This guide is drawn from Think Like an Explorer, and gives you a taste of it. For the full toolkit, read the book, listen to the audiobook and work through the free PDF study guide.
1. Notice when comfort is shrinking your world
Most people do not decide to stop trying new things. It happens gradually, one familiar choice at a time. Noticing the shrinkage is the first step, and curiosity beats comfort makes the case for choosing the unfamiliar on purpose.
The book is about noticing that shrinkage and pushing back against it.
Try this: List three things you used to do or try that you no longer do, and pick one to bring back.
2. Take small, repeated steps
You do not need a big expedition. Micro-expeditions show how to build an explorer's mindset without leaving home, and small detours lead to big discoveries is a reminder that side routes often matter most.
The book's approach is small, repeated acts of doing the thing that makes you slightly uneasy.
Try this: This week, take a different route, try a food or read a topic you would normally skip.
3. Be curious before you are certain
Certainty ends the search too early. Explorers stay open long enough to see what others miss, which is what curiosity before certainty is about. It is also fine not to have an answer yet: curiosity without immediate answers, and moving toward the question rather than away from it.
The book encourages reigniting curiosity through deliberate exploration.
Try this: Pick a question you have avoided because you don't know the answer, and spend ten minutes on it.
4. Treat uncertainty as interesting, not threatening
Uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it is also where discoveries happen. Exploration without certainty explains why progress rarely comes with guarantees, and courage as a thinking skill looks at what it takes to cross the frontier.
The book makes a practical case for treating uncertainty as interesting instead of threatening.
Try this: Next time you feel unsure, say 'I wonder what happens if...' instead of 'I'm not sure that will work.'
5. Hold your map loosely
Every plan and belief is a map, and maps get things wrong. Explorers stay ready to revise them as they go, which is the idea of maps and territory: when what you find differs from the map, trust the territory.
The book is built on how explorers actually operate: curious about what is ahead, not certain.
Try this: Pick an assumption you are working from and look for one thing in real life that does not fit it.
6. Read mistakes as feedback
Explorers get lost sometimes, and a wrong turn is information about the terrain. The explorer's relationship with failure and failure as feedback show how to read the map of mistakes instead of avoiding it.
The book applies the explorer's mindset to personal growth, relationships and innovation.
Try this: Think of a recent setback and write what it told you about the 'terrain' that you didn't know before.
7. Learn faster than things change
The explorer's advantage is not knowing more at the start, but learning faster along the way. Learning faster than the environment changes is a skill you can build, and it pairs well with the willingness to start before you feel ready.
The book treats exploration, in the physical and the mental sense, as a source of creativity, resilience and growth.
Try this: Choose one skill you want and set a two-week experiment: practise a little each day and note what you learn.
You don't need all seven at once. Pick one, try it this week, and see what opens up. When you want the fuller toolkit, Think Like an Explorer is Book 7 of the Sharper Thinking series, good for readers who have noticed their comfort zone getting smaller and want to actively push back on it. You can read it, listen to it, and work through the free PDF study guide alongside it.