How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up
Pay attention to the small stuff, ask a lot of questions, and other life advice we got this week.
This Week on the Next Big Idea Podcast
How can you lead a more gratifying life?
We’ve optimized nearly every part of modern life. So why does it feel like we’re missing the experience of actually living it?
In The Small Stuff, Ian Bogost argues that our obsession with happiness, productivity, and efficiency has stripped everyday life of something essential: gratification, the immediate pleasure of physically engaging with the world around us. Today, he makes the case for rediscovering the sensory delights hiding in the life you already lead.
Listen to our conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Book Bite of the Week
What can we learn from little kids?
Growing up doesn’t have to mean losing the best parts of being a child. By embracing children’s emotional honesty, creativity, openness, and optimism, adults can lead richer lives and contribute to a better world.
Julian Shapiro-Barnum is a comedian, interviewer, and author best known for creating Recess Therapy, a wildly popular online series in which he interviews young children about life’s biggest mysteries. He also created Celebrity Substitute, in which major stars from music and Hollywood spend a day teaching at public schools around New York City.
Check out five key insights from his new book, How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up: Big Lessons from Little Kids, on the Next Big Idea app.
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This Week on the Next Big Idea Daily Podcast
Are questions more important than answers?
We’re living through uncertain, unsettling times, and every instinct pulls us towards quick, comforting answers. But certainty, chased too hard, makes us rigid and closed. Uncertainty isn’t a problem to be eliminated, it’s the texture of a rich, complicated, unpredictable life. Questioning is what lets us meet it, not with anxiety, but with openness, curiosity and a little humility.
Lani Watson is a philosopher and Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is a world-leading expert in the philosophy of questions, having researched the topic for nearly two decades. Businesses and organizations around the world have sought her help in learning how to ask great questions
Pick up a copy of her book, Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers, on Amazon or listen to her big ideas on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
This edition of Book of the Day is sponsored by IM8, Get a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, and 10% off your order when you use code NBI at im8health.com/nbi
🎉 Happy Publication Week! 🎉
The following Next Big Idea Club Must-Read authors got to celebrate the publication of their books yesterday--congratulations to them all! 📖 Join us in reading and discussing these exciting new releases:
Daisy Dixon, Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art
Paul Osterman, Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment
Sam Roberts, Are They Dead Yet?: The Art of the Obit
Virginia Eubanks, A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving: Lessons on Love, Care, and Survival: A Memoir
Cassandra Vieten, Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination