Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and educator whose work explores the neuroscience of curiosity and what it shows us about how to live, learn, and flourish in an uncertain world. She is the founder of Ness Labs, whose weekly newsletter on mindful productivity and lifelong learning is read by more than 100,000 people.
Anne-Laure is the author of Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World (2025), which draws on ancestral philosophy and contemporary neuroscience to argue for replacing rigid linear goals with small, curiosity-driven experiments. Her writing and ideas have been featured in media outlets including Big Think, Forbes, Wired, and on leading podcasts on creativity, productivity, and well-being.
Anne-Laure is a UKRI-funded researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London, where she applies her research on the neuroscience of curiosity to ADHD, AI, mental health, and lifelong learning. She holds a PhD in Psychology & Neuroscience from King’s College London, and before her doctoral research she worked as an executive on Google’s digital health team.
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Episode timestamps:
01:10 Why Curiosity Matters02:32 Systematic Curiosity Defined04:42 Curiosity for Flourishing06:29 Shadow Side and Self Regulation09:21 Metacognition and Reflection12:07 Types of Curiosity Matrix14:35 Distraction and Context15:51 Sponsor Antifragile Academy17:23 Designing Tiny Experiments21:36 From Habits to Tiny Experiments Book23:19 Experimental Mindset Under Uncertainty25:22 Curiosity Profiles and Stress Tolerance28:31 What Makes Experiments Tiny31:02 Redefining Success as Alignment33:52 Finding Curiosity via Self Anthropology36:01 Retrospective Experiments and Reframing39:40 One Experiment to Try This Week40:45 Where to Find Anne Laure