Brad Stulberg

And I asked him about it, and I said, what happened?

He's like, I was just endlessly curious, man.

Like, what do you mean?

He's like, what does it feel like if I just move my pinky toe?

You know, put one half of a millimeter more space between my pinky toe and my fourth toe as I pressurize and I push the floor out.

Like, what does that do?

Just running all of these little experiments.

And the curiosity, like, it has this intrinsic reward of discovery.

that keeps you coming back.

And it's very much linked to the joy.

So I think curiosity is important.

Another fascinating curiosity story from reporting on the book is Kobe Bryant, for all of his struggles off the court, was a very good basketball player on the court.

And before he died, he was asked in an interview, are you the kind of player who plays not to lose or plays to win?

And Kobe said, I'm neither.

I play to figure things out.

And what he meant by that is when he gets on the court, he's just playing to learn something.

He's endlessly curious about the game.

Because if you play not to lose, you're on your heels and you're in a defensive position.

And if you play to win and then you lose, it's going to be seen as a failure.

But if you play to just be curious, to figure things out, you're constantly growing.