Happy June my #SmartisSexy loves!
Just as you got used to seeing flowers bloom everywhere, our epic Californian superbloom had to make way for the welcoming of its more carefree, slightly less romantic seasonal counterpart– Summer. As the heat slowly seduces your best summertime pieces out of the closet, everyone knows your best accessory is that book you carry with you to the beach, the park, the café. Summer won’t happen without a good book in tow.
We kick start this month’s daydreaming with one of Hollywood’s biggest storytellers as he talks about Curiosity and the power that it can have on your life –- giving the idea of talking to strangers a whole new perspective!
This month we’re reading:
A Curious Mind,
The Secret to a Bigger Life
By Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman
This book fits in so well here at the Smart is Sexy HQ because any excuse to ask WHY, to learn something new, explore, disrupt the norm, and make us grow for the better is what we gravitate too. This world is filled with so much junk, each marketing tactic savvier than the other to get us to buy something – OVER IT! Gimme some soul food, will yah!
Author, Brian Grazer accounts a personal commitment he made with his younger self that he confesses has contributed to the success of his career and his personal life – staying curious. Remember movies like Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, 8 Mile? Yup – you can credit him and Ron Howard as the masterminds behind those and many more of your favorite Hollywood stories. Brian Grazer made a promise to himself to learn something new everyday and in order to do that he had to start talking to people he didn’t know. Taking it one step further, he has coined these pursuits for exposure and knowledge as ‘curiosity conversations’ because he pursues interesting and accomplished strangers like science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, medical researcher Jonas Salk who discovered the polio vaccine, Princess Diana, Barack Obama before he became President and so many more. Over 35 years worth of cool and interesting people. His personal account is more of an open invitation for all of us to embrace our curiosity, in an age of freedom and access to information, being curious can teach us so much. We can become better leaders, better creators, better mangers, better romantic partners – all from asking questions? Then why did we ever stop?
“I like when people…ask me questions for many reasons, but here’s the simplest and most powerful reason: if they ask the question then they almost always listen to the answer” he quotes.
The book was a fun, entertaining, the perfect book to stimulate our summertime thoughts – as it got me thinking aren’t we all born curious? Do we just lose this knack of curiosity along the way or are we simply asking the wrong questions when we do?
Curious Enough?
Read a Book
Smart is Sexy
“Curiosity is what creates empathy. To care about someone, you have to wonder about them”
Excellent!
Do you think that people just conform to the simplicity of a habitual life? Is it easier for people to remain staid in their ways, instead of incorporating self-reflection, and actions based on those thoughts?