Everyone wants to be understood.

How to you understand?

To truly understand someone or something is to ask the questions. You need to take in your surroundings, look, listen, and feel.

Being curious is one of the best qualities you can embrace — as a designer, and as a human being. If you truly care and find interest and curiosity in the projects and relationships that you’re a part of, you’ll learn a lot about others and yourself along the way.

Slow things down to learn and understand new perspectives, tools, approaches, ideas, and processes. These new understandings will only allow for deeper, richer connections and work, as well as empathy and understanding as we go through life. They allow for richer, deeper design solutions to the challenges we face.

So, challenge yourself to ask 3 questions this week in a meeting or conversation that you normally wouldn’t think to do. Push beyond surface-level understanding. And I’ll do the same.