Live curious.

“How to Catch a Whale” is about wonder. 

The idea of writing in the theme of “how to catch a whale” struck me in 2015 when my girlfriend made a reservation at Seattle’s favorite How To Cook A Wolf. Our dinner at the restaurant was lovely, and to our delight, no parts of a wolf were consumed.

It is a small Italian restaurant by Ethan Stowell, paying tribute to M.F.K. Fisher’s classic cookbook of the same name. Fisher’s book inspired families during war times to create delicacies out of simple ingredients where the “wolf” was a metaphor for hunger. In many ways the book demonstrates the essence of innovation: to solve a real need, to be scrappy and frugal, and to invent with love and joy. It takes extraordinary imagination and optimism to capture the opportunities often gone unseen by others.

If “How to Cook a Wolf” is about innovation, then “How to Catch a Whale” is about wonder. The “whale” here stands for the big hairy audacious goals (BHAG) in life, those crazy ideas seemingly out of reach, or those non-obvious questions challenging us to think out of the box. It celebrates curiosity - human’s ability to ask questions to gain a new perspective even though it might be uncomfortable.

“It takes the discipline and bravery to question what we see, what we have, and what we believe that constrains us.”

Why writing about curiosity? Because asking the right questions gets us to focus on the right thing and go further. Aristotle said that "when you ask a dumb question, you get a smart answer”. “I wonder why apples fall into the ground” got Newton to coin the concept of gravity. “I wonder how we can send humans onto the moon in ten years” motivated tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, and astronauts. “I wonder what I can do to be more resilient to setbacks”, Jia Jiang got himself into an 100-rejection challenge, to push himself to be more comfortable with setbacks (see his TED talk). In many people’s eyes, he was out of his mind to “disgrace” himself in public, until he stuck out and started a movement of living fearlessly. In 2015, I wondered what I could build with my passion in consumer products and my obsession about ”quality time”, which means the time one spends with oneself and/or their loved ones. Three and half years later, I am working along with a small team of passionate technologists, designers, and product geniuses to turn the idea into reality, and we are still growing and learning.

“How to Catch a Whale” sets out to ask questions like these, and embrace the journey of discovery without being smothered by the pressure to find the smart answer. Each quest celebrates the essence of curiosity: the discipline and bravery to question what we see, what we have, and what we believe that constrains us.

Apple’s ad campaign in 1997 pressed to “think different”: to think in a different manner. Now, let’s live curious.

What are the ”whales” you want to catch?