THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK
A book carried in my mother’s purse. A sequel written thirty-six years later.
The story of this book is a full-circle moment for Greg and me — and we feel a huge sense of purpose behind it.
For most of my childhood, my family's most important book lived inside my mother's purse.
Every Wednesday, at the dinner we called FNO: Family Night Out, she'd reach in, pull out our dog-eared copy of The Book of Questions, and read one aloud. The table would go silent — but only for a moment. Then my brother, my sister, and I would all fight to speak at once. A single question could carry us through the whole night.
I was a shy kid who tried to be invisible at school, but at that table I had a voice.
Years later, during a panic attack on an overseas flight, I made a decision that changed my life: to do one thing every day that scared me. I founded a courage movement, Scare Your Soul — and only much later realized that The Book of Questions was where my courage had begun.
Then, thirty-six years after those dinners, I was on a Zoom call with two hundred strangers when the host mentioned, almost as an aside, that Gregory Stock was in the room. I found him among the faces: white-haired, bespectacled, smiling at his camera.
The book my mother had carried in her purse for decades finally had a face. Greg and I became dear friends, and realized we'd spent our lives walking toward the same place from opposite directions — he through questions, me through courage. So we put them together. This book is what happened.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Scott Simon
Founder, Scare Your Soul
Somewhere over the Atlantic, in the grip of a panic attack, Scott Simon made a decision that changed his life: every day, he would do one thing that scared him. He hasn't missed a day since.
That vow became Scare Your Soul, the courage movement he founded to help people grow braver through small, deliberate acts. For more than fifteen years he has studied and taught what it means to live courageously, weaving positive psychology and behavioral science with the real stories of people choosing braver lives. His book Scare Your Soul: 7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life was published by Hachette.
He has led courage experiences for the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, Logitech, Ritz-Carlton, SXSW, and Progressive Insurance, among many others. A proud Cleveland native, he still finds the best questions at the dinner table.
Gregory Stock, Ph.D.
Creator of The Book of Questions
Questions have been Gregory Stock's passion since childhood. His question books are modern classics, with over five million copies sold in twenty-five languages — and twenty-two of the famous "36 Questions That Lead to Love" were drawn from their pages.
He holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins and an MBA from Harvard, and has written more than sixty papers and three influential books on technology, ethics, and the life sciences. He has spoken at the Royal Society, TED, the Vatican, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton, and made more than a thousand media appearances, from Oprah to Science Friday.
He is now harnessing the power of questions to deepen how we understand ourselves and one another.
Ready to start asking?
