Curious about Toronto

by Anton Zuiker on November 10, 2026

I’ve wanted to visit Toronto for nearly 30 years. I finally got there this past weekend.

What, or who, finally got me there was the Stay Curious LIVE workshop by Michael Bungay Stanier, the one-of-a-kind author of The Coaching Habit, a fabulous book that “teaches you how to stay curious a little longer and rush to advice and action a little more slowly.” The book is 10 years old now yet still perfect if, like me, you want to be a better coach or mentor or manager or leader. I’ve read the book a couple of times over the last 18 months, and I’d just participated in MBS’s excellent Bringer Out Their Best course, so I registered for the workshop, cashed in some United miles, and booked myself into a quick weekend trip.

I’m so glad I went.

I got off the plane late Friday morning and walked over to the Union Pearson Express train, then got off a few stops into the city, transferred to the street car (light rail, really) and stepped off in front of Issues Magazine Shop. Since I’m about to retire from Duke and focus my energies on a prototype magazine, I thought I might find some inspiration from the art and food and fashion magazines. I walked out with an issue of Uppercase and an issue of Serviette. (I’ve since learned about Iconic Magazines and Casa Magazines in New York City so may visit Gotham soon, too.)

Stay Curious LIVE was held in The Second City comedy club. My friend Mike Thomas wrote a book about the Chicago Second City so I was glad to be in the funny confines. We got to see the show 100% Real Human and I laughed hard, even at the Toronto traffic jokes. I guess driving on the highway is a nightmare in that city. I don’t know because I walked and rode the excellent public transit.

The workshop was all day Saturday, and it was centered on MBS leading us through a series of exercises. The destination of those was to be the distillation of our chosen personal needs into short phrases, which was perfect for me as I discern the goal of my prototype year ahead: I landed on ‘to hold and to gather’ as a mantra for the magazine I’ll create and the Long Table dinners I’ll host.

Throughout the two days, I engaged in an energizing mix of conversations with others, each person as fascinating and curious as the next. One woman even stepped back in the line to speak with me, and she shared her long career in Canadian public service and awareness of Vanuatu (she’d been a linguistics expert when Vanuatu at independence from its Condominium dual colonizers had turned to Canada for help with English and French translation). That same woman was a doppelgänger for one of my former bosses, and I was chuckling inside since the novel that I’d just finished, Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel, revolves around dual versions of each character.

Michael and his team had clearly organized the event to be conducive to conversation, curiousity, creativity, and connection (and dancing to end the day) I so admired the team for what they accomplished. They reminded me of how I’d approached planning the ScienceOnline conference. Indeed, I told attendees at the beginning of each conference that we’d designed the gathering to be the gathering we wanted to be uplifted by. That’s how I felt at Stay Curious LIVE. A success all around. Thanks, MBS and team.

My hotel for the weekend happed to be the official hotel of the Hockey Hall of Fame, which was about to induct its newest class. I was sitting in the bar after the workshop, drinking a Canadian Old Fashioned (you know, local whiskey and maple syrup) and talking with two guys who’d come from the Maple Leafs vs. Montreal Canadiens game and wanted to talk U.S. politics with me—they knew more about our elections than most Americans—when inductee Keith Tkachuk wandered in.

Oh, Canada!

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