The Green Sheet Online Edition
October 12, 2026 • 26:10:01
Stay curious
Curiosity is one of those qualities we tend to associate with children. They want to know why the sky is blue, where ants go at night, what will happen if they push that button they're not supposed to touch.
But curiosity is powerful at any age, and especially in business. It keeps us learning, makes conversations more interesting and leads us down paths we might never have discovered if we hadn't stopped to wonder, Why does that work that way?
Payments provides plenty to wonder about. New technologies emerge. Regulations change. Fraudsters devise new schemes. Consumers adopt new habits, sometimes quickly and sometimes despite years of predictions that they will. Yesterday's unfamiliar acronym becomes today's everyday vocabulary.
You could spend a career in this industry and still find something new to learn.
Ask one more question
Curiosity also changes the way we approach merchants. Instead of beginning with what we want to tell them, we can begin with what we'd like to know, for example:
- How did you get into this business?
- What's the busiest part of your day?
- What frustrates your customers?
- What takes too much of your employees' time?
- What's changed since you opened?
- What do you wish worked better?
One question leads to another. Somewhere along the way, you may discover a problem you can solve. Just as important, you may discover something you never knew about an industry, a neighborhood, a technology or another person's life.
Follow where it leads
That's one of the joys of curiosity: you don't always know where it will take you. Curiosity doesn't require expertise. It requires being comfortable enough with what you don't know to ask about it. Read the article that catches your eye. Talk to the person whose job you don't quite understand. Investigate the new technology you've been hearing about. Ask someone to explain an idea you thought you understood.
Then keep going. The world becomes larger when we're curious about it. So does our work. We notice more, learn more and make connections we might otherwise miss. Stay curious. Ask the extra question. Follow the unexpected path. You never know where it might lead. 
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