Todd Kashdan, a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychology at George Mason University  is also the author of a new book, a fantastic book called Curious?: Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. And when you check it out, you’ll see that it has got one of the best cover designs ever. It’s just a yellow cover with a single word on it, “curious” in big black bold typed with a question mark. I love it when the medium is the message, because you can’t help but look at that book and go, “Okay, I am curious. What is this book about?” And then when you flip it over to the back, it says simply again, “embrace uncertainty, attract love and abundance, master your life.” What a wonderful call to do more Great Work.

In our conversation we chat about:

• Why the quest for happiness is overrated
• how Todd ended up where he is today, having been a Wall Street trader and a clerk in a law firm
• How the shift in focus from scary to curious changed everything
• The link between anxiety and curiosity
• The importance of sadness, worry and anger in a well-lived life.

You can follow Todd at Twitter at @toddkashdan and learn more about his work at www.ToddKashdan.com

Listen to my interview with Todd Kashdan

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Only the curious will learn and only the resolute overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
~ Eugene S. Wilson, Amherst College

Curiosity.

Resilience.

Two of the big factors of success for more Great Work.

It’s easy to step back from the call to do more Great Work with any number of excuses – I’m not as smart, fast, rich, wise, connected, ambitious, etc etc as those others.”

But if you tie a commitment to Great Work to the twin engines of Curosity and Resilience, you’re going to get somewhere interesting.