In this engaging conversation, Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff discusses her book ‘Tiny Experiments’ and explores the themes of curiosity, purpose, and personal growth. She shares her own awakening experience that led her to question her life choices and emphasizes the importance of embracing imperfection and experimentation. The discussion also delves into the dangers of having a singular purpose, the duality of time (Kronos vs. Kairos), and the significance of self-observation in understanding one’s life. Through practical advice and insights, the conversation encourages listeners to approach life with curiosity and openness to change. 

One of the things that I love about this book is the way you talk about how non-linear the process is for someone who appears successful.  

“Absolutely. You hear a lot of stories and there is a temptation once you get to a place where you’re quite happy with what your life, your work, your career in general looks like, there’s a temptation to simplify the story, to create a nice narrative where it looks like it was almost unavoidable that you would end up here. It’s just nicer. We love stories as human beings, right? So, we like crafting these stories. This is why I always try to make an effort to really be faithful to what actually happened and to actually honor the messiness of the process. And what happened after I left my job at Google, I wish I could tell you, yeah, and then I figured it out, and I found what I wanted to do next. But the reality is that I fell back straight away into the same patterns that I was following at Google.” 

And often it’s in those non-linear spaces where really interesting opportunities lie. 

“It created a liminal space. It created an in-between where for the first time in my entire life, I had to admit to myself that I was completely lost. I had no idea what I wanted to do next. I thought this was going to be terrifying, but it turns out it was one of the most liberating experiences of my entire life. And this is what opened the door to what came next. The exploration, the experimentation, the going back to university, studying neuroscience, starting writing online and working on a lot of projects where seeking success, seeking certainty, seeking control was not the goal anymore. I was just following my curiosity.” 

You write about the tyranny of purpose. That term might be startling to people who believe that a purpose is incredibly important to a life well lived. 

“The idea of a singular purpose is very dangerous. One of the problems is that first, if you haven’t found your purpose, you feel miserable. You compare yourself with all of these other people who obviously know what they’re doing with their lives. And you feel like maybe your life doesn’t have as much meaning. Maybe you don’t have the same sense of self-worth because you’re comparing again the life that you have right now, seemingly without purpose compared to the life other people are projecting, where they look like they know what they’re doing, they love what they do, they wake up every morning and they’re passionate about their work, they’re changing the world. So that’s one part of why it’s so dangerous. Another reason why it is dangerous is that when you put all of your eggs in the same basket, so even if you do find that purpose, what happens when that part of your life doesn’t work out as expected?” 

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