Paint Like a Child

Brian Chesky was asked how he keeps growing as a leader. His answer: stay a beginner.

'The bigger I get, the more a beginner I tend to feel. It's a weird feeling.' When you reach the frontier of your knowledge, everything becomes new again. You're not an expert - you're exploring.

Then he quotes Picasso: 'It took me four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to learn to paint like a child.'

This is what children do naturally. They see with fresh eyes. They ask the obvious questions adults have learned to skip. They're curious about everything because nothing is boring yet.

As adults, we lose this. We accumulate assumptions. We pattern-match. We stop noticing.

But here's the gift of parenting young children: they invite you back into beginner's mind. Why is the sky blue? Why do we have to sleep? Why can't dogs talk?

Don't dismiss these questions. Don't rush past them. Your child is offering you a masterclass in seeing the world fresh.

Chesky says the key characteristics of a child are curiosity and fresh eyes. Those aren't things to train out of your kids. They're things to learn back from them. Picasso spent a lifetime trying to recover what your three-year-old does effortlessly.