By Coach Ron Wolforth – 

For the past 25 years, I have closed many of my articles with the line: “Stay curious and keep fighting the good fight.”

This line really fits me. I love curiosity and I love partaking in a struggle that has true meaning and merit.

I have written at great length about the critical concepts of humility, empathy, and clarity. In my opinion, they certainly deserve all the energy and efforts I have given them in my writing. I still believe that a vast, vast majority of the problems we face today could be significantly reduced, if not completely eradicated, by a significant infusion of both empathy and humility into the situation or circumstance.

Today, I wanted to visit with you about two other extremely powerful behaviors.

They are “Curiosity” and “Skepticism”.

I think most people would immediately see the value in developing and cultivating a high level of curiosity. However, some people might make the mistake of underappreciating the value of skepticism.

Let’s start with curiosity. When we are 2-5 years old, we flood our environment with questions. At this age in our development, we are desperately and acutely trying to figure out how and why things work the way they do.

Then, from roughly 6-18 years of age, our verbal inquisitiveness is constantly and continually tamped down by our culture at large. We are conditioned that unconstrained probing is not only inappropriate and annoying in polite society, but in fact, is rude and a sign of disrespect.

So, we slowly but surely are trained to ask less, to question less, to inquire less, and to simply accept what is being forwarded to us as fact or truth.

While an overly inquisitive child can indeed be emotionally draining, if we are honest, our source of discomfort is primarily because they ask questions that we are far from certain about, and/or it exposes our lack of expertise and knowledge of the subject.  

In my opinion, we must help our young people develop a very robust curiosity. Never stop asking questions!

Never stop asking… “Why?”.

Never stop asking… “How so?”.

Never stop asking… “So what?”.

Never stop asking… “Is that even true?”.

Never stop examining, investigating, probing, wondering, pondering, and digging deeper.

From curiosity, we get innovation. From curiosity, we get renovation. From curiosity, we get transformation, adaptation, and modification.

This is obviously not a small deal. Curiosity is one of the more important key aspects to the evolution of mankind and to society.

This was my greatest fear during the COVID pandemic. Because COVID-19 was thought of as a once-in-one-hundred-year scourge on humanity, natural curiosity and the questions that accompany it were often viewed as inappropriate at best, and at worst, as a dangerous evil and a form of despicable behavior.

One couldn’t ask basic questions without blowback and social reprisal. I’m hoping that we are now reemerging back into the light, and honest examination can be conducted unimpeded. This, in my opinion, is incredibly important. The public trust has been really damaged over the past several years.

Baseball has its own set of untouchable tenets such as “safe pitch counts limits”, which in many ways has actually retarded and impeded our efforts at reducing arm injuries to players 12-21 years of age. In short, if something can’t be criticized and its efficacy challenged, it is nearly impossible to improve.

Which leads us to skepticism.

Skepticism is the sign of a working mind. Skepticism is not to be confused with “cynicism”.

Cynicism is often characterized by mistrust, suspicion, disbelief, incredulity, pessimism, negativity, disillusion, and disenchantment. A cynical person believes you are wrong and what you are forwarding is either false and/or a form of manipulation.

A skeptical person simply wants you to prove or validate your statement. It’s not about negativity or pessimism. It’s not about mistrust or disillusion.

It is about veracity, efficacy, and factuality. It is about evidence, proof, verification, corroboration, and substantiation.

Returning to the COVID-19 pandemic example previously articulated, we were told multiple things, often conflicting and with little to no deliberate investigation. We were simply instructed to “trust” the experts.

As President Reagan so artfully articulated… “Trust but verify”.

Many athletes and their families come to the Texas Baseball Ranch® skeptical that the Ranch, its staff, and its tenets can really change the athlete for the better. Many of them have actually written something along the lines of, “We had heard about the Ranch for many years and read the testimonials but thought these stories might be too good to be true. We are so glad we came. You guys have made believers out of us all”.

They came to Montgomery, Texas skeptical… And yet their lives were forever changed for the better.

Remember:

It’s good to have questions. You should have questions.

Skepticism is the sign of a working mind.

And stay curious and keep fighting the good fight.