experts contain a lot of things that can spoil me. I’m sorry, but I don’t care about any of them.

It’s all empty noise. Because when the people I mentioned at the beginning are around me, I am aware that life is about trying and doing new things. For example, our 82-year-old student friend is still innovating and working on new technologies. If you can enjoy life like this, you forget everything that doesn’t matter.

The truth is, last December, I was working on things I loved. I had overlooked the feedback about my book, which I only sold on Amazon. To be honest, when I first learned about this, I was honored and wanted to tell everyone. But then, I just went about my business. I even forgot to tell my family at that moment.

This is the biggest lesson I’ve learned from spending time with people who need to retire but are still active. Everything is empty noise, except doing the things you are curious about, which will make your life vibrant and full of joy. And this opens the door to a long life because the key to this door is curiosity.