The Intelligence of Curiosity

Why it’s important to follow your (impractical) nudges

My amazing former assistant coach, Jen Forbes, took this picture of me in Rock Creek Park, D.C., during this transition.

When the Most Strategic Move Is the One You Didn’t Plan

When I lived in DC, I stumbled into a yoga studio I loved; the kind of place I normally walk into with raised eyebrows. I had practiced yoga sporadically in Boston, but never found a “home” in a studio before.

At the time, I was the Head Women’s Rowing Coach at Georgetown. My days began before sunrise, and they ended long after everyone else went home. This studio became my respite from the grind of my work, and one of the earliest bids I made toward prioritizing and caring for my body during a period where I otherwise didn’t think much about it.

Fast forward many months from that moment, and deep into a regular yoga practice, I signed up for yoga teacher training when it was offered. It didn’t make any sense. I didn’t want to teach, I didn’t need another commitment, and I never enjoyed being the center of attention. But something about the practice pulled at me. I was curious about the biomechanics, the sequencing, and the why behind each posture. I had a feeling it would be good to know how to practice safely and well on my own in the future.

What I didn’t know then was that this would become the bridge between who I had been and who I was becoming; the hinge between the coach who pushed, and the one who listened.

When I eventually left Georgetown, the teacher training carried me into an unexpected in-between chapter. CorePower hired me to manage their Falls Church location, and then I opened their brand-new City Center studio. I taught yoga; I managed teams; I learned what it meant to guide people through their bodies, not just through the mechanics of moving a boat. It also gave me a regular–albeit very small–paycheck to depend on while I built my business in that first nine months.

The work gave me some of the skills that now sit at the core of my coaching: deepening my knowledge of anatomy and the body, breathwork and presence, reading the body before the mind has words, noticing what happens beneath the surface.

Curiosity was the thing that led me there. Not a five-year plan, not a structured strategy, not a meticulously crafted vision board. Only the pull to learn more about what excited me. Now 10 years into my work and deep into the research, I've realized this experience wasn't unique to me.

The Science Behind Your Wandering Mind

Neuroscience tells us that curiosity is one of the brain’s most sophisticated forms of intelligence. It activates the same networks responsible for problem-solving, insight, and long-term memory. When curiosity sparks, the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex light up together, forming new associations that would otherwise stay out of reach.

Dopamine rises too, creating the spark that pulls you toward what you want to understand. The brain becomes more flexible, more creative, and more willing to see possibilities instead of staying locked in familiar patterns.

This is why children learn so quickly and why innovators often make intuitive leaps before the data arrives. Curiosity shifts the brain into what researchers call exploratory cognition. It widens the perceptual field, and it invites the nervous system to consider alternatives.

So when your mind drifts toward an idea, a question, a pull you can’t yet explain, it’s not a sign of distraction. It’s your brain doing what it is designed to do.It’s intelligence in motion, and the beginning of insight.

For the High Achiever Who Craves Certainty

High achievers often live on the other side of that equation. We learn to tolerate what looks impressive rather than pursue what feels meaningful. 

But curiosity is how we find our way back to ourselves. It reconnects us to the pulse of our own motivation, the part of us that knows when something is true before the data confirms it. When I work with clients, the question they’re afraid to ask is often the very one that reveals the way forward.

Curiosity pulls together our strengths, our values, and our desires into something coherent. It shows us what feels real before the language center of our brain can catch up with a good explanation.

It’s not the opposite of discipline; it’s what makes discipline worth sustaining.

As You Set Goals for the Year Ahead

This time of year, many of us reach for our notebooks and start planning. SMART goals, metrics, milestones. Structure matters, but so does leaving room for questions that do not have answers (yet).

Ask yourself:

• What feels alive in me right now?

• What do I keep returning to, even when it doesn’t make sense?

• What might happen if I followed that thread for a season?

Curiosity will not give you a straight line; it will give you direction that comes from within and a direction that evolves as you do.

Because sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is follow the signal that says, there is more to learn here.

When Something in You Wants to Go Deeper

If you notice yourself suppressing curiosity in the name of efficiency, that pattern has consequences. It disconnects you from your inner intelligence, the part of you that knows when something is right before your mind does. My 1:1 Leadership and Career Coaching is built around the Embodied Intelligence Method, a process that blends applied neuroscience, somatic awareness, and high-performance psychology. It helps you access the deeper layers of clarity that traditional goal setting cannot reach.

If you want support reconnecting to that internal compass, you can begin with my free Meditation for Aligned Decisions. It will help you access the grounded, intuitive knowing that drives aligned next steps.

Listen to the Meditation for Embodied Awareness