006-martin-lopez

THE CURIOSITY THEORY

Martin Lopez Discusses his book, The Curiosity Theory

Connect with Martin Lopez 

Website
https://thecuriositytheory.mykajabi.com/the-curiosity-theory-book

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John DeBevoise:Martin, talk about your book, The Curiosity Theory. What does that mean?

Martin Lopez:The Curiosity Theory, what it means is be curious in your conversations, be curious in all your relationships. Be curious with people, stay curious versus stay forced in your thought. Sometimes we believe what’s in our head, what our thoughts are, that’s the way it is. I’m not saying that’s not the way it is, I’m saying stay curious because maybe there’s another perspective to look at.

John DeBevoise:If I was to go into the bookstore and say, “That looks like an interesting title,” and I’m taking that book down for a purpose, what am I looking to do and obtain from your book, and why would I be picking it?

Martin Lopez:Typically you’re somebody… I work with a lot of C level executives. I work with a lot of people in leadership. I work with a lot of small business owners as well, and it’s the person that wants to have stronger relationships, relationships that are more powerful. They’re more aligned with each other. It’s me, the people that are working for me, our management team, we all want to be aligned, but we don’t necessarily all speak the same language. Curiosity gives us the insight in order to just understand what everybody around us is saying, what are their points, what are they making, how do we listen and what do we listen for?

John DeBevoise:I see that you have workshops, the coaching, as well as the book that you wrote. Let’s talk about the workshops. Who would be going to your workshop, to take out one day from their life? What would they looking to do or accomplish from a workshop about The Curiosity Theory?

Martin Lopez:People that want to operate at a consistently new level, a level of effectiveness, a level of love, a level of being connected. What happens is when we start to really address what’s really important to us, which is maintaining those connections, and then building on where we’re at. If you’re a business owner and you want to take your business to the next level, it requires communication. It requires alignment, it requires working with people, collaborating with people and building. Language is is the one thing is that we have in order to get what we want, if the way we speak to people, if the language we use is offending people, is turning people off, we’ve got to be open to another language. The Curiosity Theory, what you do is you learn your language, and that sounds kind of weird, you learn your language.

Speaker 2:Yeah. What does that mean, you’re learning my language?

Martin Lopez:Well, you’re speaking. You and I are constantly speaking, but oftentimes people don’t listen to what they’re saying, and they’re not seeing how it’s landing, and being curious about how it’s landing. What I said, does that make sense to you? What I said, did that offend you? It’s not about sitting around and babying a conversation, it’s being responsible for a conversation, being responsible for what comes out of my mouth and how it lands. Am I speaking to your language, because I’m using my language. Give you an example, my wife and I have been married 21 years, tomorrow I’ll be married 21 years, and we speak different languages. My wife has a way that she expresses herself. I have a way that I express myself. That has to be how we were raised, our education. My wife’s a school teacher, I’m a business owner.

Martin Lopez:We speak two completely different languages. When we’re dealing with our children, she has a way that she approaches it, I have a way that I approach it. If we fight for our position and don’t listen to each other, we then get an argument about our kids. If we can find alignment, we can start to listen to each other, be empathetic with the other person thinks, then we start to understand other people’s language. In turn, you start to understand your own language a little bit more so you can be effective with what your thoughts are, how you’re expressing yourself, what are the points you’re trying to make in the conversation? Are they landing the way that we want them to land? How am I listening to the person that’s talking to me? Am I cutting them off? Am I listening? Am I helping them get to what they want to get to? Are we a team or are we against each other?

John DeBevoise:As a business owner, if I went into one of your workshops and then we’ll lead into the coaching here that you also offer. If I go into the workshop as a business owner, what am I looking to accomplish with my employees?

Martin Lopez:Well, the bottom lines is always profit, it’s always money. Am I making the kind of money I want? Is my business going to be sustainable? Do I have to rehire people because somebody upset somebody? Did hey upset a customer? Are we all operating in the same mission statement? Are we all aligned? When somebody comes in and talks to the manager or one of the employees, are we all in the same direction? Are we all consider it the same way? Are we all taking care of those clients? It all starts with management, it all starts with ownership. If the ownership is creating a culture of connection, commitment, challenge, whatever those things are creating, we have to make sure that everybody that’s on the team, everybody that’s playing, is got to be aligned with us.

Martin Lopez:When different people think different ways, just like I said, my wife thinks one way and I think a different way. We have to understand how people are thinking and what’s important to them. What are their needs and can they get what they need out of working here? Are they getting what they need? In turn, am I getting what I need? The more value that we give to our employees, the more value our customers see, and it creates a culture. People want to be there, customers want to be in an environment that’s a positive environment. People want to buy from a company that’s a positive company.

Martin Lopez:That they give their word, they keep their word. They’re not arguing, everybody’s aligned. When you have a request, those requests are met. Those are just forward-thinking. Ultimately, what I find is people want their business to run that way, but they’re subject to the way that they operate, and then the way that other people operate based on other people’s history. We bring a team together, but we don’t have any alignment. We don’t do a whole lot of creating an alignment. The Curiosity Theory gives us the ability to create alignment with people that don’t speak our own language.

John DeBevoise:In your book, you said you wrote this book because you wanted to fix a problem that you had. What was that problem?

Martin Lopez:I got in a fight with my wife. Literally got in a fight with my wife over where we were going to go to have dinner, and I realized that how I handled those arguments was to dominate, and to get things my way and I wasn’t listening to what she wanted.

John DeBevoise:How did that work for you?

Martin Lopez:It worked good for about 17 years, at least I thought it was good. It turned out, when I started being curious about what was going on with my wife and our relationship, I found that a lot of the ways that I was operating, even though we were married and we were committed to staying married, were just chipping away at the joy and the self expression of our relationship and our marriage, and then chipping away at even our kids’ relationships. We operated related to our children, and when we started to be more curious in our relationship, we started to be more curious with the kids, we started to make more considerations. I started to consider more what my wife wanted and less make it all about me.

John DeBevoise:We’re talking with Martin Lopez, the author of The Curiosity Theory. Now your book talks about what is being curious, and as you were describing how to be more mindful in your relationships, whether it be business or personal. What about the coaching? Did that come from writing the book, and you found that you could provide this service to others in the form of coaching?

Martin Lopez:Yeah, it was really the third step. I wrote the book out of an experience that I had with my wife, and I put some concepts together. As I started sharing the book with people, people said, “Hey, can you teach me this?” So I put a workshop together. As I put the workshop together, people wanted to have ongoing coaching about that. “Can we talk about the different distinctions that we learned in the coaching?” We have something called a regressive cycle and a progressive cycle, a regressive cycle is how we tumbled down, how we move into negativity, how we give up on our dreams, the progressive cycles is how we are inspired, how we innovate, move into flow and in positive momentum. They’re two different cycles and people wanted more. They just really wanted more coaching about that, more learning about that, and I have something called observations, feelings and needs, which is a way that we all operate as human beings.

Martin Lopez:People wanted more than just a one day lesson on that. Even though they were implementing that, they would come back and say, “Hey, this is what happened. I tried this with one of my employees. I tried this with one of my clients. It didn’t work. What did I do wrong or what was missing?” And then coach through those distinctions say, “Oh okay. That’s what was missing.”

Martin Lopez:What happens in The Curiosity Theory is, and what happens in the coaching is kind of like what happens in life. We go through a process or we go through something, let’s say a problem happens and we get in an argument maybe with a client or we upset a client. Then afterwards we’d go back and we say, “God, I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have done that.” But next time you’re in that same situation, you repeat that same pattern. We keep repeating patterns over and over. The Curiosity Theory has us take a step back, and before the pattern happens we’re able to see that it’s going to happen, and we change the way that we’re operating inside of those conversations, and inside of those relationships to have a different result.

John DeBevoise:You remind me of the statement that we’ve both heard, and it’s coincidence, pattern and choices. If it happens the first time, that’s a coincidence. If it happens thereafter, that’s a pattern, and if it happens, say on the third or more, then that’s a choice that you have to continue in that relationship, whether it be personal or professional. We’re talking with Martin Lopez, the author of The Curiosity Theory. If you’d like to get more information on the book, go to the website bizsoup.com and look him up in the author section. We’ll have offers for his book right there at Biz Soup in the authors selection. How are things going with your wife? Now that you’ve written this book, has she read it too? Is she following The Curiosity Theory?

Martin Lopez:She’s often times much better at it than I am, and she actually helps co-lead some of the courses. We do a course that’s about leadership, we do a course that’s about sales, and we just started a course about relationships, so we just launched our relationship course. I’ve taught the first two by myself. This next one that’s going to be in Orange County. I’ll be by myself, but then she will be teaching afterwards. She’s helped to lead probably four or five of the courses, co-lead with me.

John DeBevoise:Very good. Well Martin, I want to thank you for joining us on the curiosity brings people closer together. For more information on The Curiosity Theory, go to the website bizsoup.com. Martin, thanks for joining us on the author’s section of Bizness Soup.

Martin Lopez:Thank you.