Alex Berger - Practical Curiosity: The Guide to Life, Love & Travel

PRACTICAL CURIOSITY

THE GUIDE TO LIFE, LOVE & TRAVEL

ALEX BERGER

Continue the conversation at

practicalcuriosity.com

Jacket art by Karolina Stankeviit

Book design by Walton Mendelson

Copyright 2017 Alex Berger

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

To Dad, Mom and my brother David. You are the catalysts that set me upon this path, the mentors that have guided me, the muses which have inspired me, and the critical voices which have helped me to refine and improve. Your love and support paired with the paths youve charted through your own lives are the foundation upon which this book has come into being.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The ideas I introduce throughout the text are only possible due to the philosophers, academics, authors, podcasters and mentors who have shared their insights.

A further thank you is due to the friends who have shared their hearts and minds with me, the mentors who have helped shape my world view, my early-reviewers who offered invaluable feedback and my family who are an endless source of support, inspiration and encouragement.

PREFACE

Life is inherently complex. The life we live is also absolutely unique. From the moment we spring into existence to the moment our last breath slips free of our body, we are experiencing a world in a way which is fundamentally different than every other person who has come before us or who will follow in our footsteps.

This fascinates me and fuels my curiosity. After all, it is profoundly difficult to slip into another persons shoes and to explore their world view. As we gain access to the lessons theyve learned from key individuals, parents and mentors, experiences which differ greatly from our own, we augment our understanding of our own lives.

I engage with business leaders, inspirational thinkers, and some of the worlds greatest artists and explorers on a regular basis. Insatiable curiosity has been the key that has opened these doors. The success that Ive found while chasing that curiosity has come from charting my way and viewing my experiences through a practical lens that constantly digests, evaluates and incorporates each new lesson learned or experience lived. This has led me to explore more than fifty different countries, cultures, and ways of thinking as well as helped me navigate through a diverse and rewarding business career.

This book is my attempt to take a wide cross-section of carefully crafted observations and share them with you. Over the following pages I run through thought exercises that have the potential to change how you understand and relate to the world. I explore life lessons and hard-earned realizations about what makes a person successful in life and business while dispelling commonly perpetuated myths. I will take you through an exploration of key relational observations which I find are re-occurring themes in peoples lives. I draw upon my experiences as an expat, a sojourner, an exchange student, and a travel writer to share with you some of the most powerful lessons and observations that have come from a life shaped by extensive travels.

What youll find in the following pages is a series of sections written in the voice best suited to deliver the message. At times Ill share personal stories and life lessons with you. In other sections Ill share general observations or deep dive and explore topics from a more traditionally academic perspective.

Through it all, my aspiration and commitment to you is to provide a cross-genre exploration of what it means to work towards being a well-rounded individual. This book will help you better understand and accept yourself. It is crafted to help you see the world through a different lens and to understand and garner life lessons learned while digging into oft-avoided topics and truths.

Practical Curiosity is an exploration of the mind of a generalist and an exercise in embracing voracious curiosity. It is about mastering self-doubt, overcoming fears, embracing personal development, and charting a course that doesnt treat success as a zero-sum game. Ive incorporated concepts that are old, others that are in vogue, and some pulled from the leading edge of emerging scientific discovery. This book is a tool to help you digest, contextualize, and incorporate many of these concepts as they apply to lifestyle, business, relationships, and travel to achieve a more successful and fruitful life.

As you navigate the sections in this book, view each as a piece of a puzzle that gradually builds and fills in gaps. Use each new section to engage with and understand the next. Through it all, evaluate each observation and exercise not just as it relates to your own past experiences, but how it helps you move forward along your path to success.

Pick two friends or family members, one who is very similar to you and another who is very different. As you digest each concept put yourself in their shoes and explore how the section explains their world view and how the two of you interact.

As a final step ask yourself how youd explain the key takeaways from that section to both friends. This process of summarizing, applying, and discussing will increase the value you draw from each section.

Thank you for entrusting me with your time, your curiosity and your open mind.

THOUGHT EXERCISES

I HAVE FOUND that the following thought experiments are wonderful tools that have played a pivotal role in shaping how I perceive and interact with the world. The goal of each of these exercises is two-fold. First, they help to understand and explain people, behaviors and their decision making. Second, they help me to explain and become comfortable with my own needs.

Personal development and self-awareness often require a mental framework which you can use to understand and test certain assumptions. I find its also the best way to explore my relationship with cultural norms or issues I would otherwise avoid completely.

To get the most out of these exercises, I suggest working through them multiple times. Its also best if you get comfortable sitting or lying down in a place that is quiet without disturbances or distractions to ensure you have time to digest and reflect. Each exercise will take you no more than five to ten minutes.

The Dark Room and the Door

The Exercise

The dark room and the door thought experiment is designed to help you understand your personal balance between the known vs. the unknown and your tolerance for comfort vs. discomfort. Different areas of our lives by necessity require different behaviors, but this is a great way to explore and discuss what you want from life and where you are most fulfilled. Its also a tool for deciding if youre happy with where you are or if you should make some changes.

To start, picture that you come into existence alone, into an utterly unchanging environment. You are tabula rasa, a blank slate, in an environment that is completely static and without variation. There is only the temperature as it isno hot, no cold, no fluctuations. There is no stimulation and no contrast. Only existence. You just are. In this state, youre neither happy nor unhappy. You exist.

Now, consider two alternate series of events. In one, nothing changes. In the other, a doorway suddenly appears and offers the prospect of exiting the space and entering the outside world. Depending on your level of curiosity, you may choose to open the doorway and pass into a world of contrasts and diverse experiences. For this exercise, explore your emotional response as you visualize moving further from the doorway and deeper into a wider array of experiences and uncertainty.

In that world the static state of being without context is replaced by things like love, vibrant flavors,discovery, knowledge, pleasure, and sensations of hot and cold. Each of these is profoundly attractive, right? But, theres a catch. With them also comes the other side of eachwar, ugly colors, loss, heartache, and pain.