A reflection on reclaiming wonder, presence, and asking why—without turning it into a performance
By Lisa N. Alexander
Founder, This Woman Knows Media
Day 83 of 421.
Or somewhere thereabout.
I’d just finished training for a position I didn’t want, was sincerely overqualified for, but found myself needing.
It was the only job offer I received after sending out hundreds of resumes—most met with a polite “thank you for your interest” and far more silence than anything else.
I cried every single day of that training period.
After a few weeks of taking live calls in our training pod, we were released to our teams and coaches.
My coach—let’s call her Samantha—reminded me of an overzealous direct marketing sales leader I once encountered, the kind always chasing the next tier. Every morning began with a Teams meeting that felt like a forced pep rally, steeped in sales and mindset motivation, eerily similar to the direct marketing introduction meetings I’d sat through years earlier.
Cameras on.
The cameras always had to be on.
In the beginning, the most I was willing to show was my forehead. That way, you couldn’t see my red and swollen eyes due to sobbing just moments earlier.
I walked away from that job on day 421.
And I walked away with information—mostly about myself, and about how sales operates inside high-pressure environments.
Two things Samantha said stayed with me:
First, buyers are liars. I gasped when I heard it. I’ll unpack that another time—maybe in a future Rebel Radio episode.
Second: Be curious.
Be Curious
Talk time was king. The longer you kept someone on the phone, the better. It meant you were engaging the customer, gathering data—psychographic data, for those of us who speak marketing—and adding it to a customer file that would follow them indefinitely.
If your calls were too short, Samantha would remind us to be curious. Ask questions. Get people talking about themselves so that information could be used to sell to them later.
That’s sales.
But I took her directive differently.
I realized that somewhere along the way, as a grown woman, I had become far less curious—about people, and about the world itself.
Asking Why Again
As children, we exhausted the adults around us with one question: why?
At some point, we stopped asking.
Tony Hsieh once wrote about engaging strangers simply to know them—not data mining, but for connection. That idea stayed with me.
I allowed myself to stop and ponder.
I spoke less and listened more.
I spent time in nature long enough to answer the question: If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?
Yes, it does.
One of the most surreal moments of my adult life!
Curiosity is the precursor to rest.
The world opens when we rediscover our curiosity and allow ourselves to wonder and explore. And sadly, it’s these behaviors that get buried beneath bills, unemployment, underemployment, caregiving, and strained relationships.
But these are the very things that remind us that we’re alive and part of something much bigger.
This year, I’m inviting you to reengage your curiosity. I promise it’s good for your sanity.
Read for pleasure.
Engage people with no ulterior motive.
Try a new dish or restaurant.
Stargaze.
Watch the clouds.
Or listen for falling trees in the forest.
Create something just for fun—with no expectation to monetize.
Ask why.
Thanks to Samantha, I learned that curiosity is the precursor to rest, and rest allows us to live big, full lives.
I want that for you.
And it starts with asking why.
Lisa N. Alexander is the author and founder of This Woman Knows and What Million-Dollar Brands Know. She is an award-winning filmmaker, director, producer, and writer and is the owner of PrettyWork Creative.
