Thirty years ago, I was bored and directionless in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. My father had just died somewhat unexpectedly at the youthful age of 57 and I committed from that moment on, I would ONLY do work that was fun, juicy, and creative. After a couple of months spent grieving…
During the final hearing for my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago, my advisor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi pulled me aside and whispered to me: “NEVER use the word heart in a job talk.” My Ph.D. dissertation was on how adults learn in everyday life and I’d mentioned the heart too many times. Mihaly could tell…
I once wrote an article with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about how curiosity and exploration are fundamental to learning. Museums, for example, spark learning by capturing our curiosity with objects and ideas that seem foreign or mysterious. This leads to what he called the “flow state,” where learning feels effortless and intrinsically rewarding because it engages our…
“It would be difficult to see how a species as dependent on learning as we are could have survived if we didn’t find the process of making sense of our environment pleasurably rewarding.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Kim Hermanson As humans, learning isn’t just a necessity—it’s a deeply ingrained source of pleasure. Our very survival…
Museums have a unique power to ignite curiosity and shape our paths in profound ways. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and I wrote, “One often meets successful adults, professionals, or scientists who recall that their lifelong vocational interest was first sparked by a visit to a museum. In these accounts, the encounter—with a real, concrete object from…
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