A Curious Mind

I am, and have always been, a curious person so when I saw this book at the book store I had no choice but to select it.

Curiosity is a driving force that pushes us to learn more, understand more, and to find or create new things. Curiosity is also the foundation for creativity, which is the premise for Brian Grazer’s book, “A Curious Mind”.

If the name sound familiar, but you can’t quite nail down his name, Brian is the producer of many hit movies, including Splash, Apollo 13, Friday Night Lights, and A Beautiful Life among many others. Brian credits his curiosity for both getting him into the movie industry and with his success within that industry. He points to how his curiosity, and what he calls “curiosity conversations”, has expanded his understanding of people and phenomena, allowed him to explore new ideas in unique ways, for developing a deeper understanding of others, and for providing him the foundation for identifying good ideas.

The book spends a good bit of time talking about the role curiosity has played in Brian’s success but it also gives good advice on how to harness your curiosity to open your life to greater opportunity. To be successfully curious, you need to do two things:

• Be willing to listen to the answers you receive when you ask questions
• Bw willing to act on what you learn. He used the example of our curiosity about whether we could go to the moon was one thing; marshaling the resources to make that happen was another. Only through being willing to act on our curiosity – to answer the question and to explore the possibilities of making it happen – can curiosity really open up our lives.

A unique aspect of the book is his focus on “Curiosity Conversations”. Throughout his adult professional life Brian has tried to meet regularly with people he was curious about – everyone from Isaac Asimov to Sheldon Glashow, a Nobel Prize winning physicist – to gain insight into their thoughts and what drives them to do the things they do.

The book points out that curiosity is often looked upon with derision. Curious people are not often well received and asking questions can be considered rude. And yet is it curiosity that has driven almost all of the innovation we have experienced. Though not in the book, curiosity, the question of ‘can this be done?’, has even led to the relatively rapid development of Artificial Intelligence.

What I Liked About the Book

• Curiosity is a big motivator in my life so the whole notion of a book that explores how curiosity impacted someone else is always enlightening.
• He provides examples of how curiosity led to some of his decisions in life and in his career.
• The book provides suggestions on how to ramp up your curiosity and how to then use that curiosity to ramp up your life. (Note that these are not ‘formulas’ or ‘how tos’, but simple suggestions that you might implement in your life.)

What I Didn’t Like About the Book

• Overall, I think the book is pretty good as it is. The book provides a great many examples, which does become somewhat redundant at times.
• While the examples help the reader to understand what curiosity can lead to and how it can affect your life, they can come across as a bit of name-dropping at times.

Do I Recommend the Book?

Yes. Even if you’re not a terribly curious person, the book is an interesting read that provide a look inside how a movie producer came to that profession and was able to leverage their curiosity into a (very) successful career.

If you are a curious person, the book provides further evidence that curiosity is a great tool for personal and professional growth.

This is a book that, in fact, I will likely re-read at some point in the future to refresh and revitalize my own curiosity.

Some Quotes:

• The ability to ask any question embodies two things: the freedom to go chase the answer, and the ability to challenge authority, to ask, “How come you’re in charge?
• Curiosity is a form of power, and also a form of courage.
• (Referring to the film executive and producer John Calley of Warner Brothers) … watching Calley work, I realized something: Creative thoughts didn’t have to follow a straight narrative line. You could pursue your interests, your passions, you could chase any quirky idea that came from som odd corner of your experience or your brain.
• … Storytelling and curiosity are natural allies. … The story is a repot from the front lines of curiosity.
• We are all trapped in our own way of thinking, trapped in our own way of relating to people.