Want to catch up to Curious Now? On this page, you can find every Curious Now “Workout of the Week” since Episode 1. Listen above, or follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube!
Curious Now Episode 1: Foundations of Good Judgment
Workout of the Week: Begin a practice of mentally noting when you are judging. Don’t judge your own judging, but just observe neutrally when it happens.
Curious Now Episode 2: Hidden Standards Behind Your Judgment
Workout of the Week: When you notice that you have a judgment or a complaint, ask yourself, what’s the standard I have that isn’t being met here?
Curious Now Episode 3: Freight Train of Emotions
Workout of the Week: When you have a complaint about someone’s performance or how they are acting compared to your standards, name the emotions that you are feeling when the standard is violated.
Curious Now Episode 4: “Are you an Idiot?!”
Workout of the Week: Think back to your judgments from week 1. What was another person doing that made no sense by your standards? Get curious and think about… what might their standard have been in that moment? Why did their actions make sense to them?
Curious Now Episode 5: WTF to WTF
Workout of the Week: React, reset, and get curious. When someone does something you don’t understand, name your reaction, reset yourself, then get curious about what’s going on for them.
Curious Now Episode 6: Surviving Psychological Contract Breaches
Workout of the Week: Look out for thoughts like “I thought you were going to…” or “It’s not fair that…”. Did you actually agree to a standard with this person, or did you just think it to yourself? Much like your mental noting, counting your judging, how often is this happening? Are there repeats or patterns? Tell us what you found.
Curious Now Episode 7: “I wouldn’t run them over in the parking lot…”
Workout of the Week: This is almost the opposite of our first exercise of noticing when you judge… instead notice when you make a generous inference, and take a look at what permitted it (was it something about your state, your relationship with the person, something about them, or the situation that allowed you to do it)?
Curious Now Episode 8: The Feedback Dilemma
Workout of the Week: Before you have a feedback conversation, use the Feedback pre-think chart to ask yourself, what am I feeling about this conversation, and what is my goal for it?
Curious Now Episode 9: What are We Listening For?
Workout of the Week: Notice yourself listening – are you listening to understand or listening to respond? How does your body feel different in these two modes? Experiment with switching modes – most will find the switch from listening to respond to listening to understand most informative.
Curious Now Episode 10: Little Acts of Genius
Workout of the Week: This week’s leadership rep is all about decoding the mystery. Here’s your mental gym circuit. Think of something someone did recently that caught your attention. It could be amazing, puzzling, or a “Why on earth would they do that?” moment. Name the action. Then name the result. What was the behavior? And what happened next? Now generate 2–3 possible frames they might have held that would make that action make perfect sense.
Curious Now Episode 11: You May Be Right, You May Be Crazy
Workout of the Week: When you have a thought like: this is the answer, this is the way the world works, train yourself to say, ‘What could I be missing?’ and sit with that thought.
Curious Now Episode 12: The Greatest Obstacle to Effective Learning Conversations
Workout of the Week: Pick one upcoming conversation where you might usually guard your true intentions. Before entering, come up with a transparent statement that reflects your real feelings or concerns. Ask yourself: Which small, honest disclosure might change the dynamic of our interaction? Do a scene assessment: what is happening around me that makes me feel like I can’t share that honestly?
Curious Now Episode 13: How We Talk Shapes the Way We Work
Workout of the Week: Choose one inclusive prompt to use regularly– two weeks ago we asked ourselves, this week, ask the group: “Who sees this differently?” or “What am I not noticing?”
Curious Now Episode 14: Transforming Toxic Culture One Conversation at a Time
Workout of the Week: In a conversation, share your point of view and follow up with a genuine, open inquiry about the other person’s perspective.
Curious Now Episode 15: Scaling Good Judgment to Your Team
Workout of the Week: Notice when you are triggered (something happens and you notice that there is some way in which you are over-reacting—ashamed, spiraling, etc.) and note it down. Data collection mode: what/where/when, not why.
Later we can categorize (see trends, what meaning do I make from it, how do I interpret it, not mistaking my meaning making for absolute truth…) What meaning are you making of them?
Curious Now Episode 16: Amy Edmondson, Creating Psych Safety Special
No Workout