Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions!

Ken Woodward
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions Hosted by Ken Woodward, Curated Questions is a thought-provoking podcast that celebrates the art and science of asking profound questions. This podcast is for curious minds who understand that the right question can unlock new perspectives and drive personal growth. What to Expect Insightful Conversations: Experts from diverse fields share their journey in mastering the craft of inquiry, revealing how it has transformed their lives and careers. Practical Techniques: Gain valuable skills to improve your questioning abilities, applicable in both personal and professional settings. Thought-Provoking Topics: Explore how questions shape leadership, personal transformation, and societal discourse. Why Listen? In an age of abundant information, Curated Questions reminds us that true wisdom lies in asking better questions. This podcast will help you: 1. Enhance critical thinking 2. Improve communication 3. Gain new perspectives on complex issues 4. Develop a nuanced understanding of the world Join Ken Woodward and his guests as they explore the transformative power of thoughtful inquiry. Curated Questions is more than just a podcast – it's an invitation to embrace curiosity, challenge assumptions, and unlock your full potential through the art of asking better questions. Subscribe now and embark on a journey to master the craft of inquiry, one question at a time. Website: CuratedQuestions.com IG/Threads/YouTube: @CuratedQuestions

  1. 1d ago

    When Certainty Drifts | Ken Woodward #101

    "  I ate of that apple. It tasted like safety." - Ken Woodward Once a submarine goes under, nobody aboard knows exactly where they are. The boat runs on an estimate that drifts, and being off course feels exactly like being on course. The only remedy is to come up and take a fix. In this solo episode, Ken asks whether certainty is what keeps us safe, or whether safety comes from our ability to keep checking our position against the world. He draws on his time as a Navy Radioman plotting fixes, Arie Kruglanski's research on the need for closure, a Listerine ad campaign that manufactured a fear to sell a cure, and John Keats's idea of negative capability. He also tells the story of a political and religious certainty that once absolved him of responsibility, and what 2,085 miles of D.C. streets taught him about fear. The episode closes with a question to take with you: Is my need for certainty making me safer? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    When Certainty Drifts | Ken Woodward #101

  2. Sep 10

    Debbie Millman: Earning Trust & Storytelling Through Questions | Debbie Millman #100

    "The biggest reason somebody will avoid answering a question is because they don't trust you with the answer." - Debbie Millman Debbie Millman has spent 21 years asking questions on Design Matters, the show she started in 2005 before podcasting had rules. In episode 100 of Curated Questions, she takes the receiving chair. Debbie traces her craft from a survey-style list she asked everyone, work she now calls terrible, to a method she describes as storytelling through questions, where each question carries the context a guest needs to respond to a fully realized moment in their life. She explains why she avoids false wisdom language, multiple-choice framing, and interpretation the guest hasn't offered yet, and makes the case that people withhold answers when they don't trust you with them. The conversation ranges across branding, her clients, the questions she brings to any redesign, the rebuild of The Rumpus with Roxane Gay, and what AI costs students who skip the difficulty. She closes with the question consuming her at 65: how to live this last third. This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning! Resources Mentioned Debbie Millman (https://www.debbiemillman.com) Design Matters (https://www.designmattersmedia.com) Sterling Brands (https://www.sterlingbrands.com) AIGA (https://www.aiga.org) SVA Masters in Branding (https://branding.sva.edu) Roxane Gay (https://audacity.substack.com) The Rumpus (https://therumpus.net) Lambda Legal (https://lambdalegal.org) NASA (https://www.nasa.gov) U.S. Department of Justice (https://www.justice.gov) Paula Scher (https://www.pentagram.com/about/paula-scher) Dr. Dan Formosa (https://sva.edu/faculty/dan-formosa) Kevin Kelly (https://kk.org) "If You're Over 40, You're Ready to Use A.I." — Debbie Millman, NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/opinion/teaching-kabbalah-ai.html) The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com) Kottke.org (https://kottke.org) Craig Mod (https://craigmod.com) The Marginalian (https://www.themarginalian.org) The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com) The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com) Los Angeles Times (https://www.latimes.com) Maria Popova (https://www.themarginalian.org) Jason Kottke (https://kottke.org/about) TED Talks (https://www.ted.com/talks) Tim Ferriss (https://tim.blog) Dax Shepard, Armchair Expert (https://armchairexpertpod.com) Krista Tippett, On Being (https://onbeing.org) NPR (https://www.npr.org) Glennon Doyle (https://glennondoyle.com) Andrew Caulk (https://www.curatedquestions.com/podcast) Barbra Streisand (https://www.barbrastreisand.com) Terry Gross, Fresh Air (https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air) Sam Fragoso, Talk Easy (https://talkeasypod.com) Adam Grant (https://www.adamgrant.net) Brené Brown (https://brenebrown.com) Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, Fixable (https://www.ted.com/podcasts/fixable) Figuring, by Maria Popova (https://www.themarginalian.org/figuring) Natascha McElhone (https://www.audible.com/pd/Figuring-Audiobook/198484475X) Traversal, by Maria Popova (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374616410/traversal) Arcosanti (https://www.arcosanti.org) Santiago Carrasquilla (http://www.santiagocarrasquilla.com) Art Camp (https://madeatartcamp.com) Ruth Ann Harnisch / The Harnisch Foundation (https://thehf.org) Sukey Novogratz (https://justsit.com) Producer Ben Ford (https://www.producerbenford.com/) Beauty Pill (https://www.beautypill.com/)

    Debbie Millman: Earning Trust & Storytelling Through Questions | Debbie Millman #100

  3. Sep 3

    What Are They Really Asking? | Former Starbucks SVP Wanda J. Herndon on the Second Question #99

    " I had to start trying to think beneath the questions: what are they really saying?" - Wanda Herndon Wanda J. Herndon trained as a journalist, then spent forty years on the other side of the notebook. Dow. DuPont. Eleven years as Starbucks SVP of Global Communications while the company grew from 550 stores to more than 11,000. Her curiosity starts with a middle child in Flint, Michigan, who wore out her siblings asking why. She describes learning, after being misquoted, to ask what a reporter is really asking. She calls listening a discipline she never mastered. And the question that carried her through divorce: what is this moment trying to teach me? Crisis work as a puzzle solved with who, what, why, when, where, how. Mentoring as a two-way street. Why she always asked Howard Schultz why. Being the CEO of you. Owning Flint rather than letting others define it. And her right now question: will we survive this chaos, and what can I do to help? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning! Resources Mentioned Orin Smith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orin_C._Smith) Nikki Giovanni (https://www.nikki-giovanni.com/) Starbucks (https://www.starbucks.com/) Audre Lorde (https://alp.org/about/audre) Flint Michigan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan) Howard Schultz (https://schultzfamilyfoundation.org/team-member/howard-schultz/) Onward by Howard Schultz (https://a.co/d/0cG7QyPF) Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz (https://a.co/d/00OhYP7W) Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. (https://aka1908.com/) Greater Seattle Chapter of The Links, Inc. (https://www.greaterseattlelinks.org/) Wanda Herndon website (http://wcommgroup.com/) Wanda Herndon on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wandajherndon) Wanda Herndon on Facebook (https://facebook.com/wandajherndon) Wanda Herndon on Instagram (https://instagram.com/wandajherndon) Producer Ben Ford (https://www.producerbenford.com/)

    What Are They Really Asking? | Former Starbucks SVP Wanda J. Herndon on the Second Question #99

  4. Aug 27

    Paid To Say I Don't Know | Ken Woodward #98

    " You do not knock on a door that's been painted over. One word scores the paint and reopens it." - Ken Woodward Researchers paid people to admit when they didn't know something. Given access to AI advice, they almost never did. The design made it startling. Participants could decline any question with no penalty. Guessing wrong cost them money. The AI advice they received was usually wrong. Every incentive pointed toward three simple words, and access to a machine nearly eliminated their willingness to say them. What got suppressed wasn't accuracy. It was the willingness to be seen not knowing. In this solo episode, Ken opens with a lie he told a friend in a room where nothing was at stake, then traces the same reflex through a sidewalk in Southeast D.C., five questions he couldn't answer, and a backyard conversation that ran five hours past its twenty-minute plan. "I don't know" isn't a report on empty shelves. It's a doorway, and it's the only one. What question are you avoiding because not knowing would cost you something? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    Paid To Say I Don't Know | Ken Woodward #98

  5. Aug 20

    The Last Time Was A Tuesday | Ken Woodward #97

    "Every unasked question has an expiration date." - Ken Woodward Ken tries to say goodbye to a shipmate before leaving the submarine. The man goes on emergency leave, and the goodbye has already happened without him noticing it. He had the calendar, the date, the list of names. The last one got past him anyway. That is the shape of this episode. We do not know which time is the last time, and preparation does not change that. Ken walks through Tim Urban's arithmetic on parents, a return to his hometown that was supposed to be final and wasn't, and an upcoming lunch with his ninety-three-year-old aunt, who is the last door into a generation that has already closed. In Ambiguous Loss, Pauline Boss offers a useful frame: closure is largely a myth, and the real skill is holding something open without needing it to shut. The question idea underneath it: every unasked question has an expiration date you cannot see. Some are saving for a better moment. Some you can't ask because you don't yet know you will want the answer. Ken is recording before he flies, without a resolution, because the not knowing is the point. This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    The Last Time Was A Tuesday | Ken Woodward #97

  6. Aug 13

    A Slightly Smaller Life | Ken Woodward #96

    "There is just a slightly smaller life that you experience as a completely normal one." - Ken Woodward Seven experiments. Ten thousand people. Half learned a topic from an AI summary, half from ordinary web links. Same facts. The AI group came away with shallower knowledge, and when researchers propped the door open, placing live source links right beside the summary, almost nobody walked through. Sixty-eight percent of Google searches now end without a click. With an AI Overview on the page, eighty-three percent. This episode is about what that costs. Not wrong answers, wrong answers get caught. It's the second question that never gets asked, which leaves no error message and no gap in the record. Just a slightly smaller life that you experience as a completely normal one. Then: a man on a corner in Northeast D.C. who gave me a name that wasn't his, and what it took to get the real one. One more thing, I need your help naming something. This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    A Slightly Smaller Life | Ken Woodward #96

  7. Aug 6

    Even Socrates Didn't Ask: On the Hidden Power of Questions | Lani Watson #95

    " This aporia, this state of confusion and bafflement, is actually a fantastically exciting, liberating, intellectually stimulating place to be because you're really facing something that you don't know that you thought you did." - Lani Watson Dr. Lani Watson has spent her career on a question most of us never stop to ask. What is a question, and why does it hold such power? Known online as The Questions Doctor, Lani is a philosopher and the author of Q: The Hidden Power of Questions in a World That Wants Answers. In this episode, we sit with the idea that questions are a kind of everyday magic. A power we all carry and rarely notice. They change our brains. They change our relationships. They shape the very answers we receive. We talk about Socrates and the gift of not knowing. We talk about a world racing toward answers, and what we lose when we rush past the question. We talk about who gets to ask, and who does not. Come sit with the questions a while. There is power in the asking, and it belongs to all of us. This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    Even Socrates Didn't Ask: On the Hidden Power of Questions | Lani Watson #95

  8. Jul 30

    The Station Never Called: The Listener's Question | Ken Woodward #94

    "Listening is not real until the listener makes a sound back." - Ken Woodward A sound-powered telephone runs on nothing but the sound of your own voice. No battery. No amplifier. I served on submarines, and I never forgot the joke we played on every new sailor: we sent him hunting the whole ship for batteries that do not exist. The power was in him the entire time. He only had to speak. This is a solo episode about listening. About the repeat-back, the discipline of saying a message back until it lands correctly. About a 2025 study that found the follow-up question is the clearest sign that real listening is happening. About what Dr. Haru Yamada taught me, that to ask and to listen are one motion. And it is about one officer I served with, a question I never asked him, and why I let it go unasked. The circuit is always live. Who is the station you have never called? This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com. Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions?)) Keep questioning!

    The Station Never Called: The Listener's Question | Ken Woodward #94
See All (102)

Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions Hosted by Ken Woodward, Curated Questions is a thought-provoking podcast that celebrates the art and science of asking profound questions. This podcast is for curious minds who understand that the right question can unlock new perspectives and drive personal growth. What to Expect Insightful Conversations: Experts from diverse fields share their journey in mastering the craft of inquiry, revealing how it has transformed their lives and careers. Practical Techniques: Gain valuable skills to improve your questioning abilities, applicable in both personal and professional settings. Thought-Provoking Topics: Explore how questions shape leadership, personal transformation, and societal discourse. Why Listen? In an age of abundant information, Curated Questions reminds us that true wisdom lies in asking better questions. This podcast will help you: 1. Enhance critical thinking 2. Improve communication 3. Gain new perspectives on complex issues 4. Develop a nuanced understanding of the world Join Ken Woodward and his guests as they explore the transformative power of thoughtful inquiry. Curated Questions is more than just a podcast – it's an invitation to embrace curiosity, challenge assumptions, and unlock your full potential through the art of asking better questions. Subscribe now and embark on a journey to master the craft of inquiry, one question at a time. Website: CuratedQuestions.com IG/Threads/YouTube: @CuratedQuestions

Information

You Might Also Like