323: Ian Leslie - The Desire To Know & Why Your Future Depends On It

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com

Text LEARNERS to 44222

#322: Ian Leslie

Ian Leslie is a London-based journalist and author of critically acclaimed books about human behavior. He is currently writing a new book on "productive disagreement", which will be published in 2020. Ian also created, wrote and performed in the BBC radio comedy Before They Were Famous.

Notes: 

• Leaders who sustain excellence =
  • Have the ability to think about their own thinking -- Step outside and reflect
  • Know that you'll say "I don't know" frequently
  • Breadth -- A range of interests
  • Interested in building knowledge and an awareness that it might not pay off (and being ok with that)
• Ian built his life around curiosity -- He was a strategist for ad agencies.  He needed to deeply understand his clients.  That is a job built on curiosity.
  • "I am a curiosity driven writer."
• Children are born curious... "People are born with habits/knowledge to survive."  And then they stop.  There's no evolutionary impulse to keep going.
  • It becomes a conscious choice to cognitive resources and time
• The two types of curiosity
  • Diversive: Hunger for new information.  It comes from an information gap.  Agatha Christie understands how to create an information gap to keep you turning the page
  • Epistemic: Desire to acquire knowledge/build/assimilate into networks in your brain.  It requires discipline.  It's engendered.  It's diversive curiosity grown up.
• "There is a rising premium on people with a high need for cognition."  NFC (need for cognition) is a scientific measure of intellectual curiosity
• "Taking action.  Doing... is a form of learning.  They are intertwined."
• Reflecting on own habits -- use self as a lab experiment... Then talk with others.
• Empathically curious -- Being curious about what's inside of other person's head.  How they think and feel.
• "You're going to be come a better communicator being a better listener."
• Atul Gawande -- Ask the unscripted question.  Make a human connection.
• Have 10% of your brain switched on to "Am I talking too much?"
• How to have productive disagreements:
  • Don't avoid it
  • Have disagreements we both can live with
  • "You'll have more productive disagreement if you're curious about the other person."
• People who have a higher level of scientific curiosity... They don't rush to judgement.  Think, "Oh, I wonder why I think that?"
• "Nobody has trained us in how to disagree with each other."
• "You have this choice in judgement and curiosity."
• Life/Career advice: "Be interested in everything.  Go deep in one area."
  • Have core people in your life and foster the weak ties.
• Everyone is born curious. But only some retain the habits of exploring, learning and discovering as they grow older. Which side of the "curiosity divide" are you on?