I believe I discovered this book at a book sale at a library in Chicago. I picked it up because the idea of a curious mind, a mind that is always collecting ideas and information, snippets of facts, and then connecting them in new and unique ways. It is how it makes sense to me to navigate the world and how I often approach solving a problem: if the direct method isn’t working, I reach for a metaphor that I can apply as a way of cracking open the problem differently.

Brian Glazer’s approach, however, is different from my own. He has a talent that I have always admired in my cousins, of walking up to strangers and starting conversations out of the blue, something that my parents disapproved of. Even now, when I have finally outgrown the shyness that seemed normal as a child, I have not developed the kind of extroverted personality that walks up to a stranger and starts a conversation.

Which is what Glazier describes doing in this book. Time after time, without reticence, he walks up to a stranger, starts a conversation, makes a friend and ally, and achieves something.

On page 1, he overhears someone talking, outside his window, about quitting his job at Warner Bros., and mentioning his boss’s name. This being the pre-internet days, Glazier picks up the phone, dials 411, gets the phone number for Warner Bros., asks for the boss, and requests a chance to interview for the job. He gets the job as a law clerk, with a job of delivering contracts to the Hollywood elite for signature, a job that parleys him into the opportunity to have conversations with those people.

Grazier attributes his success in the Hollywood to his innate curiosity. As he was growing his career, and even now, he seeks out what he calls Curiosity Conversations. The book describes a handful of those and the way he was able to leverage them to learn about people, to gather stories, to turn those insights and stories into great films, and to build connections.

It’s an easy and fun book to read and, throughout, he encourages the reader to become more curious. To treat every conversation with every person they come across, as a chance to learn. And, at the back of the book, he provides sampler of conversations he’s had with people – John McCain, for example, how he met him, how he was able to spend time talking with him, what they discussed.

At the very back of the book, he provides a guide for having conversations yourself, beginning with “starter conversations” for those who are just embarking on this journey, to deeper questions you could ask and approaches to take.

I love reading stories (hearing stories, telling stories) and I’m so glad that I stumbled across this book.