The Pomp Letter - Curiosity Can Change Your Life
To investors, I have been reading one book per week this year. This past week’s book was A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoy these notes. Book’s main argument:Curiosity is a superpower. We often don’t talk about, nor think of, curiosity as an endeavor worth pursuing on its own. Many people talk about creativity and innovation, but Grazer argues that curiosity is the more important pursuit. He uses his personal experience with “curiosity conversations” to highlight the benefit. 8 Big Ideas:💡 Idea #1 — Intentionally seeking out other people to learn from them, especially when coming from a place of genuine curiosity can completely change your life. Brian calls these “curiosity conversations” and he has been doing them for about 40 years with some of the world’s most successful or famous individuals. He writes:
Brian then continues describing the curiosity conversations:
Brian also describes how asking questions in the curiosity conversations has prevented people from thinking he is stupid:
💡 Idea #2 — Curiosity requires courage and a willingness to be different. Brian writes:
💡 Idea #3 — Curiosity is a defiant act that can give you power. Brian writes:
💡 Idea #4 — Curiosity can break you out of your bubble, show you different perspectives, and help you gain a broader understanding of how the world works. Brian writes:
Brian then continues and says:
💡 Idea #5 — Curiosity can be a cure for fear. Brian writes:
Brian elaborates on this argument by saying:
💡 Idea #6 — Human connection is built on curiosity for thousands of years. Brian writes:
💡 Idea #7 — Asking questions may be a better management technique than the one that you are currently using. Brian writes:
💡 Idea #8 — Curiosity leads to good ideas, but we must prevent the internet from destroying our curiosity and stripping of us our superpower. Brian writes:
Memorable quotes:
Pomp’s Takeaways:My first big takeaway was that people rarely talk about curiosity. Brian nailed it when he said that the vernacular used focuses on creativity and innovation, but not curiosity. As we know, words matter. By incorporating the word curiosity into our daily language, it forces us to think about questions, not answers. The second big takeaway was that Brian and I have similar lives. He may produce movies, while I build companies and invest in others, but we both create content for public consumption. He calls his conversations with interesting people “curiosity conversations.” I call mine “podcast episodes.” This realization made me understand how fortunate I am to do this on a daily basis, while also creating a higher degree of importance on each episode. The third takeaway was that you can learn something from anyone you meet. Brian shares example after example of his curiosity conversations, including the LA Police Chief during the Rodney King riots, Fidel Castro during a trip to Cuba, Oprah Winfrey during a hotel breakfast, and many people you have never heard of. Some of the conversations were hours long and others lasted 20 minutes. Ask good questions and be genuinely interested in the answers. Curiosity can take you anywhere. Lastly, the fourth takeaway is that being exposed to a variety of fields, perspectives, and people can be an incredible competitive advantage. As I mentioned in the book notes for Robert Greene’s Mastery, my wife and I are constantly talking about how to expose our daughter to as many ideas as possible. It feels dumb that parents think this way for their children, but we lose sight of the importance for ourselves as we get older. We are all children at heart. As I mentioned, this past week’s book was A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer. Highly recommend reading it. If you are interested in the individual highlights that I made in the physical book, you can read those here. Hope you enjoyed these notes. Let me know if you would like me to continue writing these in the future. -Pomp Note: Make sure you are subscribed to receive these personal notes each Monday morning. You’re a free subscriber to The Pomp Letter. For the full experience, become a paid subscriber. |
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