Hello Reader !

September and autumn are around the corner. I am taking the last chance of the summer vibes, with hopefully reflective time for you, to expand on curiosity. 2 weeks ago, we talked about why curiosity is a leadership skill worth building, its benefits for you and your team, and three simple ways to practice it. (you can catch up here - read this one first)

Today, let's flip the question. What actually blocks curiosity, individually and in a team? And where can AI genuinely help?

In this newsletter, you will learn

• What could block curiosity so you can reflect on your own practice
• 3 easy ways AI could help you to implement today

Before we begin, how can I help you?

• Before we begin, how can I assist you?
  • Coach you to build your team GenAI system: skills, mindset and AI/human organization here​​
  • Coach you and your team to design and pressure test your new strategy or product here​
  • Audit and improve your innovation, customer centricity, and ability to adapt to a complex and ever-evolving environment here​

Get comfortable for your 5 minutes of sparks to hack.

✨ Spark

✏ 4 curiosity killers

Hyperspecialization.

Years in one narrow role, and you start doubting you can still learn something new, or you have no clue where to start. Most of us are rewarded for building specialization in our role.

Productivist pressure, stress and burnout.

"Do more with less" leaves no room for exploring something with no immediate payoff. Asking challenging (and curious) questions or helping new problems emerge are rarely promotion triggers.

Curiosity needs bandwidth. In survival mode, your brain protects stability, not exploration. The reassuring part: it comes back once your basic needs are covered.

Perfectionism and self-judgment.

The "good student syndrome" : fear of being a beginner, fear of not excelling right away.

Attention crisis. I am obsessed with this one, and I already covered here, so I won't repeat it.

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The question for you: to what extent do you or your team have Curiosity Killers?

✏ What I saw in 10 AI champions

Just before summer, I coached a cohort of 10 AI champions over three months for a top 5 Pharma company. Their mission = build their AI Augmented map. For each role (marketing, KAM, medical, regulatory..) identify the key impact and how AI could help the most.

The ones who ended up using AI in the most holistic, effective way weren't the most technical. They were the most curious.

Same finding as last newsletter: curiosity beats skill.

So let's see how AI can help.

✨ Hack

✏ Let AI cut the noise, not add to it

Leverage AI to collect insights about a topic you are curious about. You decide when you want the info, what you want, you select the sources, instead of having so many newsletters, reports and emails to read.

My example: MFN (Most Favored Nation trade policy). I built an AI agent that filters and summarizes only what's relevant to that one topic. I scan less, and I understand more.

✏ Capture new dots to feed your curiosity

Voice to text:

Curiosity shows up for me as I create bridges between ideas, concepts I read or listen about. This always happens when I can not write 😅. Mostly during my Nordic walk or gardening time.

So I dictate. This is literally how I build my GenAI coaching frameworks: I talk, AI transcribes, and the framework takes shape from there once I am back at my desk.

Paper notebook in my backpack.

I take notes about topics I am curious about and always sketch to summarize my understanding. I photograph my notes and send them to Mistral or Claude to create visuals.

✏ Give your curiosity a home

Tiago Forte's CODE method (Capture, Organize, Distill, Express, in Building a Second Brain I mentioned 2 weeks ago) is really the digital version of something creative people have done for a long time. Choreographer Twyla Tharp kept a physical "project box" — she dropped in anything that inspired a specific piece, as she found it. Francis Ford Coppola kept a notebook the same way for The Godfather.

My box is digital. The MFN insights mentioned above also live in a box, in Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM).

It currently accepts almost any source (mp3, YouTube, text, pdf...). You can also try Copilot Notebook: it doesn't accept so many formats yet, but it will improve. So start the box now, and let the tool catch up.

As you can see, I use Notebook for any topic of interest. You can add and access from your phone as well !

That's it for today. Curiosity doesn't need more input. It needs a filter, a capture habit, and a home.

See you in two weeks. Keep the spark alive, and be intentional :)

Cheers,
Aurélie

What's up with me?

Back-to-school, back-to-the-office weeks. I blocked time to do sports 4 times a week and 2 easy running races (Sept and Nov) to give me a goal. I ran a workshop yesterday (photo) with a pharma KAM team on understanding customers' needs (patients and doctors) and improving communication in competitive situations. PS: This newsletter was written in July. If you look more closely, you will see that I have an issue with my eye. I got a retinal detachment two weeks ago😱. Got surgery. I am really going through a hard time trying to deliver projects while recovering. During those weeks, you feel it is really hard to be an entrepreneur💩, even though you have an amazing team and family that backs you up. I wish you good health!

Reader, hit reply to let me know if you liked this edition or if you tried these tips. I respond to every person who writes to me!