Spark Curiosity.

The Art of Steering Into the Skid

In last month’s article, we practiced listening inward— trusting the quiet signal of intuition before the noise of certainty drowns it out. This month, we practice following what we hear.

That's where curiosity comes in.

Not curiosity as a personality trait you either have or don't. Curiosity as a practice. A discipline. A choice you make, over and over, especially when every instinct is telling you to do the opposite.

What a Skid Pad Taught Me

Somewhere between the third and fourth snowstorm this season, I started thinking about skid pads again.

If you've spent any real time driving in the Northeast, you know the moment. The car starts to slide, your stomach drops, and every instinct screams: turn away from it. I learned early — navigating Ithaca and Syracuse, NY winters — that the instinct is wrong. When you're skidding, you steer into it. That's what brings you back on track.

I eventually got to practice this for real at Skip Barber Driving School, on a surface designed specifically to make your car slide so you can learn to recover. My instructor coached me through it until steering into the skid became muscle memory. I got pretty good at it. My father Stanley, riding in the back seat, did not fare as well. By the end of the exercise, he had turned a particular shade of green that I will never forget.

But I also never forgot the lesson.

Curiosity works exactly the same way.

When there's no map — when conversations get hard, when uncertainty mounts, when we genuinely don't know what comes next — our reflex is to grip tighter. To decide faster. To know. That certainty feels like traction.

It isn't.

What's Actually Happening in Your Brain

Here's what's going on under the hood. Under stress, the amygdala activates. Cortisol floods your system, narrowing your focus and contributing to that heavy, cloudy feeling we all recognize as brain fog. Your prefrontal cortex — the part responsible for nuanced thinking, creativity, and genuine problem-solving — can't fully do its job. You become, quite literally, more rigid. More reactive. Less able to see what's actually in front of you.

Certainty in that state isn't wisdom. It's a symptom.

And here's the counterintuitive part: curiosity is what restores your steering. Research published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience shows that curiosity activates the brain's mesolimbic dopaminergic circuit — the same reward and exploration system that drives approach motivation. Leaning into not-knowing doesn't just feel better. It neurologically shifts you from threat response to possibility response.

Steering into the skid. Every time.

The Question That Changes Everything

One of my favorite coaching questions — one I've returned to more times than I can count, with clients and with myself — is this: What would it look like if the opposite were true?

It's deceptively simple. It doesn't ask you to abandon what you believe. It asks you to hold it a little more loosely. To create just enough space between stimulus and response that something new can enter.

This is what I think of as the Curiosity Pivot. And honestly: it's a simple move that is genuinely hard to make. Simple and easy are not the same thing. Because in the moment of certainty, you don't feel uncertain. The reflex doesn't announce itself. You're just... sure. And from inside that sureness, pausing to ask what if I'm wrong? takes real practice.

Which is exactly why it's this month's theme.

Because curiosity, at its core, is the antidote to judgment. Not just judgment of others — judgment of ourselves, of situations, of outcomes we haven't yet seen. Judgment closes, while curiosity opens. And you cannot genuinely co-create anything meaningful from a closed position.

The Confidence Hiding Inside "I Don't Know"

Something worth naming here, because it doesn't get said enough, is that it takes confidence to be curious.

We live in a culture that rewards certainty. Having the answer. Knowing the plan. The person who says I'm not sure — tell me more can feel, in certain rooms, like the least powerful person there.

They're often the most effective one.

The most generative question in any conversation isn't the one that demonstrates what you know. It's the one that opens what neither person has considered yet. The smartest person in the room isn't the one with the most answers — it's the one asking the best questions. And staying curious enough to keep asking them requires trusting yourself enough not to need the answer right now.

That's not weakness. That's a particular kind of strength.

SPARK and the Practice of Curiosity

In the LAB, we don't talk about curiosity as a nice-to-have. It's woven into the architecture of how we work together.

S — Self-awareness: Curiosity starts with noticing your own certainty reflex. The slight narrowing. The "I already know where this is going." You can't shift what you haven't noticed.

P — Practice: This isn't a one-time reframe. It's a repeated choice — especially when certainty feels safer. Little by little. Padam-padam.

A — Agency: Choosing to stay open is an act of agency. Curiosity isn't passive. It's one of the most active choices available to you when there's no map.

R — Regeneration: A curious mind restores mental energy rather than depleting it. Rigidity is exhausting. Openness creates room.

K — Kinship: You cannot truly connect with someone you've already decided you understand. Curiosity is the gateway to real relationship — the kind where both people leave changed.

Your Invitation This Month

Notice when you're certain. Not to challenge the certainty — just to notice it.

Ask the question: What would it look like if the opposite were true?

Try "Yes, AND" before "No, because." In conversation, in planning, in your own inner monologue. Not as a technique — as an experiment.

See what opens.

Is Coaching for you? Are you ready for it? Sign up HERE for a 15-minute Complimentary Coaching Consult to find out.