Do you always find yourself excited by new ideas and projects? Being naturally curious, you enjoy learning, discovering new insights, and developing your skills. Your curiosity is one of your greatest strengths, driving you to explore and grow. But that same curiosity can be a double-edged sword. With so many ideas competing for your attention, … Read More
All healthy human babies and young children display curiosity, suggesting this is an innate human trait. Exploring our environment and babbling questions appear almost universal in early childhood across cultures. As an adaptive trait, curiosity draws us to seek information and new experiences. It’s how we learn about ourselves, others, and the world. However, research … Read More
Posted on February 8th, 2024 A month ago, I announced that I would celebrate my 34th birthday by giving away $3400 to help four people become scientists of their own life. I encouraged people to submit proposals for a personal experiment they wanted to run, where $850 would help make it happen. To maximize positive … Read More
We all have those recurring fascinations we just can’t seem to shake. You know the ones — those diffuse obsessions and latent creative projects that linger in the back of your mind, calling to you even when you try your best to ignore them. Though you may not realize it, these ‘curiosity attractors’ often reveal … Read More
For generations, hard skills have been prioritized over soft skills. Today, engineering and computer science education still places a strong emphasis on building technical expertise through math, science, and programming courses, with little attention paid to fostering interpersonal abilities. Many parents and educators still operate under the assumption that academic achievement and hard skills should … Read More
When I was younger, I badly wanted to live in Japan. Japan is a country with very strict immigration laws, but my university had an exchange program where you could go spend a semester and study in another country. There was only one problem: the Japanese university they had a partnership with was one of … Read More
Children have an incredibly inquisitive mind. “Why?” they keep asking. They explore new things for no other reason except that they just want to know. Researchers tried to figure out how often kids ask questions. Turns out, a lot: on average, children ask 107 questions per hour! But it seems that as adults we tend … Read More
The human mind is extremely averse to ambiguity and uncertainty. We are hardwired to seek answers — even if they’re incomplete or wrong — and most societies consider having answers as more valuable than having questions. Look around you: the overt objective of many jobs is to provide answers. After going through an interview process … Read More
Whether you have a job and a few side projects or you are a full-time entrepreneur, chances are you consider your work a part of your identity. “What do you do?” is one of the most common icebreakers when we meet new people. Certain jobs are thought to breed certain mindsets. Some are considered—rightly or … Read More
We spend years of our lives attending school, but there are many life skills missing from the typical curriculum. Critical thinking, constructive conversations, handling money, business writing, time management, and self-care are just but a few. Another skill we don’t spend enough time honing is learning how to learn. It’s a shame, because there are … Read More