#99 Wanda Herndon: What Are They Really Asking? | Former Starbucks SVP on the Second Question

" I had to start trying to think beneath the questions: what are they really saying?" - Wanda J. Herndon

Wanda J. Herndon trained as a journalist, then spent forty years on the other side of the notebook. Dow. DuPont. Eleven years as Starbucks SVP of Global Communications while the company grew from 550 stores to more than 11,000.

Her curiosity starts with a middle child in Flint, Michigan, who wore out her siblings asking why. She describes learning, after being misquoted, to ask what a reporter is really asking. She calls listening a discipline she never mastered. And the question that carried her through divorce: what is this moment trying to teach me?

Crisis work as a puzzle solved with who, what, why, when, where, how. Mentoring as a two-way street. Why she always asked Howard Schultz why. Being the CEO of you. Owning Flint rather than letting others define it.

And her right now question: will we survive this chaos, and what can I do to help?

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions)

Keep questioning!

#73 Ken Woodward: Mortar & Pestle: The Fragrance Of An Intentional Life

"There's a difference between avoidance and stewardship of our own attention." - Ken Woodward

When life grinds us down, something essential is revealed. In this solo episode, Ken Woodward explores why questions are the fundamental technology humans use to make sense of a world that has broken wide open.

Drawing from a personal essay about growing up in rural Arizona and the disorienting experience of having a lifelong worldview bubble pop, Ken examines the overwhelming flood of inputs modern life delivers and why not every question in that flood is yours to carry.

He contrasts two kinds of wisdom, the certainty-hardened and the question-exhausted, and makes the case that the most meaningful conversations happen with people who have crossed a difficult threshold and been changed by it. The grinding of life, like a mortar and pestle, doesn't destroy us. It reveals us.

The fragrance was always there, waiting.

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Be sure to subscribe to the weekly Curated Questions Dispatch newsletter for more fun with questions and curiosity! (https://substack.com/@curatedquestions)

Keep questioning!

#57 Jaimie Reese: Building Enduring Trust Through the Questions We Ask!

"When you have a trusting environment, it is exactly to hold each other accountable." - Jaimie Reese

What does it take to build trust in one of the world’s largest bureaucracies? Former U.S. Navy Senior Executive (SES) Jaimie Reese joins Ken Woodward to explore how genuine curiosity and courageous questioning can reshape systems, teams, and lives. From the aftermath of 9/11 to boardrooms and the Pentagon, Reese shares hard-won lessons on leadership, timing, and the art of listening when stakes are high.

Through stories that move from crisis to calm, she unpacks why trust isn’t granted by authority but earned through everyday inquiry—how slowing down, asking better questions, and truly hearing the answers can transform any organization. Jaimie traces the invisible threads between humility, communication, and change, revealing what happens when leaders replace certainty with curiosity.

This episode challenges every listener to reimagine leadership as an ongoing dialogue. Because, as Jaimie reminds us, “Leadership is a conversation you have with the future—one question at a time.”

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Keep questioning!