The Value of Curiosity with Latif Nasser

Latif Nasser:
You have to ask the right question, the right question. If you frame it exactly right, all of a sudden it goes from being some cosmic unanswerable thing to being a very tangible thing that you can actually go look up and find out the answer to.

Mathieu Yuill:
Good day and welcome to the Leading With Nice podcast. My name is Mathieu Yuill. Today we’re talking to Latif Nasser, the Director of Research at the New York Public Radio Show Radiolab, but that only scratches the surface of who he is and what he does. I invited Latif on today because of his value of curiosity recently displayed on Netflix’s science documentary show Connected, which he hosts and executive produces. Latif, welcome to the show today.

Latif Nasser:
Thanks for having me.

Mathieu Yuill:
The reason why when I first was introduced to Connected and watched, I think I binged like three or four episodes. Finally in bed, my wife was finally like, “Turn off the computer.” But I loved it. And what really enticed me is I was like, “Man, this guy is seeing something and asking questions.” I personally really value curiosity. I think it’s a great leadership trait because great leaders, they want to know more about the things that they think matters. Do you think yourself as being a person who’s curious in things, and have you felt that way for a long time? Have you always been that way?

Latif Nasser:
I do value curiosity. I think curiosity, it’s one of my core values. It happens to be true for me all the time. I’m always curious about everything, but I think ultimately, it’s an important force and I think that it’s… I do think it’s something about sort of my nature, but now it’s also like my livelihood.

Mathieu Yuill:
Was this a thing you had, even as a little kid? Would your parents say, “Oh, he was always asking questions are always looking into things.” Or is this something maybe you developed as an adult?

Latif Nasser:
Yeah, it’s funny now with kids. I do think that I was a fairly curious kid, but now with a three year old myself, I’m like, “I think they’re all curious kids.” I think every kid is curious. The number of questions per minute that I get from my kid. I feel like I know what my interview subjects feel like now. I do think that so many of us, we do have these questions and then as you grow up, you kind of get almost inured to them or you kind of… I like so many other people, you sort of walk down the street, I think, and you get these questions. You’re like, “Oh, why is that that way? Why does this look this way? Or here’s a new thing. I never even thought of that. I wonder how that came to be.” Or you have one of a dozen types of questions.

Latif Nasser:
I think that the difference between me and a lot of kind of other people or at least maybe the journalists and a lot of other people is it’s like, “Oh, taking those questions seriously, writing them down and thinking about them later.” Now we’re at a point where most people, I think they’ll probably whip out their phone. Maybe they’ll they’ll Google it. And then it’ll be like, “Okay, I got the first answer that was on Google and I’m pretty satisfied with that.” Curiosity, in a way, it’s like having the impulse for that question in the first place. But then it’s also like, I care about this enough that I’m going to take it seriously. I’m going to pursue it. I’m going to pursue it farther and harder and longer than just the first Google search result.

Mathieu Yuill:
Yeah. That’s fascinating. And actually, it already speaks to, and I’ll follow up with this. You have a new show coming out, The Other Latif, where you talk about a gentlemen detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay, and you talked about it being on your mind for many years. It was almost like an insatiable thirst that you couldn’t quench. You described it as being like your hardest story that you’ve done. So I’m curious about the depth of desire that you had to answer these questions and find out more.

Latif Nasser:
Yeah. Well, so that story, the way that that happened was it was late 2016, maybe early 2017. Around then. I was on Twitter and I saw somebody tweet about me, but it was directed to… They were tweeting at the President of the United States and they were tweeting about me. I was like, “What?” And I just did not understand the tweet. I was like, “What does this mean? Why would somebody be saying anything about me to the president?” And it just didn’t make sense. So I kind of followed it up and it turned out that obviously it was not about me. It was about a different guy who had my same name and who happened to be a detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Mathieu Yuill:
And your name is unique. Like there’s not a lot.

Latif Nasser:
There’s not a lot of people with my name. Exactly. So it felt weird. All of a sudden, I wanted to know everything I could about this guy. Like, who is this guy? How should I feel about him? Because I’ve never had as sort of a name doppelganger before. What should I feel about this guy? So I Googled him and there was almost nothing about him. All the results were about me. Then I saw there were just a few results about him. What I found was actually like kind of… It was creepy. I found these WikiLeak documents where it said that he was basically Al-Qaeda’s top explosives expert on aid to Osama bin Ladin, a pretty long and damning rap sheet. That was like, Oh my God, like I share my name with this boogeyman almost. Just like this guy who wreaked a lot of havoc in the world and killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of… Just destroyed a lot.

Latif Nasser:
Then I managed to, because I didn’t have a sense of him as a person in a way, and so contacted his lawyer. When I did that, she told me basically the exact opposite story. Everything I had read in that document was wrong, that this guy had never been in Al-Qaeda. He didn’t know Osama bin Laden. He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time and got swept up, sold to the United States for a bounty. And that he had been in Guantanamo for, if you count now, almost 18 years, 19 years with no trial with no charges, no nothing. So I had these two portraits. What made that even more extreme is that in 2016, he had been cleared by the US government, unanimously cleared, to go back to his home in Morocco.

Latif Nasser:
Yet this guy, despite that clearance, they still were holding him at Guantanamo Bay. To me, I was like, none of this makes sense. So I was just like, there’s something here that I need to know more about. And it felt like for me as a journalist… I mean, it was definitely led by my curiosity, but it also felt like, oh God, if I don’t cover this story, nobody else is going to cover this story. It took years, as you said, but ultimately I made it.

Mathieu Yuill:
That brings me to another question I had about your story. I appreciate the commitment to finding this information, being curious and then taking action. But so often it’s just as easy to look at the potential road ahead and not take action, even if you are curious. I think that’s what separates people who don’t lead to be leaders. Also I define leaders as people that influence others. So you don’t have to be the CEO or the director of this or executive of that. So that’s how I use that language.

Mathieu Yuill:
I love the story of… Because it’s so humbling. I think I saw it on YouTube. You were talking to your graduating class at Dartmouth and you talked about how you had done some school looking to do grad work and weren’t really getting accepted to your choices. Then one of your professors said, “Well, how about this Harvard’s history of science department and doing something there?” There would have been a moment of hesitation. Like do you do it, do you not do it? Tell me about that gap between hearing about or learning about something that makes you curious and taking action. What’s in the middle there?

Latif Nasser:
Yeah, to me, I mean, that’s a sort of unusual case in the sense that… So it’s 2008, the economy was in really bad shape. I also didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was like, I am not prepared to go out and get a job. I don’t know what job that would be. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and the places I wanted to go, which were these playwriting graduate schools. They didn’t want to take me. So I was like, I got to do something. Then my professor said, “Hey, why don’t you do this program?” And I was like, “History of science at Harvard. I didn’t even know that was a field.”

Latif Nasser:
But then once he kind of planted the seed of the idea, I thought, “Hey, that’s something I’m actually interested in.” And interested enough to what I thought was at the time like, oh, I parked my brain there in a way for a year or two until I figure out what I actually want to do. Yeah. But to me, I mean, that was actually just a kind of, I’m embarrassed to say, that wasn’t like a calling or anything. It was just like, oh God, what do I do? It’s like you’re being chased down the street and you just duck into a store or something to be like, “Okay, I guess here.” But it turned out being like a terrific choice in part, because like the thing you were saying before about like taking action on that curiosity. I think that one of the biggest things I took away from graduate school was how to research. So it’s like how to take that question seriously.

Latif Nasser:
We all have these questions about so many things and it’s like, what do you do? Like how do you start? That can be very difficult, but what I learned was okay, you got to frame the question a certain way and then there’s all kinds of different sources. If it’s a historical question, you have secondary sources and primary sources and there are alive people you can talk to. There are oral histories and there are just all kinds of different sources. What are the benefits and limitations of all those different kinds of sources? How do you weave them together to kind of make a strong narrative or a strong case to find that answer to that question that really started you in the first place? Although sometimes by the time you get there, you realize, oh, wait a second. The original question I had wasn’t even the most interesting question at all. But yeah, I think a real value of grad school was getting the kind of muscle to follow up on those questions. It’s like, okay, here I have a question, but now I know what to do with it.

Mathieu Yuill:
You said something in the middle of your answer there that I really value as well is… You didn’t say it in these words, but my interpretation is sometimes you ask a question and you get an answer, but you’re like, “Oh, maybe I didn’t ask that question the right way.” So when I’m stuck, I actually take a physical, different posture. I move my body to kind of help me ask the same question, but maybe in a slightly different way, and that sometimes you end up with a different answer than what you originally even thought you were pursuing.

Latif Nasser:
Oh yeah. I think there’s a real value in that. You know what? I’m sure to people who are not used to this kind of research or work, it looks like I’m just banging my head against a brick wall, but it turns out it’s like, no, no, no, no. They’re like slightly different angles that I’m banging my head here. It’s actually what you realize is that the wall is cracked in such a way that if you hit your head on this brick wall in just the right way, this whole wall is coming down. You have to ask the right question. The right question, really, like if you frame it exactly right, all of a sudden it goes from being some cosmic unanswerable thing to being a very tangible thing that you can actually go look up and find out the answer to.

Latif Nasser:
The line between those that is sort of fuzzy and sometimes you think you’re asking one kind of question and you actually end up you’re asking another one. But to me, the question is the sharpest tool. It’s one of those things where it’s like, if you have to cut a tree down in 24 hours, you spend 23 hours and 55 minutes sharpening the blade. And then all you need is then the five minutes to cut down the tree because the blade is the important thing. The question needs to be sharp and then you’re going to get what you want.

Mathieu Yuill:
I love that. Sharpen the saw. That’s great. For listeners who don’t know, definitely check out Connected on Netflix. One of the beauties of that show is Latif takes different stories and weaves them together into a theme to tell a bigger story. But what I find fascinating is individually, some of the stories may not be that interesting and probably have never had somebody even ask them. And I think specifically, I think it’s the first or second episode, the woman who researches like ancient human poop. I often say people’s favorite topic is themselves. How do you help people who probably have never been talked to before in a manner like what you’re bringing, how do you help them actually tell their story well?

Latif Nasser:
Well, yeah, it’s funny you say that and especially for that segment. So is that the phrase that I would always hear, very parallel to what you’re saying, is research is me search. It’s like there’s something personal about it. There’s something that has driven you to devote your life, which is the most precious resource you have in a way, like years of your life to study this thing. It’s funny that segment in particular, that scientist, Ainara Sistiaga, a brilliant woman. It’s funny because we were talking and this was on camera, but we didn’t end up using it. But she eats a paleo diet actually, which is so funny. Of course she does, right? It makes total sense. That’s what she studies and that’s what she thinks is the most beneficial kind of diet. Right?

Mathieu Yuill:
I’m so sad that wasn’t in the show because that’s amazing.

Latif Nasser:
I know. I know. We tried really hard to put it in there, but just the way that it came out in the interview, it didn’t come out in exactly the right way. But it was amazing. Like it was perfect. I wanted desperately to put it in, but it didn’t quite fit.

Mathieu Yuill:
I feel that’s my favorite part of this episode so far is I learned that information. That’s amazing.

Latif Nasser:
Yeah, no. I know. She’s wonderful. She’s so great.

Mathieu Yuill:
Again, if you haven’t listened, I’ll forgive you if you stop this right now and go watch. I think it might even be the same episode. This who researches birds in the Northeastern United States, I believe. Maine, Delaware or something like that. They literally tell the future. It’s so cool. Stop right now because I guarantee you it is time well spent.

Mathieu Yuill:
You’re a dad. Before we started recording, we were talking about you have two young boys. I have three boys. My joke is people say, “Oh, are you going for a team?” I say, “Yes, a football team.” One of the joys of parenthood, we have a lot of listeners, I know are parents through our conversations when they reach out. So you clearly value this curiosity and you’ve talked about it being a nature versus nurture thing where we all kind of have it intrinsically. In fact, I bet if you’re listening right now, I bet you can remember a time when, as a younger person, you just had this thirst to learn or do something and you would, at the behest of [inaudible 00:15:49], you would go after learning about that thing, maybe it was like what’s over the fence in this backyard? Or how deep is this river? Or something.

Mathieu Yuill:
But I want to ask Latif, because you’re in a great position to do it right now and you might be thinking to the future, how are you going to promote this value of lifelong curiosity, encourage them not to give it up and to remain curious? Or maybe you won’t, but I’m imagining you might.

Latif Nasser:
Yeah, I think that’s right. Just watching kids, I do think that we all have this pension for curiosity as kids. I do think that even as adults, I think there are some timeless questions that in a way, no matter who you are, questions about death, questions about illness, questions about how similar or different you are to other people, to the people around you, to the people across the globe. There are these questions that I think all of us kind of ask or at least they’re kind of in the background noise of our lives.

Latif Nasser:
I think that the trick is, it’s not about the drive to have that question. I really do think all of us have that in us. I think it’s like, how do we foster that? How do we encourage ourselves to take the extra moment of our very busy lives to indulge that? I think a huge part of that, I mean, partly I think it’s the way we educate our children. We fetishize answers in our schooling. The kid who’s the first to raise their hand to give the answer, filling the bubbles on the standardized test. We’re so obsessed with getting the right answer as opposed to being able to generate a good question. I think that is such a crucial skill and is such an important and a lifelong skill. I think we really need to kind of foster that both in schools but also at home. I think even in workplaces, among adults, I think there’s a real value to being able to ask questions out loud and to share with people.

Latif Nasser:
It’s not just a value. I think there’s also a pleasure in it. There’s a pleasure that comes from learning something new, from asking the right question. For me in the way that we built this series, the hope is that it feels like every time, we kind of pepper it in with questions and then sometimes you get answers to those questions and sometimes you don’t frankly. But when you do, it feels like you’re clicking in a little puzzle piece and it just exactly fits. That feeling, there is a kind of satisfaction that comes out of that that we all have. But somehow as adults, most of us adults I think have forgotten.

Mathieu Yuill:
We’ve talked a lot. I want to let you get going, but tell me what should people be checking out of yours right now and where can they find it?

Latif Nasser:
Yeah. The two big things that I’m working on right now or that I just released really within the last few months is one is my TV show, which you can find at netflix.com/connected, and that’s six episodes on Netflix. Then the other thing is, so I work for and I regularly contribute to the show Radiolab. Earlier this year, we put out a mini series called The Other Latif, which also, if you’re looking at podcasts, you can look for it through the Radiolab feed or through its own feed, The Other Latif, and both of those are up and out now.

Mathieu Yuill:
Latif, I want to thank you so much. One of the big takeaways I’ve gotten, not only from this conversation, but from listening and seeing your work is you really see people. You see them for who they are. You are curious to know more about them and truly know more about them. You’re not asking questions so that you can set yourself up to then talk about you. I think from a leadership principle, that is such a powerful way to approach a conversation with somebody. I just want to encourage you if you’re listening today, definitely go check out Connected. Check out The Other Latif. Of course, with the entertainment, but take away that ethos of really wanting to hear and see the other person, because that is a rare gift, which I think can be taught and can be learned. Latif does does a great example of demonstrating that. Latif, thank you so much for joining us today.

Latif Nasser:
My pleasure. Really my pleasure.

Mathieu Yuill:
I want to thank our listeners. To learn more about this topic, visit leadingwithnice.com and on our way out, I want to thank the people that help make this podcast come together. Jeff Anhorn, Andrew Park, Austin Pomeroy. They all are involved in the production of this, and I’m so grateful for them. For Leading With Nice, my name is Mathieu Yuill, and we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. Talk to you next time.