Purposeful Curiosity

At some point, you will have enough information and resources to launch your journey. Reaching the top of the mountain or solving a mystery requires a capacity to act—but obstacles to moving forward can get in the way. Three common obstacles can block us from acting: a lack of confidence, the tendency to extend the research and preparation phase be

A big thank-you to my agent, Ben Clark at the Soho Agency. He has been a great friend and indispensable in helping to develop the idea for this book, capably helping me to navigate the world of publishing, reading my work, and talking through my ideas. I can’t imagine a better agent.

Use a five-step strategy to make the curiosity journey work: 1. Set boundaries. 2. Take small steps to build a rhythm. 3. Cut down the intermediaries so that you experience the world through your own (or your team’s) eyes. Get up close and personal to foster direct experiences with all your senses. Virtual replicas can never replace the real thing.

Lord Foster’s focus on a seemingly intractable problem, slum dwelling, has taken him, his team, and the Norman Foster Foundation (a nonprofit institution) to different parts of the world to meet with experts in solar power and in infrastructure that doesn’t rely on soil (such as boats and airplanes).

There is much we can do to help ourselves and our teams navigate the darkest days of our curiosity journeys. Five actionable approaches help build our resilience muscle so that we emerge victorious on the other side of adversity: •Quickly reconnect to your purpose. •Change your narrative. •Create a strong support network. •Put positive emotions to

psychology professor Arthur Aron from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his colleagues found that couples who engaged in more-exciting activities together feel less bored in their relationships than do couples who engage in activities more routine, and the less-bored couples rate their relationships as having better quality. Worki

Curiosity has long been the driving force of survival and progress. Across evolutionary time, curious animals were more likely to survive because they understood and adapted to their environments.

Big journeys are not reached by a single dive into the abyss. They are made up of many smaller journeys fueled by micro-curiosities, that is, small puzzles, mysteries, or challenges that are inside our comfort zone and that motivate us to explore our domain of interest. By breaking down an ambitious exploration into smaller, more achievable bits, w

Fear of the Unknown Starting a journey with an unclear path and an unfamiliar destination requires you to cede complete control, because while you know where you are starting from, it’s seldom clear how you will get here. Given that our aversion to the unknown is hardwired into us biologically, it is not unreasonable that we cling to the environmen