The Power of Asking Questions for Personal Growth

What if unlocking your full potential was just a matter of embracing curiosity and continuous learning? Join me, Carmen Cauthen, as I navigate the often unseen terrains of personal growth, sharing my experiences as a self-proclaimed "guinea pig" in life's grand experiment. From the unexpected joy of rediscovering a forgotten cashier's check to the complexities of being a trustee, I reveal how each challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow. As a recovering hoarder, I explain how letting go can teach profound lessons about managing not only physical spaces but also financial ones.

With stories that underscore the significance of staying intellectually active, I invite you to unleash your curiosity and embark on a journey of lifelong learning. Together, we explore why it’s crucial to dig deeper, ask questions, and fully understand the world around us. Drawing on personal anecdotes, such as the joy of discovering new words, I highlight how this curiosity keeps our minds sharp and prevents stagnation. 

By staying open to the unknown and welcoming challenges, we can ensure personal growth and avoid the pitfalls of complacency. Join the conversation and rethink what it means to truly live and learn every day.

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Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.

To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm Carmen Coffin and this isQuiet.
No More have you ever been aguinea pig.
I mean not a real critterguinea pig, but a guinea pig

(00:27):
Like somebody tested somethingout on you or tried something
out with you.
I am crazy because I kind oflike being a guinea pig.
I like that I go to the storeor I go in the bank and I need

(00:47):
something that somebody eitherdoesn't know about or they don't
know how to do it and they haveto go get some help.
I don't mind being a trainingsession, because I am a lifelong
learner.
I am going to learn until theday that God calls me home, and

(01:11):
I think everybody needs to learnsomething new every day.
So sometimes I remember whenmom and daddy had a trust mama
was gone and I was.
I had taken over as a trustee,and if I would go to a different
branch of the bank then thatthey normally went to, then

(01:32):
somebody would have to figureout how to handle me doing
something I so I have to tellyou another whole story now
because I am a recoveringhoarder.

(01:54):
I have figured out why I havebeen hoarding, so I have been
able to get rid of things andnot hold on to them.
It was a control thing for me.
It was one of the few thingsthat I could control.
But while I was going throughpapers, I found an envelope
brand new envelope and I just Igot ready to put it in the trash

(02:17):
and something said open thatenvelope.
And I opened it and it was acheck from 2019, a cashier's
check, and I remembered, when Isaw the company that it was made
out to, that I had had to goand pay them a different way.
I didn't know that this checkhad ended up in a bunch of other

(02:40):
papers, and so I went to thebank today and it wasn't just
they didn't know what to do withthe trust piece.
It was that it was 2019.
It was an old check and daddydied in 2020.
But you know, when you get acashier's check at the bank,

(03:01):
they move the money out of yourregular account and put it in a
different account so they couldsee.
After they did a little digging, after the teller said let me
get my manager because I don'tknow what to do with this, he

(03:24):
learned and she learned thatactually the money was still
there.
They were thinking it had goneinto the SGT's fund of the state
, but now I have some otherthings I have to do and so I've
learned something new.
But I am happy when people getthe opportunity to learn
something while I'm there withthem.
It means to me that they are,they're growing some more.

(03:46):
Because, you know, one of mypet peeves is people who don't
want to learn anything.
You know, we can all learnsomething new every day and I
pride myself on being able tolearn something new every day
and reading something new everyday, because I don't want to be
dumb, I don't want to beignorant.

(04:07):
I mean, I know there are thingsthat I'm not going to ever
learn.
Like, I'm not going to be thesurgeon who goes in the
operating room and operates onyou.
I don't want to do that.
So I don't want to learn thosethings.
But I want more than basicknowledge.
Like, if I go to the doctor andthey tell me something, I'm
going to go home and researchfor myself If something's not

(04:28):
working right with my medicine.
I and the pharmacist is not mydaddy and he can't.
You know the pharmacist is notmy daddy and he can't.
You know he was going toresearch it.
So I learned to research.
I learned to look things up.
In fact he didn't.
We couldn't even go asksomebody how to spell something
at our house.
We got sent to the dictionaryor the encyclopedia and they

(04:50):
wouldn't even tell us how tospell it when we were going to
look it up.
It was like sound it out and golook it up and see what it
means.
So that may be where I got thisdrive to learn all the time
from.
But if you're not learning, whatare you doing?
So I don't mind being theguinea pig Now.
It doesn't mean I don't getfrustrated because of the time

(05:13):
that it takes, but you knowthat's what we all had to do
from the time we were children.
We had to learn how to dothings, and it took time.
It takes time to learn how towalk and not fall down.
It takes time to learn how torun and not fall down.

(05:35):
It takes time to learn how torun and not fall down.
It takes time to learn how totalk, and it's not something you
can pick up from a cell phone.
You have to do it in practiceand you have to do it
consistently, and so those areskills I don't ever want to lose
.
So anybody who knows me knows Iam going to look for something

(06:00):
and I am going to wait patiently.
Now I might be tapping my nailson the table, but I want to
know all the pieces.
Don't just give me the part youthink I can handle, because I'm
going to be able to handle itall in my own time, but I want
to know.
Do you want to know?

(06:21):
Do you want to learn somethingnew?
Because, see, I really thinkthat if you aren't willing to
learn something new, then you'rejust lazy.
You're lazy, you don't want tostretch your mind, and sometimes
it might be a fear, a fear ofthe knowledge or a fear of

(06:44):
somebody saying something aboutyou.
If you know more than they do,well, that's on them.
You know if I'm smart, I'mgoing to always be smart.
You know if I'm smart, I'mgoing to always be smart, and I
guess I was told that enoughthat I believe it.
But I want to know the littledeep down things and I'm going

(07:07):
to go dig it out and I think youought to do the same thing
because it's important.
No-transcript, would you justsay well, I don't know, I'm the
person who says I don't know,but let me see if I can help you
figure it out, or let me see ifI can find the answer for you.

(07:30):
I'm going to try to leadsomebody in whatever direction
they need to go so they'll gettheir answer.
But I'm probably not going tojust tell them all the answer.
But even if they're gone andthey figure you know the answer.
But even if they're gone andthey figure you know they've
gone on somewhere else.

(07:51):
Once my curiosity has beenaroused, I got to go dig it up
for myself and I'm going tostick it in there in my head
somewhere and, like some daysnow, I'll say a word and I'll
think hmm, I think I learnedthat one in sixth grade and
hadn't used it since then, butI'll go back and find it.
In fact, the other day, while Iwas reading, I was reading an

(08:11):
article and there was this wordthat I'd never heard of in an
article.
I had to go get the dictionaryand figure out what that word
meant so I could read the restof the sentence.
But part of that is being aguinea pig to learning, and so I
just think we have so much tolearn about and if we don't

(08:37):
challenge ourselves and thechildren and the young people
around us to learn, then theyget as my mama used to say it,
they get rusty.
Their brains don't work as well.
It's a machine.
It needs to work.
In order to work, you have towork it.

(09:00):
So when you have questions orwhen somebody doesn't quite know
how to do something that youcome up to them with, don't just
walk off.
Don't take your marbles and gohome.
Stick it out, figure out whatit is that you need to know, or
figure out how to be still whilesomebody else is figuring it

(09:24):
out, and don't get angry orupset, because we all have to
learn new things all the time,because we don't want to be lazy
, and I'm probably not going tobe quiet about that anymore
either.
You've been listening to quietno more, where I share my

(09:54):
journey, so you can be quiet.