Intention

CHAPTER 11High Performers Are Curious

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”

—Samuel Johnson

Temple Grandin was born in Boston in 1947. From a young age, she was described by those around her as “different.” Her parents took her to see doctors, who initially diagnosed her with “brain damage.” It was only much later that she was told that she was on the autism spectrum.

At the time, her diagnosis came with a recommendation for institutionalization. While her father was ready to follow that advice, her mother didn't want her child taken away from her. While the disagreement on whether to institutionalize Grandin might have contributed to her parents' divorce, society was all the better for it. Due to an insatiable curiosity that she applied to herself and the world around her, Grandin has become an admired public figure, sticking up for the voiceless who are told that their neurodiversity makes them a burden on society.

From an early age, Grandin was profoundly interested in the ways that animals think and interact with their surroundings. While she found it hard to communicate with people, she felt at ease with animals and believed that she could understand their experience of the world. In the early 1960s in the United States, her animal-centered worldview was surprisingly new—no one in the modern agriculture industry had ever cared as deeply as Grandin did, nor had seen the world from her perspective.

Grandin's fascination ...