Podcast
Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions!
Hosted by Ken Woodward · EN
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
30episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
What You Know Changes What You Can Ask | Ken Woodward #83
6d ago00:21:33Tap to summarize"A good answer can close a loop. A good question opens one." - Ken WoodwardWhat if the quality of your questions has less to do with how curious you are and more to do with how much you know?A recent study from the Technion in Israel tracked 68 students over a semester of Introduction to Psychology. Researchers measured not just what students learned, but how their question-asking changed. The findings are worth sitting with. Domain-specific questions got sharper, more original, more complex. General questions did not improve. In some cases, they declined.Knowledge doesn't flatten curiosity. It sharpens it.This episode traces that finding through 32 years of Navy acquisition, through 1,300 conversations on a 2,085-mile walk through Washington DC, and through a conversation with Seth Godin about tension, rubber bands, and the question that only becomes possible after the preparation is done.The argument is simple. You don't become a better questioner by wanting to ask better questions. You become one by learning more about what you're walking into.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 MentionedRaz, T. & Kenett, Y.N. (2026). Knowledge reshapes inquiry by changing question asking ability and impacting academic assessment. *npj Science of Learning*, 11, 19. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-026-00402-0Seth GodinRyan HolidayProducer Ben FordBeauty Pill
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Who Told You That Was Good? | Ken Woodward #82
2w ago00:18:41Tap to summarize"My tree was planted in a metal bucket." - Ken WoodwardSome mornings, the ordinary holds the weight of everything. A walk to the garage. An attempt to correct a gait. A drift back to comfort. Ken opens this solo episode with that image and asks why returning to comfort is the default setting of an adult life.Drawing on the work of Nigerian-born British photographer and activist Misan Harriman, Ken investigates the mourning that accompanies genuine personal growth. The mourning for the world you thought you believed in. The mourning for the person you were sure was good enough.Ken traces his own reckoning through the identities that once added up to a clean equation. Each one a nutrient in the soil he was given. Each one another layer of metal on the bucket his tree was planted in. Growing. Just with no room to expand.This episode is about noticing the bucket. Cracking it open. And dragging your roots toward soil that can actually hold them.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 MentionedMisan HarrimanHarriman Instagram PostHeraclitusProducer Ben
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What the Machine Can't Hold | Ken Woodward #81
3w ago00:22:27Tap to summarize"Some questions need eye contact. Some questions need silence. Some questions need the telltale crack in our own voice that tells you, you've finally said something true." - Ken WoodwardWe live in a moment when almost any question can be answered instantly, eloquently, and for free. That is a remarkable thing. It is also worth examining carefully.In this episode, Ken Woodward draws a distinction between two kinds of questions: tool questions, which AI handles brilliantly, and threshold questions, which require something the machine cannot provide. Time. Risk. The sound of your own voice saying something true for the first time.This is not an episode about the dangers of AI. It is an episode about the quiet cost of convenience, what we give up when we trade a live, risky question for a fast, polished answer. And what it looks like to protect the capacity for wonder in an age that makes outsourcing almost everything feel like efficiency.Three practices. A few guardrails. And one question to carry with you when you close the machine.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 MentionedClaire BrownThe Art Engager PodcastCole Arthur RileyProducer Ben FordBeauty Pill
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Still Asking: Ten Lessons From A Decade With Questions | Ken Woodward #80
4w ago00:33:08Tap to summarize"Claiming your agency to question is a renegade step into your full humanity." - Ken WoodwardApril 12, 2016, marked the first public demonstration of Kenneth Woodward's obsession with questions. A decade, 80 episodes, and 140,000 downloads later, he returns to the shoreline to share what a decade of study, conversation, and lived experience has washed up at his feet.From a daily inquiry blog that cost him sleep, to 1,300 conversations across 2,085 miles of Washington D.C. streets, to podcast conversations with some of the world's deepest thinkers, questions have been the through line.In this milestone solo episode, Kenneth offers ten honest observations about questions, how they create space, signal desire for change, exercise agency, and reveal what we most need to face. Not conclusions from a master, but mile markers from a fellow pilgrim still very much on the road.The practice continues. So does the asking.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!
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Who Benefits From Me Believing This? | Andrew Caulk #79
Apr 1601:56:35Tap to summarize"It is easier simply to tell the truth, even if you've made a mistake, because what it does is build credibility over time." - Andrew CaulkWhat happens when the questions leaders most need to ask are the ones they're most afraid to voice? Andrew Caulk spent two decades in the Air Force as an information strategist, and he's seen how institutions, military, political, and personal, manage their narratives by avoiding the hardest inquiries.In this conversation, Andrew and Ken explore how misinformation and disinformation actually work, why truth is more strategically sustainable than deception, and how the attention economy is quietly rewiring our ability to think slowly.Andrew shares what senior leaders refused to ask aloud in military war games, what the casualty projections for a Taiwan conflict actually look like, and why American will to fight may be the most underexamined variable in geopolitical strategy.The conversation also turns to children, curiosity, and how the questions we allow, or suppress, in our homes shape the next generation's capacity to navigate a noisy world.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 Cognitive Strategy Group Right to Forget LawHelio Fred GarciaInside The Manosphere documentary Battlefield Three Ad Fontis Media Bias Chart Trust Me, I'm Lying by Ryan HolidayAnchorman 2 BloombergWall Street JournalAssociated Press (AP)ReutersThe Economist SCOTUSblog FreakonomicsGround News Planet Word Museum cognitive strategy group.com Being Human Church Dr. Kori SchakeJim MattisAndrew Caulk on LinkedInProducer Ben FordBeauty Pill
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The Question Asked in the Wrong Room | Ken Woodward #78
Apr 900:22:24Tap to summarize"Those scripts are not wisdom. They are load-bearing walls for other people's power." - Ken WoodwardEvery room has a question nobody asks. Sometimes that's a failure of courage. Sometimes it's something else entirely, a hierarchy so explicit it pre-sorts who is permitted to speak before anyone opens their mouth.In this episode, Ken reflects on a $100M federal acquisition program derailed by a senior stakeholder who wielded disruption as a weapon. The question that could have changed the outcome existed. It just never reached the person who needed to hear it.Drawing on that experience, a chance conversation with a Vietnamese businessman named Kien, and the current civic moment, Ken explores why we swallow necessary questions, and what it costs us when we do. He offers a ladder of micro-courage for asking harder questions at every level of power, from the private to the public square.One braver question. That's the practice. That's where it starts.Fellow pilgrims, this one's for the rooms we've all been in.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)Keep questioning!
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The Questions We Didn't Ask Our Grandmothers | Jenny Chan #77
Apr 201:09:32Tap to summarize"The most powerful questions aren't really the ones that demand an answer, but really demand a presence." - Jenny ChanJenny Chan founded Pacific Atrocities Education after her grandmother's death surfaced a box of wartime relics of military yen, rice rationing coupons, and decades of unexplained anger toward Japanese culture. That inheritance of unasked questions launched Jenny into the hidden history of the Pacific Asian War: comfort women, Unit 731's biological experimentation program, and the postwar immunity deals that let war criminals become CEOs and prime ministers.Jenny's research method centers on presence before inquiry. Sitting with survivors long enough to earn the right to ask hard questions. She sees historical memory not as a burden but as an essential context for understanding today's geopolitical decisions. Her work with survivors, students, and Japanese citizens seeking truth suggests that healing begins when forgotten stories are finally allowed to be told.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!
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The Questions You're Living Inside: How to Stop Answering Questions You Never Chose-Ken Woodward #76
Mar 2600:22:43Tap to summarize"The harm was architectural. It was not a matter of intention. It was a matter of never checking the blueprint before I opened my mouth." - Ken WoodwardThe Questions You're Living Inside: How to Stop Answering Questions You Never Chose is the premise of this week's solo episode.Every question builds a room. Most of us never notice the construction.In this solo episode, Ken Woodward explores what he calls the architecture of questions, the load-bearing assumptions embedded in every question we ask, answer, or inherit. Using a morning commute observation about a flatbed truck carrying prefabricated wall panels, Ken unpacks why the questions shaping our lives were often built by someone else, for someone else's benefit.Through two anchor stories, a painful misheard exchange during his 2,085-mile walk through Washington D.C., and an emotional moment from his conversation with Naomi Campbell of the Right Question Institute, Ken traces the difference between a question's skeleton and its resonance.The invitation is not demolition. It is something prior to answering.Read the blueprint first.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)Keep questioning!
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It's Not The Answers — It's Having the Questions | Phil Liebman #75
Mar 1901:29:02Tap to summarize"It's not having the answers I teach people — it's having the questions. And that just upsets the entire architecture of safe thinking." - Phil LiebmanPhil Liebman spent years being mentored by one of the most relentless questioners he'd ever encountered. It changed everything about how he leads and coaches. In this conversation, Phil unpacks the difference between knowing mode and learning mode, why most of us were systematically educated out of curiosity, and what it actually takes to form a powerful question.He introduces his cycle of curiosity and certainty, a four-quadrant framework that explains why three-quarters of the best thinking happens before any action is taken.Phil shares hard-won lessons from decades of executive coaching, traces his intellectual foundation back to mentor Dr. Lee Thayer, and makes the case that leadership is a performing art, not a management science.The episode closes with a personal health scare that became an unexpected masterclass in what curiosity can do when fear shows up uninvited.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)Keep questioning!Resources MentionedALPS Leadership (https://alpsleadership.com/)Dr. Lee Thayer (https://thethayerinstitute.org/about-us/)Vistage (https://www.vistage.com/)Lynn Borton - Choose to Be Curious podcast (https://lynnborton.com/)Stony Brook University (https://www.stonybrook.edu/)Elon Musk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk)John Cleese (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cleese)Grace Hopper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper)Leonardo da Vinci quote: "It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sit back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."Pablo Picasso (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso)Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center (https://www.msmc.com/comprehensive-cancer-center/)Phil Liebman on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philiprliebman)Producer Ben Ford (https://www.producerbenford.com/)Beauty Pill (https://www.beautypill.com/)
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How Questions Can Save A Fractured Democracy | Eila Park Robertson #74
Mar 1201:37:11Tap to summarize"Lean into courage and see what happens." - Eila Park RobertsonFormer ABC News journalist, award‑winning filmmaker, and crisis communications strategist Eila Park Robertson joins Curated Questions to explore what happens “when listening saves democracy.”Drawing from a childhood navigating violence, immigration, and loneliness, Eila shares how asking genuine questions became her superpower for building trust with people who would never normally talk to the media. She explains why Western culture has forgotten how to listen, how that loss feeds polarization, and what it really takes to build bridges across political and ideological divides, starting with presence, curiosity, and courage.Eila and Ken dive into introverts as secret leaders of the room, why outrage‑only politics is burning us out, and how personal relationships can transform deeply held beliefs. They also explore climate storytelling, South Korea’s fight against authoritarianism, and practical ways to resist despair and rebuild community in an age of fractured attention.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)Keep questioning!Resources MentionedABC NewsAnecdotiaVogue Magazine Wedding ArticleDiane SawyersBarbara WaltersMuammar GaddafiMel GibsonZiwe FumudohDr. Jane GoodallInternational Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)Azzedine Downes, CEO IFAWUnited NationsKelly BoeschEila on Instagram (@eila2.2)Producer Ben FordBeauty Pill
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