Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World

by Scott Shigeoka

Overview

Maximize your potential for connection, healing, and personal growth with this “timely bridge for our divided world.” (Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential)

If you've felt alienated and alone in recent years, you're in good company. Whether it's a rift in your family, polarization at your workplace or just a sense that society isn't as connected as it once was, many of us feel painful chasms in our connections. Internationally-recognized curiosity expert and bridge builder Scott Shigeoka knows that there’s only one cure: Deep Curiosity.    

In Seek, Shigeoka blends cutting-edge research with vulnerable storytelling to teach readers their signature DIVE model. With his guidance, you’ll learn more than a dozen practical strategies to:

   ·Detach — Let go of your ABCs (assumptions, biases, certainty),
   ·Intend — Prepare your mindset and setting,
   ·Value — See the dignity of every person, including yourself,
   ·Embrace — Welcome the hard times in your life.

Seek is a revolutionary playbook to heal division, estrangement, hatred, and our most urgent societal challenges.   

"We've been hiding from each other for far too long. Seek offers us an empathic, practical, and heartfelt road map forward." ―Seth Godin, author of The Song of Significance and Tribes

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538740804
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	11/14/2023
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	122,121
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Scott Shigeoka is an internationally-recognized curiosity expert and speaker. He is known for translating research into strategies that promote positive well-being and connected relationships around the globe, including at the UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and through his groundbreaking courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott has spread his curiosity practices to public officials, health care professionals, artists, activists, writers, media organizations, educators, community leaders and businesses. Originally from Hawai'i, Scott now lives in California. 

Editorial Reviews

10/02/2023

The relentlessly optimistic debut from Shigeoka, a lecturer at the Center for Integrated Design at the University of Texas-Austin, posits that curiosity can strengthen relationships and bridge partisan divides. As a “city-dwelling liberal Asian American spiritually queer professor and researcher from Hawai’i,” Shigeoka in 2019 embarked on a trip from Arkansas to Minnesota to Montana, seeking to meet members of “the other side”—Trump supporters, rural farmers, faith leaders—in hopes of easing his anxieties about America’s polarization. What he discovered (in himself and others) was a “deep curiosity” that powers “meaningful connection”; “unlocks” a sense of security, joy, and freedom; and fosters personal transformation. To tap into their own deep curiosity, readers should release preexisting biases, cultivate the “right mindset” for curiosity-seeking (for example, one can “pull curiosity to the forefront by paying attention to the number of questions you’re asking in conversation”), work on valuing the inherent worth of all people, and embrace curiosity in moments of hurt and anger. Despite some awkward attempts to sound hip that fail to land (“We need to move away from BDE to the more evolved BCE: big curiosity energy”), Shigeoka presents an energetic case for the power of openness in an era characterized by social isolation and echo chambers. Shigeoka’s enthusiasm for exploration and connection is contagious. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

This useful and often moving audiobook is the latest manifestation of the author's lifelong interest in promoting curiosity in people--about themselves, others, and the world around them. His performance is a wonderful vehicle for his altruistic message and charming personal stories. His youthful narration is occasionally overly precise, but the combination of innocent devotion and relaxed confidence is beguiling. His mission is to loosen the assumptions, biases, and certitude that keep us from connecting with others and discovering the unknown. Describing the uses and misuses of inquiry, he shows how we can question the world more intentionally while also being sensitive to others. His examples from the corporate world are especially useful as he details the attitudes and verbal tools that encourage creative expression and collaboration. T.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

"An energetic case for the power of openness in an era characterized by social isolation and echo chambers."—Publishers Weekly

"Encouraging and enthusiastic."—Booklist

"Within the large subject of happiness, curiosity is such an energizing, creative, and exciting topic to explore. Scott Keoni Shigeoka is the perfect person to tackle this subject, and I can’t wait to read this book."—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project and The Four Tendencies

“Most people recognize the value of curiosity, but few know how to embrace and unleash it. SEEK will help you close the gap between awareness and action. Scott Shigeoka’s thirst for understanding and connection is contagious, and his book is a timely bridge for our divided world.”

—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking

"We've been hiding from each other for far too long. Scott's book offers us an empathic, practical and heartfelt road map forward."—Seth Godin, author of The Song of Significance

"Grounded in science and stories, Scott Shigeoka's exploration of curiosity is full of energy and wisdom. I have no doubt his methodology will offer a path of healing for many."—Jud Brewer MD PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Unwinding Anxiety and director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center

"Scott Shigeoka is one of the world’s leading voices on bridging differences. In our lonely, polarized world, Seek couldn’t come at a better time."—Adam Smiley Poswolsky, bestselling author of The Quarter-Life Breakthrough and Friendship in the Age of Loneliness

"Few attributes are as vital to leadership, flourishing and success as curiosity. Through wit, wisdom, and science, Scott Shigeoka provides a practical guide to master the art and skill of this essential human attribute."—Ethan Kross PhD, bestselling author of Chatter and director of the Self-Control and Emotion Laboratory at the University of Michigan

"This fascinating and well-written book does an amazing job of exploring the nature of curiosity and how opening our hearts and minds to the unknown can transform our lives."—Kristin Neff, PhD, bestselling author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind To Yourself

“We are all hungering for more curiosity, and there is no more illuminating guide to our quest for what inspires than Scott Shigeoka.  In this mind opening treatment of what we know about curiosity, Shigeoka blends stories, science, and the wisdom of lived experience to move us to seek what is mysterious in life, and grow in that adventure.”—Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life

From the Publisher

Energizing, creative, and exciting…Scott Shigeoka is the perfect person to tackle this subject.”

New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin

This fascinating and well-written book does an amazing job of exploring the nature of curiosity and how opening our hearts and minds to the unknown can transform our lives.

Kristin Neff

We are all hungering for more curiosity, and there is no more illuminating guide to our quest for what inspires than Scott Shigeoka.  In this mind opening treatment of what we know about curiosity, Shigeoka blends stories, science, and the wisdom of lived experience to move us to seek what is mysterious in life, and grow in that adventure.

Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and author Dacher Keltner

Few attributes are as vital to leadership, flourishing and success as curiosity. Through wit, wisdom, and science, Scott Shigeoka provides a practical guide to master the art and skill of this essential human attribute.

bestselling author of Chatter and director of the Ethan Kross PhD

Within the large subject of happiness, curiosity is such an energizing, creative, and exciting topic to explore. Scott Keoni Shigeoka is the perfect person to tackle this subject, and I can’t wait to read this book.

New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Gretchen Rubin

We've been hiding from each other for far too long. Scott's book offers us an empathic, practical and heartfelt road map forward.

author of The Song of Significance Seth Godin

Grounded in science and stories, Scott Shigeoka's exploration of curiosity is full of energy and wisdom. I have no doubt his methodology will offer a path of healing for many.

New York Times bestselling author of Unwinding Anx Jud Brewer MD PhD

Scott Shigeoka is one of the world’s leading voices on bridging differences. In our lonely, polarized world, Seek couldn’t come at a better time.

bestselling author of The Quarter-Life Breakthroug Adam Smiley Poswolsky