The Curiosity/Conviction Matrix
Last week, I recorded a podcast with Corey Wilks—a psychologist turned executive coach who helps the top creators in the world reach their potential in life and business.
In the podcast, we dug into a deep question: What keeps entrepreneurs going when things get hard—curiosity or conviction?
Where we landed?
You need both.
These two—together—fuel your authority-building (and business-building) efforts.
Without conviction, you won’t keep going.
Without curiosity, you’ll burn out or go stale.
Without either, your business will drift.
But with both? You have fuel: direction, motion, and meaning.
The Conviction/Curiosity Fuel Source
Conviction, channeling my inner Corey, is your “I give a sh*t.”
(Read his essay on the topic)
It’s the reason you show up when it’s not easy. It’s not just grit or discipline, but it’s anchored belief in what matters. It’s what carries you through fear, doubt, and dry spells.
Conviction helps you clarify what matters. Conviction helps you navigate fear and self-doubt. Conviction helps you persevere when everything sucks and nothing’s working. Conviction helps you pursue alignment, which is really what most of us are after. - Corey Wilks
Curiosity is the pull to learn, understand, and deepen your area of expertise.
It’s not just “ooh shiny new idea”, but a deep and evolving interest in:
Your topic: What am I learning, noticing, or refining in my approach? How can I sharpen my skills at my craft?
Your clients: What patterns keep emerging in how people get stuck or succeed? What is their journey, both before they meet me and afterwards?
Your offers: What works well in how I deliver transformation? What doesn’t?
Your message: What angles or formats match with the people I most want to reach?
Your marketing: What’s working, what’s shifting, and how might I adapt?
The Quadrants: How Curiosity and Conviction Interact
So what happens when you have one but not the other? Or neither?
The Optimizer (High Conviction, Low Curiosity)
You’ve committed to making your business work. You’ll sell what sells. You’ll build what delivers. You’re showing up, and people are paying attention. But over time, your work can start to feel overly commercialized, hollow, or disconnected from why you started or what you really care about…which can lead to being bored, antsy, and depleted over the long-term.
This quadrant is often praised by the market… and punished by your nervous system.
The work here? Reignite curiosity. Ask what still lights you up. Take advantage of having something that works for them to provide the freedom to explore what works for you.
The Circler (High Curiosity, Low Conviction)
You’re swimming in ideas. You take courses, write pages of notes, follow threads of thought. You might love learning, teaching, or exploring, but when it comes to committing to a direction (a niche, an offer style, a message, a long-term creative project), you pause.
Sometimes you’re circling and composting input around something meaningful, letting the ideas percolate before you take action. Other times, you’re just spinning—avoiding the risk of choosing one path or project to pursue. But over time, curiosity without conviction breeds restlessness. The work never settles or deepens, because you don’t stay in it long enough to build on it.
And without that depth, nothing compounds into real authority.
The work here? Commit to a pact—a project, a point of view, an offer—that can lead to real signal. Lovingly interrogate the fear and emotions that may emerge, including Corey’s Four Horsemen of Fear.
The Drifter (Low Conviction, Low Curiosity)
You’re untethered from why this work matters or what excites you about it. You’re feeling increasing resistance to both marketing and delivery. You might be going through the motions or fully disconnected from the work. You’re not feeling pulled towards building anything… and might want to burn it all down. It’s a hard season and it’s important to be honest about what you need.
The work here? Rest and recovery. (Maybe a job, depending on your financial situation and support structures).
And some deep questions:
What would make this feel meaningful again?
What’s worth coming back for?
What needs to be simpler to make this sustainable?
What beliefs do I hold that are no longer serving me?
Sometimes, you need to stop tending your field and let it lie fallow for a season.
The Architect (High Conviction, High Curiosity)
You’re plugged into the flow of ideas—not just chasing them, but shaping them. You’re building with intention, guided by an internal sense of direction rather than external pressure to create or sell. You’re refining your methods, testing what you believe in real time, and crafting your message as you go. Your frameworks are taking shape, your offers evolving. You’re excited to explore, ship your work, and share it with the world.
The work here? Keep going. Document your learning. Let your body of work grow. Share what you're observing and creating with your clients, collaborators, and connectors.
These aren’t identities. They’re seasons.
These quadrants aren’t fixed identities. They’re seasons.
There are seasons where you’re dreaming and doodling and consuming—where your inputs are rich and your outputs are few. You’re letting ideas marinate while tending to your existing commitments.
There are seasons of conviction—when you’re not exploring new possibilities, but executing the ones already in motion. You’re launching, delivering, testing what you know in the real world. The work may feel like a heavy lift, but it’s deeply necessary.
And there are seasons when neither curiosity nor conviction feels present. These can feel like drifting, or even failure, but often they’re simply a call to pause. To rest. To return to yourself. The goal isn’t to push through, but to sit with yourself and ask what you need and what might be in the way. And then, to listen for the answer.
Because if you’re choosing the path of self-employment—where visibility is vulnerable, your boss is you, and your paycheck isn’t guaranteed—you need something more than motivation.
You need conviction. You need curiosity.
That’s what carries you through.
And when those two align?
That’s your fuel to build the kind of authority that lasts.