Total Rethink

7Being Interested in Everything

“You can waste your life drawing lines. Or you can live your life crossing them.”

—Shonda Rhimes

“Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader.”

—Richard Branson

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

—Walt Disney

Because I was the youngest child in the family, I often got to go places with my parents because there was no one else still at home to look after me, all my older siblings having gone off to make their own ways in life. I didn't mind being the last one at home because I liked to be with the grown-ups, listening in on their conversations, learning about adult life before I actually had to go out into it. Everything I saw or heard interested me.

Working in Tip's office as an intern provided the same rich and far-reaching education and information for a young man who wanted to understand how the world worked and how he might be able to succeed himself. It expanded the circle of my knowledge and opened up new horizons to me. Part of my job in his office was to read all the mail that came in and fill in a chart enumerating the main issues that people were complaining or worrying about, listing the geographical areas they were writing from and the number of letters we were receiving on each subject. I was soaking up everything that came across my desk and talking to everyone who passed within my orbit, making contacts ...