So what if the thing that scares you most could become one of your greatest sources of healing?
When I heard that Scott Shigoka spent a year sleeping in his Prius, intentionally seeking out the very conversations and communities that terrified him most as a queer Asian American progressive man, I needed to understand why.
What he discovered about the relationship between fear and curiosity changed everything I thought I knew about connecting across divides.
So picture walking into a political rally packed with those who see the world in a way that is almost violently opposed to your point of view.
Not to argue or protest, but with a genuine desire to understand the humans behind the headlines.
Or sitting down with someone whose views seem just completely opposed to yours and finding that curiosity could transform fear into fascination and even genuine connection.
These aren't hypothetical, just out there in the press, wouldn't this be lovely scenarios.
They're real stories from a remarkable journey that revealed how heart-centered curiosity might be our most powerful bridge across the chasms that divide us.
So my guest today is Scott Shagiyoka, a fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.
Scott has extensively researched how curiosity can strengthen our wellbeing and relationships.
But it was this year-long journey across America, having conversations at rallies in small towns all over the place.
Thank you. Eventually distill all of his experiences into a book.
Seek how curiosity can transform your life and change the world.
In this conversation, Scott shares a powerful, what he calls his dive framework. for really navigating challenging conversations, and he reveals the surprising revelations between fear and curiosity.
You'll learn why focusing on personal stories rather than abstract concepts can bring seemingly impossible divides together. and how genuine curiosity might be the most powerful tool that we have for creating meaningful connection in an increasingly fractured world.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
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You have this, can I call it a portfolio career? sure yeah i love that i love that you know it's like i look at the things that you have said yes too, you know, from teaching at UT Austin to leading a creative project in Curiosity with David Byrne.
There are so many different things that you've said yes to.
And it's not lost on me, like the notion that at the root of all of this is must be some level of curiosity about what would it be like to try this or to try that or to try this.
But one of the big things, and this is something that you write about and speak about, is you saying, well, what if I get curious about people who don't see the world the way that I see it?
And that leads to this cross-country adventure, we'll call it.
Take me into this. So you're so right. I mean, the thread of my entire life is curiosity, and curiosity is... to understand or to learn about the ideas or the topics of the world that we're interested in. which is often called intellectual curiosity in the academic community.
But a lot of the work that I do is about how do we bring curiosity from the mind down into our heart and as well, which I call heart-centered curiosity.
So how do I get interested in people, the people around me?
How do I learn about their stories and what they value?
How do I connect with them, whether I've known them for a very long time, decades, or whether I'm meeting them for the very first time.
And a part of that work of connecting with others through our curiosity led me to this realization that I was actually feeling a lot of disconnection, especially after the 2016 presidential elections here in the US. you know, in my family, in my social groups, it was just, and still to this day, unfortunately, was a very politically polarized time, a divided time.
And I wondered, is there a way that I can heal a man through some of these fractures that I was feeling in some of my relationships.
And at a more meta level, is there a way that we could do this as a country?
Because our country is really hurting just as much as I was.
I do a lot of this research about how do we live a better life, how do we live the good life, you know, at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.
But I wanted to actually take that out on the road to see, are these practices I'm learning about how curiosity can help us build relationships, even across differences, even across divides.
Could I actually walk the talk? and actually go out into the country to places I haven't really been to before, encountering people I haven't really met before who are very different from me. using this, you know, what I now call a superpower.
And so I packed everything I owned into my little Toyota Prius.
That was actually gifted to me by a friend, so thanks, Brenton.
And I took out the back seats and put in a bed that I actually like, I slept in this car, which was now going to be my home for 12 months, got a Planet Fitness membership.
And I set my sights on Trump rallies across the country.
I set my sights on a town in Rappalachia in Western North Carolina. set my sights on the South, which I'd never really had, you know, a lot of experience with.
And I wondered what would happen If I brought sheer, deep, heart-centered curiosity, is there a way that I could better understand people who are very different from me?
Would that open the doors for them to ask me questions and to see what's different in my stories?
And could we actually feel a closeness even across the divides that we're and the differences that we're feeling.
And so that was a 12 month journey that completely changed my life.
So yeah, that's a little bit about the road trip.
I wanted to dive into this a little bit more.
So you hit the road. You got your Prius.
You got the bed in the back. You're all prepped for a year on the road.
And you're very intentionally going to places where you believe that based on the context, people won't be like minded, at least in some substantial manner. meaningful way i want to make sure i get this right you're not going with the intention of trying to convince them to see the world the way that you see it no yeah like in fact it's almost the exact opposite Yeah, yeah.
It's the total opposite. I'm here to listen.
I'm here... True curiosity is not... having an agenda or an ulterior motive.
It's not trying to convince or change someone's perspective or mind, I actually call that in my book. predatory curiosity.
It's not real curiosity, because real curiosity requires us to be genuinely unaware or uncertain about what we're about to experience, who these people are, what their views are, what identities and relationships matter to them.
I'm human and I realized on my journey, I was actually holding so many assumptions.
I was like, I'm going to go out there. to a Trump rally, or I'm gonna go out there to Raw Appalachia, and then I would find, by actually getting curious, There's actually so much we share.
There's a lot of values and views that we actually agree on.
And it was just a reminder to me of like, wow, like even as someone that is trying to bring the research of curiosity out into the world and popularize it, I still sometimes get caught in my own cycles of incuriosity that I need to break through.
Yeah. Do you remember the very first conversation that you had on that trip?
Yeah, the very first one that I remember very viscerally was actually Montana, which I don't write about in the book.
I don't even think I've ever brought this story up, but it is the first one that I remember, which was between two elder guys who have been friends for... over 55 years, the only difference is one of them is a huge longtime Republican, has supported many of the Republican governors and representatives and the state of Montana and the other is like a very staunch Democrat. and i encountered their story through a friend they're like you need to like this is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend you know like how these kinds of journeys like happen you need to meet them And they took me, I invited them to have a bite to eat at this diner in Butte.
And It was such a beautiful, you know, I first was like, you've been friends for 55 years.
You both are completely on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, it seems, you know, from what I've heard.
And we're in this time, this era where so much of our country is othering and is dismissing and is judging and is even completely canceling folks who disagree with them politically or have different views from them?
How did you make this work? Like, what is the special sauce that allowed you to stay in community with each other?
And they were like, okay, that's a really great question, and I want to show you actually what brought us together.
And I was like, okay, that's interesting.
Okay. I would love to like know what that means.
And I had my little journal out. and I'm taking notes, and then they drive me to this super fun site, which is this area of their community that's been completely wrecked environmentally.
And they said this is one of the big reasons. why we deepen into our connection together, have done projects together, maintain a friendship together is because we care about the environment.
We both are conservationists. We do not want to see beautiful land, public lands getting taken away from the public.
We don't want to see these lands becoming toxic waste sites.
And so us working together, even across these political aisles for something that we both care about, a common goal, is something that brought us together and continues to sustain us and our friendship.
And through that, we just see each other as humans and as people who care about the planet. you know, we've met each other's families and friends, and yeah, we sometimes get into heated discussions.
They did that literally while I was having a meal with them and they're like, you know, fighting spiritedly about, I can't remember exactly what the topic was, but even with that they hold the tension, they hold the conflict together.
And what I realized and distilled is they remain very curious about each other.
Like, even though they've known each other for such a long time, they're like, my views, even, you know, 55 years later change, you know, over time.
And I have to recognize that so, so well. his and so i thought that was a beautiful story i didn't um end up writing that about that in the book but it was just like a human story that i i had on the journey that i was like wow like There are so many examples and bright spots of people who sustain their relationships across differences.
Why don't we also tell those stories and talk about how they've done that? not just talk about the division and the despair.
I mean, it's so interesting also, right?
Because you hear a story like that and before you shared what was the glue that kept them together for 55 years, I think if you ask somebody, How do you think this would have sustained?
A lot of folks would be like, oh, I bet they just agree on a whole bunch of things, but they never talk about that one issue or that set of issues where they just kind of agree on That's not a whole thing.
So they avoid the friction. And what you're saying is the exact opposite.
They're like, no, they're actually, they center it.
Like they'll go at it. They really, but.
Something about the way that they go at it remains curious about each other and that they they also anchored around this one. shared node of humanity where they deeply believe in something together and that's enough.
And then that allows them to not say, well, let's just talk about everything but this, but actually say, let's talk about this too.
Yeah, this is something we share. This is a commonality.
This is a moment where we can see what binds us together.
And it's not about flattening their differences.
It's not about saying, like, I'm no longer going to recognize the parts of you that are Republican or the parts of you that are Democrat.
It's saying... I acknowledge that. I honor that about you.
And I'm also trying to find the ways that we're similar and find what we share.
And that might be a goal that we have, but it could also be a shared identity.
You know, we're both parents. We're both from the state of Montana.
We really care about that. It could be shared values.
You know, we really care about The sustainability, we care about the next generation having a deep connection and a relationship to nature, which were all of these things that I distilled from our conversations.
And the research also backs that up. When you center shared values, shared identities, or shared goals that you have with people who are different from you, that conversation is going to go a lot better.
Folks are going to be able to feel less hostility towards one another.
They're going to feel an increase of closeness. towards people who are even very different from them.
And it's going to also allow them to work through healthy conflict.
It was just great to see the real stories of just everyday people, you know, who they were like, I didn't know that about the research.
It was just more intuitive for them. But it was great for me in the book to find these great kinds of stories and examples and connected to the research and show why maybe those relationships were so fortified.
Yeah, I love that. Tell me about one of the conversations that you had personally where you were a participant, where you held opposing views with somebody, something that really like... stands out in your mind from that adventure.
Totally. And what you're making me realize, Jonathan, is that maybe I started interviewing people where i wasn't a part of the relationship because i needed the courage yeah yeah i knew the courage i needed to feel like okay other people are doing this I can do this, because it's quite scary, you know, and it's quite vulnerable.
I'm a queer Asian-American, super hyper-progressive person, and...
I had held a lot of assumptions about what that meant if I went out into the world and shared those parts of me.
But I remember one of my first conversations at a Trump rally in Minnesota.
And one of the things that I was reminded by by the research I was helping to popularize at the Greater Good Science Center is to really center and focus on personal stories, right?
Sometimes we get lost on the abstract concepts or policies that we're debating, but how do we just get back to, here's what I experienced and here's how this, you know, policy or this topic we're talking about impacted me.
It's a really great strategy to evoke curiosity and also to create connection.
And so that was sort of the mindset that I went into this rally with.
And what I realized is, you know, through one conversation with Like I was like, I'm on this road trip and, you know, I'm feeling so much hurt and division in my own family.
I'm wondering if that's something that you're feeling, especially across these political divides.
And he was like, oh, absolutely. You know, my girlfriend, I'm Republican, I'm voting for Trump, but my girlfriend is Like, we'll never do that.
And all of her friends are all Democrats.
And I can just tell when I walk in the room. when we're at like a barbecue in the backyard or something like that.
They're all judging me. They're making fun of me.
They're ridiculing me for my decisions. And I was like, wow, that like, it sounds like an experience that I had feeling other, you know, for my queerness, you know, like I felt that, you know, walking to Rome and being The only one who is like me and even having hostility towards me that's leading to physical violence. you know, threats of violence.
And so we connected in this way where he was like, well, I never really thought about how my experience of feeling othered could be something that you could experience as someone who's gay.
I also find that that's a really powerful way that curiosity connects us is I might not have the exact same story as you.
I'm not going to say I, 100% understand everything that you felt in that story or that experience.
But what I can say is that I share this humanity with you because I've gone through suffering as well.
That's something that we both have gone through.
And that's something that also unites us.
And he was like, wow, you know, I just wish like everyone... could start and have conversations more like this you know instead of just like you know he's telling me experiences where he's getting screamed at And I was like, I've been a screamer, you know, and I get frustrated because I feel like I want to be heard or I've also been screamed at. because I'm not shifting my views or my perspectives.
And you know, it's not about trying to dole out make things overtly civil because there are real, in my opinion, real consequences that and real stakes with these policies and the ways and what's going on in the world and in our country.
But we need to have trust and we need to have a relationship with one another.
We need to be able to talk about these issues and talk about the solutions.
If we're not even willing to come to the table, if we're saying, you are so different from me, there is no way I could ever be in conversation with you. or if i am ridiculing you before i even know your story and i'm judging you and dismissing you there's no way we're ever going to come together to actually solve the problems that make this country better for all.
So that was such a huge aha moment for me of like, wow, we can start there.
We can start from personal stories. We can start from just getting to know each other in a very deeply human way, which hopefully many of us have. learned growing up in this world how to do that and lean back into that more humanistic way of conversing as a starting place to talking about these more complex issues.
Yeah. And again, also, just to reinforce, you're not even suggesting as a way to get to resolution or to persuade.
It's really just as a way to... to maybe understand a little bit more.
And if you center that... as the thing that you're working towards.
You just approach it very, very differently.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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I'm curious. So you know, all these things, you know, techniques and skills and strategies, you know, the research around curiosity as you go into this year long trip, and you just describe these two different conversations.
Were you genuinely surprised, knowing that this is how it happens, this is how we connect, this is where you center competition? passion, the stories really make a difference.
Curiosity is really important. You do this 12 month trip, right?
And was there something that just kind of blew your mind that you never saw coming?
Yeah, it's the relationship between fear and curiosity.
That was the biggest surprise for me. I had so much fear.
For instance, going to this Trump rally.
I had so much fear going on this journey.
So many other people around me had so much fear.
They told me to... carry pepper spray, one even told me to carry like a knife or a gun to protect myself.
There's so much fear wrapped up in this journey. in reaching out to people who are different from us.
And curiosity became a way to unwind all of that fear.
Every time I chose curiosity, I would feel my fear reduce. at the end of that experience with hours.
I spent hours, for instance, at that Minnesota Trump rally in Minneapolis.
At the end of it, I was like, wow, I feel like a little energetically depleted as I would off of any social gathering.
But I also feel less afraid than I did about my own life. body and my own personhood in this world, but also about the state of this country and what could be possible.
I felt more optimistic about my own role and the agency I have in this country and in my life.
I felt more open to wanting to do that again.
It just felt good. It didn't feel... feel like this terrible experience that I thought it was going to be in the story that I invented in my head.
I started to do a lot more conversations with researchers like Dr. Judd Brewer and others on the relationship between curiosity and anxiety or curiosity and fear and, you know, what I felt in my lived experience was supported by the research as well that If you're feeling immense fear at any point in your life, even at your end of life, you know, with palliative care physicians and end of life doulas I talked to.
Curiosity is such a powerful, powerful practice to unwind the end-of-life anxiety that someone who is dying is experiencing.
I learned that's the basis of contact theory.
If you're afraid of spiders, by getting more curious towards them, right? and seeing photos of them, interacting with them, maybe one day holding a spider in your hand.
You know, you start to wonder, where did this mythology about spiders even come from?
Why am I so afraid of them? What are the other nuances I'm missing? about spiders.
And the same is true for when we fear people who are different from us.
They maybe come from a place we don't quite understand.
They have an identity we don't really understand yet.
Political view we don't really understand.
With the more curious we can get, the less threatening they feel to us.
That's what the research says and what I felt in my lived experience.
So I just felt, after going through this 12-month road trip, so much more courageous.
I felt less fearful and less anxious. And I realized, wow, curiosity is this companion for me to move through the depths of these negative things. emotions and experiences like fear and anxiety.
Yeah, I mean, it's so powerful, right? And you're really teasing out this relationship, not just with fear and curiosity, but also anxiety, because fundamentally- anxiety, you could argue, is really a fear of something bad happening in the future.
That's effectively what it is. So they're intimately tied together.
And as you described, okay, so you could attach this to a person or a community.
But you could also really attach it to anything that you perceive as being a negative potential outcome in your life that might happen in the future.
And like, what would happen if rather than you spinning the story of this is bad and only bad, and this is inevitable and only inevitable?
What if you just... challenged that and said, okay, so how can I get curious about these?
What are the assumptions I'm making? And how can I literally just go out and test the assumptions?
What is the It was the fastest, easiest, dirtiest, cleanest, like low stakes way to actually just test the assumptions.
Exactly. And you did it in a really big, bold way.
But we can do this with all sorts of different things in our lives, like in micro, tiny little ways all day, every day, too.
Yes. And I think that's so important to nuance.
And I appreciate you saying that because I don't expect everyone to like get into their car or, And like, you know, travel across the country, going to opposing political party rallies.
That would be like for someone like me, who's new at... you know, lifting weights, you know, going to the bench press like barbell and trying to lift like hundreds and hundreds of pounds, like, we have to exercise and strengthen our curiosity muscles just like any other muscle in our body.
In order to do that, we should find ways that are really realistic and feel achievable for us, that helps us to grow and stretch just a little bit larger each time.
And once we get more and more of those reps, then maybe one day you can do something really grand and daring.
And I would really encourage people to do that.
I'm curious too, for you, I mean, is there a time when you felt fear and anxiety about decision smaller or larger, but you chose curiosity instead.
And did you feel something similar in that experience?
Yeah. You know, it's funny, as you were describing your, like that connection, there was a weird experience that popped into my mind.
I'm like, is this actually? I'm like, no, this is actually, it's unusual. but it was life changing.
So I have tinnitus. I have a sound that, you know, like my brain generates that doesn't exist outside of my head.
That's in like, in my ears. And anytime I go looking for it, it's loud.
It's high pitched. I've had it for about a decade and a half now.
And in the first year or so when I had it, it was absolutely devastating. to function, it was hard to breathe, it was hard to think, to create, nearly impossible to sleep, and it kind of like was beating me up from the brain out.
And you go to all the doctors and you have all the big tests and they're like, there's nothing scary.
This is just, we still don't really understand what this is.
It just is. And hopefully you just get used to it and deal with it.
Most people do. Some people don't. And some people it leads to really horrible things.
And that's basically the advice you're given.
Okay, so this is medical professionals giving me this advice.
And then I was actually working on a book then on uncertainty.
And I stumbled upon this research about Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy and Chronic Pain and how it's really effective.
So I was wondering, well, I got curious.
I'm like, okay, so if for the moment I give up this trying to be cured and I just say, if this is me for life, What then, right?
And I stopped digging in and trying to fight it.
And I was just like, if this is my reality, what are the options?
Can I get okay with this? Is it possible?
That eventually led me to a mindfulness-based cognitive therapist who was a former rock drummer who also had tinnitus.
And I sat down with him and I had a long history of meditation and yoga at that point.
Like I knew all the practices, I taught it.
And I was like, could this work for this thing?
Could it make it so that it was just there and I knew it and I was fine with it?
And he's like, Maybe, but he's like, I'm going to tell you what the instruction is and you're going to hate it.
And he's like, you already know the instruction because you know this, like this is like what you've taught.
And the classic instruction for mindfulness is you find an anchor often for most people.
It's just the breath, the sensation of the breath, the sound of it, the temperature of it.
And just allow your mind to keep coming back to it.
And it drifts and come back and drifts and come back.
But the classic instruction generally also is...
If something else keeps sneaking in and interrupting on a repeated basis, make that the anchor for your attention during that particular sit.
And he said, what I guarantee is going to happen is within a matter of seconds, the sound in your head is going to just keep interrupting and interrupting, interrupting, and your mind is going to attach to it.
You're going to be spinning about it and fretting about it and all the things that that are making you freak out right now.
He's like, the invitation is for you to, when that happens...
Not trying to do everything you can to push it away and go back to your breath, which is what you've been kind of doing all day every day and it's not working.
But to get curious about it. Yeah. to bring it in, to let that be the center of your attention, to let it be the anchor of your practice and to explore it.
And I was like, dude, like, are you shitting me?
I'm like literally the thing I'm trying all day, every day, not to hear you're telling me to just welcome into like my head space.
And he's like, It's like, I told you you wouldn't like it.
That led to a sitting practice where I started doing it.
And as I started doing that, I would like, I would hear it.
I was like, okay, so my... my impulse is to push it away, to fight it.
And then, but I was like, the invitation is like, what if I just welcome it and get curious?
Like, okay, so what is this sound? Is it one sound?
Is it many sounds? Is it loud? Is it soft?
Does it change? Are there different tones?
And I would just start to explore it and I was like, And in a really weird way over time, I started to notice all these nuances in it.
And it wasn't just one thing. It became this really interesting, quote, relationship.
And then I noticed months down the road, I'm sitting there exploring it and trying to hold it as my anchor.
And my mind drifts away from it. Like I literally couldn't hold my attention to it anymore.
It's a weird example, but I think it's a really similar thing.
Yeah, I don't think it's a weird example at all because I totally resonate with that, you know, just in a different way.
I had hallucinogen persisting perception disorder. and had experienced auditory hallucinations for a very long time.
And my therapist at UCSF said something very similar and had a very similar reaction, which He was like, have you ever tried getting curious about the voices?
And I had the same. I was like, you want what?
This is the thing I'm trying to push away.
I'm afraid of them. I don't want them. But through that curiosity, very similar story, me actually asking The voices, you know, what they're trying to teach me and where they came from and had I heard those voices or what they're saying in the past, you know, my childhood were... could I connect those voices to other people who are real people in my life?
It was through that exploration that I started to hear the voices less and less and experience them less and less.
And it made me realize like, wow, we're kind of doing the same thing, whether it's tonight, whether it's the voices I heard to other people who are different from us, we're saying.
I am afraid of you. I feel threatened by you.
I don't understand you. So I'm going to push you away.
I'm going to dismiss you. I'm going to try to cut you out of my life.
But in some ways that can sometimes make it grow even stronger and you're not inviting them in. in a way that would allow them to teach you something, right?
One of the biggest things that I've learned through my journey of curiosity is that every single person in this world has something to teach you. every single person you meet in any day has something to teach you.
And if you're closing yourself off from that, you are also losing something from that opportunity for yourself.
And the more and more we can invite people in who feel really different from us, who have had very different life experiences than us, who think differently than us, the better... we will be able to understand them.
The more nuanced, we will be able to see them, just like you heard the nuances.
And I think for me, it creates a much more meaningful life, a much better life when that's you know, rooted in courage rather than fear when that is open and receptive rather than dismissive and judgmental.
So I just really resonate with that story.
I don't think it's weird. I'm glad. You make a really interesting distinction.
I'll show you right about this. And you make a distinction between Deep curiosity, and I don't want to call it surface level curiosity, but you're basically like, there's this other thing.
There's this other level. Take me into this a little bit.
Yeah, shallow curiosity and deep curiosity.
So on one idea of shallow curiosity, which is us... asking questions that get to the surface of who a person is.
It gives us data about who they are. Questions like, what's your name?
Where do you work or where do you live? How many siblings do you have?
Things like that. You know, it's a great way to start to build trust and to, you know, build a relationship.
Some people might also call this like small talk.
And then on the other side is Deep Curiosity, which is about diving beneath the surface and really getting to the heart of who someone is. much more nuanced.
It's much more complex and more vibrant.
So the quality of your questions change.
So instead of asking the question, Like what's your name?
You might ask, you know, what's the story of your name?
Or can you tell me a little bit about who named you?
Or are there others in your family that share your name?
Or if you don't know enough history about your name, like, how might you go about exploring that, you know?
The quality of your questions change and the conversation that you're having as a result changes too.
You know, I'm not trying to say to start with deep curiosity always.
Like, you're not going to go up to someone and be like, hey, Jonathan, I'm Scott.
So what's your deepest childhood trauma?
Go. Right. You're like, that's not always the greatest way to start conversations.
I would actually probably be open. I'd be like, wow, thanks for asking me that.
But not everyone would be open to that. And I think one thing that I try to challenge is even if you're like, you're all about the the big talk, not the small talk.
You're all about the deep curiosity, not the shallow curiosity.
Don't demonize shallow curiosity because that might just be someone's way of that feels authentic to them to try to connect, right?
That's the way that they're, the purpose of them asking these questions like, what's your name?
And, you know, how's the weather? You know, where you live? is them wanting to connect with you so see that deeper reason for them asking any question and and value that person being curious towards you.
Because at the end of the day, curiosity is about helping someone feel seen.
It's about helping them feel like they matter.
I ask you a question and I get curious about you because you matter to me.
So even if you're a big talk, deep curiosity person like myself, don't demonize shallow curiosity in the same way that we wouldn't demonize the shallow water of an ocean.
The shallow water is just as incredible and awe-inspiring and beautiful as the deep end of the ocean. they just reveal something different.
Some of us are really comfortable in the shallow and I hope those folks end up being really comfortable in the deep end too because there's so much more life and so much more of our world and our planet to see there.
And the same is true in the universe of a person.
That's the spectrum of curiosity is from shallow to deep.
And the goal... is to try to get to the deep end because that's where your transformation lives.
That's where you start to shift your own perspectives.
That's where you challenge your biases and your assumptions like you were just talking about.
That's where you more deeply connect with someone.
And sometimes we feel afraid to ask those deep questions like, who are you really missing right now? in your life?
Who are you really grateful for in your life, especially in certain contexts like at work or maybe in a family that didn't create a family culture around asking those kinds of questions.
It can be scary to blurt a deep curiosity question out.
But what I often find and what I've often heard from people now that the book's been out for a year and people have been writing back to me, is the usual response is thank you.
It's to thank you for asking me. that question.
I've been waiting for someone to take it there.
I've been wanting to talk about all of these things that were on my heart.
And if they're not ready to do that, then they'll give you a gentle boundary and they'll say like, hey, that's something I'm not interested in talking about.
And you give yourself grace and self-compassion, you say, okay, No worries.
I want to encourage folks, if you find safety in the shallow end of curiosity, I'm not demonizing you, but I'm inviting you and encouraging you to also take it a little bit deeper as well.
Yeah. I love that. And it's also, I think there's a really interesting metaphor, like you said, with water in that oftentimes there's a safety relationship we're talking about here.
Most people will feel safe, you know, like in ocean water up to their ankles.
Right. And they can see their feet, you know, and then they go into their knees.
Right. Well, I don't know. But then they're like, oh, this is actually totally fine, right?
And they go into their hips. Right. I'm a little bit nervous.
I actually can't see my feet anymore. But actually, this is okay.
Then the water is really cold, but your body starts adjusting to it.
You're like, oh, I'm actually fine. So it's like you give yourself your brain time to reset a level of safety. that would allow you to then take the next step rather than just trying to vault yourself into it where your brain's like freaking out like,
No, like red alert, red alert. This is not safe.
I'm not going there. It reminds me a lot of the research of Arthur Aaron's 36, famed 36 questions. questions, which a lot of people became familiar with a decade ago when Mandy Lim writes this modern love times or story in the New York Times where She sits across from an acquaintance in school at a bar and go through like these three sets of questions, that add up to 36 questions, which in the lab had been designed to create Almost instant intimacy.
Yeah. And it's exactly what you said. They start out very surface level.
Yeah. And then by the time you hit the last part of the 36 questions, you're like, do you have a sense for how you're going to die?
It's just like all these really deep and vulnerable questions.
Was the last time you cried alone or with someone else?
Yeah, totally. The research that he did around that was like stunning, like in 45 minutes in a lab environment with total strangers.
People would come out saying they felt closer to the other person than they did to people that they had as friends for years.
And it's really, it's just one example of exactly what you're talking about here.
It's so funny you say that, because actually on Tuesday of next week, I'm going to be running a facilitated exercise between these 40 leaders who like kind of sort of know each other and have done work with each other.
And we're going to go through that session where we're gonna you know have them ground in together for 45 minutes and you know answer some of these questions in that you know Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 sort of order.
But yeah, something you brought up for me that I had never articulated before around the safety and the ocean piece. is that, of course, we have a deep reverence and a cautiousness around the ocean because it is extremely powerful.
It's very potent and powerful. and can have consequences if we don't approach it in that way.
And I actually am realizing now, wow, that's actually really important as well for our relationships, you know, and for our curious driven conversations, you know, we shouldn't just be like, I'll just fling these questions out there and see what happens.
Because there is a reverence that you should have towards... the honor of being able to share a space like that with someone else, where you get to ask these kinds of deep questions and hear their answers.
There's a vulnerability and there's a... confidentiality and there's an appreciation for that.
But also, if you do it in the wrong way, it can actually be harmful.
It can be... a negative exposure, right?
It can be harmful not just for your relationship because you're going too quickly, too fast, too soon.
It can also be damaging because maybe someone's not ready, you know, to talk about that.
You're like asking a question like, oh, tell me about your siblings, but you might not know that They're going through a huge grief moment in their life right now because they just lost their sister.
They just lost their brother. And so to really come together towards these conversations with a lot of grace and to recognize people's boundaries.
I always say that the response to your curiosity is earned.
It is not deserved. A response to your curiosity is earned.
It is not deserved. So just because you ask about someone's siblings or about their hair or culture or their health diagnosis, it does not mean you're entitled to that information.
You have to first build that trust. And sometimes people need to go through their own inner work to be able to share in a way that is safe for them in a way that really respects them. the meaning of what it is that they're trying to convey to you.
So yeah. So thanks for bringing that up for me.
I'm like, Ooh, I want to write something about that.
That's helpful. I mean, it just really makes sense.
I tend to think in metaphors, and I think a lot of people, when you can phrase it that way, it's like people are like, oh, right, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Yeah. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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Let's walk through each one of these and explore a little bit.
Let's start out with detach. Take me into this a bit.
Yeah, so the die framework is like the heartbeat of the book.
It's the core of the book. So D is detach, which is to let go of our ABCs. our assumptions, our biases, and our sense of certainty. very similar to you, but consurgency, right?
Like we have to, or we want to imagine ourselves to be the best predictors of the future.
But we're actually very horrible at predicting what's going to happen in the future.
And so instead, we hold these stories of certainty. inside of us or hold these assumptions about another person or even about ourselves.
And that can change the way that we show up to our relationships or to our life.
And so detaching is all about how do we challenge these assumptions and these biases?
And there's really simple ways that we can do that. we can simply write down the assumptions that we have about another person, you know, and we don't have to even talk to them about it, but us just being aware that I'm holding these assumptions about another person based on any reason, whether it's like their faith or their age or our relationship dynamic or whatever it is, writing it down helps us to be more aware of it so that we can actually challenge it.
Another way of doing that is to write about this concept, which is essentially translated into living into the perhapsness.
And so how do we ground ourselves in this understanding that the world is uncertain and our lives are uncertain?
And there's actually a beauty in that. There's so much meaning in that, and curiosity, like we just mentioned, can unwind our feelings of anxiety. in those moments of uncertainty, which is happening right now today.
There's so much uncertainty right now in this moment with everything that's going on, whether it's the administration or AI or the changing economy, you know, like every person has deep feelings of uncertainty right now.
So detaching is just a reminder that we can choose a different path.
And that path is to be curious and to ask ourselves, wow, there might be so many possibilities that could arrive from this moment in time.
What might those be? And where would those paths take me?
How would that change my story? And coming from that place of possibility really does reduce anxiety and the fear that we have.
Yeah, love that. Okay, so detaches step one.
Step two, intend. Intend, yeah. So this is about how do we set the mindset and our setting for curiosity?
So if we're going to have a heated conversation with our teen at home, how do we think about, okay, where are we having that conversation is it in really busy traffic when we're in a car driving somewhere and it's like hectic we're like ah or is it when we're sitting down phones down, screens down, and we're able to more deeply connect with one another.
And did I do the work of preparing, like, what kinds of questions I want to ask, or Have I done the work of thinking about, okay, what might this other person say that might be activating for me?
And how could I... support my emotional regulation so that I don't get defensive or respond in a way that is hurtful.
So that preparation is all about intent.
And it's really similar to what professional elite athletes do. before they do a gym routine on the gym floor or before they run 400 meters around the track. oftentimes they'll close their eyes and they'll do a visualization.
It's called mental rehearsal. And what sports psychologists have found... is that when you do this mental rehearsal and you imagine yourself doing the floor routine and doing it really well, your performance increases when you actually go on the mat.
And so the same is true for curiosity as well.
Let's actually visualize what some of these conversations might look like, how they might sound like, so that we can improve our performance when we actually have them that lands really powerfully for me not only because I was I was a gymnast for like the better part of my childhood and I did that non-stop you know like you're at a meet and your time is about to come up and you've just closed your eyes and you're literally going through your entire routine, imagining you're doing it perfectly or as perfectly as you can.
Totally. right through to the end, then you would step up and do it.
And you could literally feel all of the muscles that would be activated during the routine being Just activate it on a really low level as you were visualizing it.
It was really powerful. Totally. I'll sometimes do that if I'm working on a new talk also.
We both speak. Yeah. And I'm about to step up and I'm like, I haven't done this before.
And I'll just kind of close my eyes and visual myself. on stage, like doing really well and like saying what I want to say and it landing in the audience and it really being intentional about it changes.
It really changes it. I do this even before I go to like social parties.
Like if I'm like feeling a little socially anxious, I'm like, oh, like, I don't know like I'm I you know instead of like turning to liquor or something that's like a social lubricant which is like hey if that's like what you use like you have a drink to you know, loosen up like, you know, no judgment there.
But like, for me, I was like, I wanted to, you know, also have more tools, you know, my tool belt. to sort of like work with some of those anxieties that I had and I would actually close my eyes and like envision myself going through the venue and like asking people questions and being like my bubbly, joyful self.
And I find that the times when I'm actually visualizing how the night's gonna go are so much better from a mental state perspective than when I don't do that work.
And it's just it doesn't take long. It takes like a couple of minutes to do that visualization.
So I would have been doing that right aside of you when you were a childhood gymnast, except I was a nerdy speech and debate person.
So I would probably be like reciting my cases and like my arguments.
So one day we'll find ourselves speaking at the same event.
We'll be in the green room together, sitting on the same couch with our eyes closed, not talking to each other, visualizing our talks.
Yeah, yeah. And so that brings us to value, V value.
Yeah, value is really about how do we start from a place of humanizing every person that we encounter.
Because the minute that we dehumanize them, see them as the other, we see them as so different from us that they are not worthy of our time. that is when it's impossible for us to get curious about them.
And one of the stories I talk about in that chapter is the story of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, which was a very powerful process for, that was Indigenous-led.
Part of it was about gathering survivor statements and stories of First Nations and Métis people who had gone through these really horrific residential school systems, which is very modern day history in Canada and also in the US.
And the whole idea is that when Indigenous people are able to share their stories of their lived experience and what they went through, And not just their stories of pain and suffering, but also their joys and their full expressed humanity.
That is such a connective force. And non-Indigenous Canadians, even if they felt a little uncomfortable as they started to hear some of these stories, if they chose to continue to be curious and really listen deeply and really take in the stories that Indigenous people were sharing with them, their attitudes and their perspectives started to change for the better, where they would start to empathize and have more positive sentiments towards Indigenous people before they had heard their stories.
That's another point about the direction of curiosity really mattering.
There's really interesting research that shows that when a group has more social power, Yeah. giving.
And, you know, oftentimes we structure, let's say, like an employer and his and their his or her employee or their employees.
And we say, okay, you get 50% of the time to hear from the CEO.
And then the employees get 50% of the time. to like, if that, you know, to share.
And those mottos don't often work, even though they feel equal, because everyone's getting 30% of the time to talk, because there is this power difference.
So if instead, you know, the CEO or the leader did more listening tour, curiosity voyage, and just... really sat and understood the stories of the people that they work alongside, the outcome of that kind of experience would be a lot better.
And the same is true in any social dynamic to like what they experienced in the truth reconciliation commission.
Yeah, I mean, so powerful. And that actually, that brings us to the E in the word dive, embrace.
Yeah, this one is really about how do we welcome the hard times in our lives.
And it's actually in those moments when we... feel that things are falling apart or when we're in deep grief or We are really, really afraid.
Our curiosity is so helpful at helping us to connect and navigate through those experiences so much more than if we did not choose curiosity.
And like I said, I learned that the most from end-of-life doulas and palliative care physicians who I talked to who said, My job as an end-of-life doula, for instance, is to be really curious about the person who is dying. to really see them in their full humanity, to better understand what is the way that they want to die.
And also I've learned through, you know, my practice, these end of life doulas have said that if I can help them get curious about themselves, And their own lives, you know, what were the relationships that mattered to them?
Do they want to be buried or cremated? Do they want to spend these final moments?
They often... feel less anxiety about the end of life.
And they feel that this was a much more meaningful way for them to go through this life experience that we all will go through and it makes sense because what they've seen is when you're at the end, when you're that close to death, and if you're able to, you get to be the truest, freest version of yourself and everyone wants to be seen. as the truest, freest version of themselves.
But oftentimes, unfortunately, what can happen is we get really incurious in moments of grief.
We get really curious about those who are dying around us because of our own fears, our own cultural stories about how we should be acting. or behaving or what our attitude should be.
And so I was like, wow, this is such a beautiful reminder of And grief doesn't have to just be death.
It can be the loss of anything, a relationship, the loss of a home after a devastating wildfire. the loss of a work identity.
It can be the loss of a friendship. Those are all moments for us to lean in with our curiosity to ask ourselves, how can I take care of myself right now?
Or what did this mean for me? How do I really value and cherish the times that I did have with this person?
Who can I look to to have these conversations with in my life?
And that creates a much more meaningful and more powerful experience.
So that's the whole concept around embrace.
Yeah. And what if you could do that instead of as part of some extreme experiences that pushes you to the edge of existential reality? imagining an often crisis.
What if you can actually make that just a part of like a practice, a regular practice?
Yeah. There's actually in Buddhism, there's sort of like a, there's an imagining death practice where you literally like meditate on sort of like exploring death. multiple times, sometimes a day.
And it sounds really morbid from the outside in.
It's like, oh my God, why would you ever do that?
But if you talk to people who've actually been doing the practice for oftentimes years-
It's actually one of the most life-affirming and powerful experiences because it just consistently brings you back. to the truth of your own impermanence.
And when you have to keep going back to that, it's impossible not to say to yourself, And how do I want to be in my life?
How do I want to be in the world? And how do I want to be in my relationships, in my work? if I know that this is all going to end and I have no idea what that day is going to be.
And it can be really powerful and empowering even though, When you first think about it, a lot of folks are like, that is just ridiculously morbid.
I'm never doing that. It's like, Well, yes, and it's also maybe one of the most powerful practices that you could ever do.
It's that same reaction that we both had, right, in our stories that we shared about the dinosaur, about, you know, the hearing voices.
And we often have that first human impulse of like, what?
Why would I do that? That feels like totally the opposite of what I should be doing.
And then what we find is like, wow. that invites so much life affirmation, right?
Like when we face our death, that actually can help us to live more fully, to be more of ourselves. to remind ourselves of who and what really matters in our lives so that we can spend this precious time that we have in our life in the best way possible.
And that's really what I get so excited about with Curiosity is, you know, I really, just like you, I want everyone to live the good life.
I want everyone to live the best life that they can for themselves. in their relationships, in their homes, in their families and communities.
And if we are incurious, not only does that separate us and disconnect us from the people that are around us and even from ourselves, but it also prevents us from asking the kinds of questions that really matter. the kinds of questions that really can help instruct us on how we should and could be spending our time and our lives in a way that is truly meaningful.
And so yeah, I just really appreciated that story.
Yeah. And one of the other things that you speak about and you write about is that there's a contagious aspect of curiosity here.
Take me into this a bit. Yeah, and there's still a lot of emerging research and more research that needs to be done on this topic.
But what I'm seeing is that when someone is... curious and is modeling this behavior.
Let's say it's a teacher in their classroom or it's a parent with their children or it's a leader, you know, with their team.
When one person is practicing this curiosity and is inviting questions and is reminding us it's not just about the answers that we need to memorize and remember, it's also about the questions we're asking. a reminder to create norms and cultural values of getting to know other people, the people who are around you, asking them about their stories and their values and their relationships.
One person modeling that can really positively impact those groups of people, where then children are likely to be more curious when they have a parent. who is more curious.
Or students are likely to be more curious when they have teachers who are more curious.
And so... A lot of this is what's our role and how do we take the step and own our own agency of getting curious ourselves and knowing that that's going to impact the people around us.
And I think this is especially salient when we think about the political divide, because so much of it is like, oh, I really like... want to be heard too.
I don't want to just like understand other people.
I think it's important that I feel seen and I feel understood.
I mean, that's a very human desire. And what I've noticed is that when I start from a place of curiosity, even with people who are extremely different from me in political ideologies, I start asking them questions and then they start to ask me questions.
They're like, hey, like you're asking me all these questions.
Like, what about you? Like, what do you think about this?
And it becomes an opportunity for me to share as well.
And that's not the reason why I'm asking these questions.
You know, I don't want, you know, I do sometimes do this sometimes where like my partner comes home and I'm like, how was your day, babe?
And he doesn't ask me it back. I'm like, hey, why did you ask me that question?
Like, you know how my day was. And then I realize, wow, that's already a breakdown of curiosity because I'm trying to get something from it, right?
But if I just continue to come from a place of, I'm here to understand you.
I just want to get to know you better. I want to understand where these values and views come from.
Over time, it is more likely that you know, that person will finally turn towards you and ask you questions.
Always happen, unfortunately. You know, sometimes people are very... in themselves and don't want to turn towards other people.
And so I always remind folks, that's a moment to get curious about your boundaries, to get curious about How do you protect yourself?
How do you create relationships that are really healthy for you?
But also, I never want folks to give up on anyone.
I think that what I've learned from my teachers, in life is that everyone has the capacity to be transformed.
And I've felt that in my own life with family members, who maybe weren't so celebratory of my queer identity, for instance, who years later, through me just being me and me continuing to be curious about them, feeling an acceptance and a celebration of who I am over time.
You know, we all have the capacity to be transformed, every one of us.
So let's believe... in each other and let's believe that let's not give up on, on one another, you know, I love that.
And it feels like a great place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well.
So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life.
What comes up? Well, to live a good life is to be curious to me and to stay curious about my inner world, what it is that matters to me, what gets me excited in this life, what relationships I want to nurture and nourish. getting more connected to my emotions, getting curious about when my emotions show up in my day-to-day. and then also turning my curiosity towards others and the world around me.
And really, you know, moving through the world with this awe and this wonder about other people, reminding myself I have something to learn from it.
Every single person here, you know, there's that idea that every stranger is just a friend that you don't know yet.
And I totally agree with that. And I think that that is one of the very special ingredients we have to creating a good life.
It's something I'm so honored with my parents and my family who have modeled curiosity for me. getting from our house to the store involved like multiple conversations with people on the street or people in the store or the, cashier and just reminding me that everyone is a human with beautiful stories and there's such right potential for connection and that connection to others and to ourselves is what creates this. really good juicy delicious life what about for you what is a good life for you right now in this moment For me, it keeps going back to kind of like the same thing.
It's the ability to spend the greatest amount of time absorbed in relationships and activities that make me come alive while surrounding myself with people I can't get enough of.
That's so beautiful. And it kind of brings in curiosity.
It brings in all the different things. Yeah, it's love.
And curiosity is such a practice of love, is what I always say.
That's so beautiful. Yeah, thank you. We'll see you next time.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.
Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young.
Christopher Carter crafted our theme music.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and Follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube, too.
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Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
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