“One of the tropes that shows up in curiosity is the idea that preschoolers ask thousands of questions per day … and then it drops to almost nothing. The research doesn’t bear this out.” ~ Todd Kashdan, PhD

Doing something hundreds of times seems like reason enough to mix stuff up.

So, for the 250th episode of this brave little enterprise, I invited curiosity researcher Todd Kashdan to join me to rethink some of the old curiosity standards.

The research has evolved and we’re going with it.

What better way to keep the curiosity alive than by questioning what we think we know?

I want you to think about the idea of curiosity as a form of persuasion… You don’t have to get someone to change their position… What you want to see is: can you get someone to move 5 to 10 degrees in their position… And one way of doing that is by leading, not necessarily with your knowledge, but with the things that intrigue you, [that] maybe we know less than we think we do.

Listen to Choose to Be Curious #250: Rethinking Curiosity, with Todd Kashdan

Todd Kashdan, Ph.D. is a professor, psychologist, founder of the Well-Being Lab at George Mason University and author of several books, including Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredients to a Fulfilling Life (2009), one of the first books I read as I was becoming a student of curiosity. I’ve enjoyed having him on the show to talk about the five dimensions of curiosity and the art of insubordination.

In today’s conversation, we touched on evolving understandings about curiosity across the life span, the challenges inherent in certain kinds of curiosity, and a more nuanced way to think about “the curiosity zone”.

But I couldn’t fit the whole conversation in 28 short minutes, so here’s a little bonus — a peek behind the production curtain, and some of the rich conversation that I didn’t want you to miss.

Listen to Ep. #250 Bonus Content

Thank you for joining me on this curiosity adventure! If you enjoy what you’re hearing here, leave a comment, post a review, tell a friend & get your local radio station to carry the show! 🙂

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Shift of Currents” by Aeronaut, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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