Having taught thousands of business courses and seeing some of my students flounder made me passionate about developing curiosity in others. I had written my doctoral dissertation on the relationship between emotional intelligence and performance, which led to my interest in studying human behaviors that could make us more successful. After interviewing thousands of top leaders on my nationally syndicated radio show, I saw a pattern of curiosity in highly successful people. I wanted to share that ability to develop curiosity in others. So, I read the books I listed here to build my research foundation. I hope you are curious to read these books and find them as fascinating as I did.
I wrote...
Cracking the Curiosity Code: The Key to Unlocking Human Potential
Carol Dweck's research helps explain why some people are more willing to explore curiosity based on the impact interaction with others has had on them.
I loved this book because she reveals what parents, teachers, and others inadvertently say or do, that impacts whether we have an open/growth or closed/fixed mindset. When writing my Curiosity Code Index assessment, Dweck's book helped to determine some of the factors associated with the things that inhibit curiosity.
This book will change the way you interact with those around you because it will make you cognizant of the power of how we word things and how that leads to performance.
From the renowned psychologist who introduced the world to “growth mindset” comes this updated edition of the million-copy bestseller—featuring transformative insights into redefining success, building lifelong resilience, and supercharging self-improvement.
“Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes
“It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”
After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this…
David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists.
He found that being a generalist (having a range of interests) rather than a specialist (having a narrow scope of interest) leads to better performance. I loved the book because he gave many exciting examples of performers in different fields to show how depth of knowledge leads to more curiosity, creativity, and agility.
Sometimes it can be challenging to tie in the importance of curiosity, but Epstein gives wonderful examples of human success.
Furthermore, it helps us learn that the broader our range of interests, the more likely we can become better at the specific things we love to do.
'Fascinating . . . If you're a generalist who has ever felt overshadowed by your specialist colleagues, this book is for you' - Bill Gates
The instant Sunday Times Top Ten and New York Times bestseller Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A Financial Times Essential Reads
A powerful argument for how to succeed in any field: develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize.
From the '10,000 hours rule' to the power of Tiger parenting, we have been taught that success in any field requires early specialization and many…
Daniel Pink is a terrific author who draws on his former experience as a lawyer to build his case in his books.
What I love about Drive is how Pink explains the mistake we made trying to motivate people incorrectly. He examined the elements of true motivation, which he considers autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Although curiosity sparks motivation, it is critical to learn the things that motivation impacts if you can ignite that spark.
The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things,…
For a good reason, Simon Sinek’s book and associated TED Talk had tens of millions of views.
I loved his book because he set out to inspire people to find a purpose at work. He explains the value of asking why to create innovative organizations where customers and employees feel loyalty.
Sinek’s work made me want to research what inhibits our sense of asking why, which is critical because if you do not know what hinders you, it is far more difficult to overcome those issues.
While you might wonder why I chose a book on emotional intelligence (EI) as recommended for developing curiosity, Daniel Goleman’s work in EI is critical to understanding that we must go beyond thinking that IQ is everything.
I loved Goleman’s work because he explained why intelligent people with high IQs could fail more than people with lower IQ scores. This understanding was critical to my choosing to research curiosity because it helped me consider the factors that lead to success.
Part of having a solid level of emotional intelligence means asking questions to develop self-awareness and empathy.
The groundbreaking bestseller that redefines intelligence and success Does IQ define our destiny? Daniel Goleman argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, and that our emotions play major role in thought, decision making and individual success. Self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, motivation, empathy and social deftness are all qualities that mark people who excel: whose relationships flourish, who are stars in the workplace. With new insights into the brain architecture underlying emotion and rationality, Goleman shows precisely how emotional intelligence can be nurtured and strengthened in all of us.
Reading was a childhood passion of mine. My mother was a librarian and got me interested in reading early in life. When John F. Kennedy was running for president and after his assassination, I became intensely interested in politics. In addition to reading history and political biographies, I consumed newspapers and television news. It is this background that I have drawn upon over the decades that has added value to my research.
It didn’t begin with Donald Trump. When the Republican Party lost five straight presidential elections during the 1930s and 1940s, three things happened: (1) Republicans came to believe that presidential elections are rigged; (2) Conspiracy theories arose and were believed; and (3) The presidency was elevated to cult-like status.
Long before Trump, each of these phenomena grew in importance. The John Birch Society and McCarthyism became powerful forces; Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first “personal president” to rise above the party; and the development of what Harry Truman called “the big lie,” where outrageous falsehoods came to be believed. Trump…
Grand Old Unraveling: The Republican Party, Donald Trump, and the Rise of Authoritarianism
It didn't begin with Donald Trump. The unraveling of the Grand Old Party has been decades in the making. Since the time of FDR, the Republican Party has been home to conspiracy thinking, including a belief that lost elections were rigged. And when Republicans later won the White House, the party elevated their presidents to heroic status-a predisposition that eventually posed a threat to democracy. Building on his esteemed 2016 book, What Happened to the Republican Party?, John Kenneth White proposes to explain why this happened-not just the election of Trump but the authoritarian shift in the party as a…
In Dr. Diane Hamilton's provocative new book, she uncovers what could foreseeably be the next movement to enhance human performance, a critical and direct link to improving motivation and communication-based issues that challenge organizations. Drawing on decades of research and incorporating interviews with some of the top leaders of our time, Hamilton examines the factors that influence curiosity, including fear, assumptions, technology, and environment (FATE). Her ground-breaking research, nominated by Thinkers50 Radar, provides an action plan to transform individuals and organizations. For example, an organization that can stimulate its workers' curiosity can enhance employee engagement, emotional intelligence, innovation, productivity, and the many other by-products that come with that intrinsic but under-utilized attribute.
Foreword by former Chairman and CEO of DocuSign, and former Undersecretary, Keith Krach.
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