The Gift of Not Knowing: Why Beginner’s Mind Is a Turbo Thinker’s Secret Weapon
Earlier this week, in my Supercharged Turbo Think Tank—a group of executives who gather every Wednesday morning at 8 AM to share wins and challenges relating to their neurodiversity—Marjorie shared something profound with Chloe: the gift of Beginner’s Mind.
Chloe had just shifted from a high-paced corporate job to starting a business with her husband. Instead of creating websites with different departments and giant budgets, she was doing it all alone and feeling like “small potatoes.” Marjorie reminded us all of these Zen Buddhism principles and why they can benefit Turbo Thinkers in profound ways.
What Is a Beginner’s Mind?
Beginner’s mind is the practice of dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about something, seeing it with fresh eyes—just like a beginner would. When we are learning something new, we may be confused because we don’t know how to do it, but we’re also looking at everything as if it’s brand new, perhaps with curiosity and wonder.
We may even get excited with the novelty of the experience.
As a Cuban American, I grew up dancing—with friends and family, from casual settings to formal galas. I had never taken an official class in my life. Someone asked me, “Do you dance Salsa on 1 or on 2?” I had no idea what he meant. I replied, “I dance on two feet!” He was actually referring to the beat. On day 1 of my dance class, I had to forget my Sundays at Abuela’s house and adopt a beginner’s mind.
When we practice beginner’s mind, we experience better relationships, quicker task initiation, more confidence, and an immediate boost to our executive function skills by reducing procrastination and anxiety.
Why This Matters for Turbo Thinkers
In my experience as a coach, adopting a beginner’s mind can have incredible benefits for Turbo Thinkers, whose inner critic sometimes whispers stories of inadequacy, incompetence, guilt and shame. A beginner’s mind removes expectations and gives us permission to be less than perfect, to make mistakes. To be a beginner means to have a clean slate—there’s no need to remember everything we’ve ever learned, so it frees up our memory. We no longer require our working memory to access everything because we’re starting from the beginning.
As Turbo Thinkers we can lean into our natural strengths of curiosity and love of learning. There’s no right or wrong, no stupid questions, no assumptions. Everything is open to questioning and exploration, supporting our inherent traits of wonder and curiosity.
A beginner’s mind also opens the door to invite humility. There’s no need to prove anything to anyone. This freedom opens the door to confidence—by not knowing, we become beginners, and that leads to success. It releases us from the need for external validation.
The beginner doesn’t have expectations, preconceived notions, or past experiences to limit their view of a situation. Beginners bring curiosity toward something new, remaining open and eager to learn. This opens a world of possibilities with no existing expectations to limit what could and should happen.
The Expert Mind Trap
With an expert mind, we make assumptions and don’t tend to ask questions about a situation before making decisions. We believe there’s one correct solution, and whatever deviates from this is wrong. Although an expert may know a lot, an expert mindset provides a narrow point of view that can block us from finding new and better solutions to problems. It exemplifies a fixed mindset.
A beginner, however, doesn’t see a right or wrong way to approach a problem or situation. When we cultivate beginner’s mind, we can approach challenges with more creativity and fresh perspective. We gain a sense of playfulness and wonder about topics and situations that may have become stale over time. A beginner exemplifies a growth mindset.
It opens an opportunity to get newly excited about something. It invites us to rediscover what may have become dull. Beginner’s mind also helps us develop deeper gratitude and free ourselves from expectations based on past experiences.
How Do We Develop Beginner’s Mind?
1. Question the Stories
We can ignore the stories that past experience tells us and choose better narratives. Instead of torturing ourselves with assumptions based on past experience, we can see things as they really are—not as what our mind is telling us. We can question every single assumption that pops into our head and look at it from several angles. We can catch the stories and create better ones.
For example, instead of thinking, “No feedback means my supervisor is upset with my work,” we might tell ourselves, “No news is good news!” Same situation, completely different story.
2. Channel our Inner Child
We can take inspiration from children. “What is this? Why is it this way? How does it work?” Children are never done learning, and neither are we—which is a wonderful perspective to adopt. We can approach everything with wonder and amazement rather than based on preconceived ideas of what it should be.
Instead of thinking “I detest these 90-minute meetings” we might ask, “Why are they 90 minutes in the first place? How could we make them shorter and more effective?”
3. Slow Down and Rediscover
When we know how to do something, we go on autopilot. Instead of automatically going through the motions, we can slow down, take our time, and rediscover every aspect of the task. We can be mindful and aware of what we’re doing and experiencing, acting with intentionality and living in the present moment throughout the entire experience.
The autopilot of the same daily car commute to work could be replaced with a bike ride or a different route to appreciate nature and witness the seasons.
4. Eliminate “Should” from our Vocabulary
We can stop “shoulding” all over ourselves. Saying something should happen a certain way ties us to the outcome.
Rather, we can let go of the outcome and our beliefs of what should happen or how something should be done. This invites surprises, new potential outcomes, and an open mind.
Instead of “I should go to the gym 5x a week,” we might ask: Says who? Really? Why? What’s truly important to me? What sounds like fun? What will I really do?
5. Put our Ego on the Back Burner
If you’re an expert at something, you probably want to be recognized for it—it’s good for your ego. As a result, we want to be right at all costs. Beginners are almost never right, and as a result, they enjoy new learning experiences. By letting go of the need to be right and approaching every situation as an opportunity to learn something new, we can enjoy the process.
Maybe we can practice saying something like, “That’s a great question! I don’t know... How can we figure it out together?”
An Invitation to Try It
What if you approached your next challenge—whether at work, at home, or in your relationships—with the curiosity of a beginner? What might shift if you released the pressure to have all the answers and instead embraced the wonder of not knowing?
Where in your life have you become so “expert” that you’ve lost the joy of discovery?
What would it feel like to approach that area with fresh eyes?
How might your Turbo Thinker strengths of curiosity and pattern-seeking flourish when freed from the constraints of what you think you already know?
The Circle of Discovery
Something beautiful happened in that same SuperCharged Turbo Think Tank session.
While Marjorie was explaining beginner’s mind to Chloe, she realized she also wanted to adopt it at her own work. As the most senior and experienced team member, she had been assigned a new colleague to train and mentor—and had been experiencing extreme frustration with their communication, quickly losing patience.
In that moment of insight, Marjorie committed to trying beginner’s mind to help her see the newbie’s perspective and work more collaboratively, opening herself to fresh ways of approaching the problems assigned to them. The teacher became the student, the mentor became the beginner.
This is the gift of beginner’s mind—it doesn’t just help us approach new challenges; it helps us rediscover familiar ones. It reminds us that even in our areas of expertise, there’s always something new to learn, always a fresh perspective to consider.
Beginner’s mind isn’t about becoming less capable—it’s about becoming more open. It’s about trading the burden of expertise for the gift of possibility. And for Turbo Thinkers, who already possess natural curiosity and wonder, beginner’s mind might just be the key to unlocking our most authentic and effective selves.
The question isn’t whether you know enough. The question is: Are you curious enough to not know?