What calls you? Love & openness.
ordinary wonder & peak wonder at play
Dear Tracker:
Thanks for being here.
A warm welcome to new readers, subscribers, and members - some who came through our Deepen Your Focus & Flow at Work Cohort (kicking off tomorrow) and some from the latest essay series, “How mid-lifers have more courage to enter the Wonder Zone, Part 1.”
What are we seeking together here at The Wonder HUB?
“I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” - Joseph Campbell
Lately, I have tracked moments with my younger daughter (11). Like a newfound bedtime ritual.
What does a bedtime ritual have to do with your creative, entrepreneurial, or leadership path? Or with the “rapture of being alive”?
Maybe everything. I’ve been tracking especially moments and activities both of “rapture” and of ordinary wonder.
Each week I work with such trackers:
»> The entrepreneur or startup founder who seeks feeling alive in their endeavor - and with their family.
»> The leader who seeks an abiding love in the organization and team - and with their friends and creative endeavors outside of work.
»> The person in transition who’s worked for non-profits for a decade and has been furloughed and seeks what’s next in work and life.
Here’s my working premise for this Wonder Dispatch: By tracking the small, “ordinary” moments of wonder as well as the peak “rapture” experiences, we might learn where our deepest energy and purpose live. Those signals can point us toward the work we can both love and that loves us back.
This week in the Wonder Dispatch:
»> Jeffrey’s Main Wonder: moving toward openness & love in life and work
On Jeffrey and Team TW’s Curiosity Radar
»> Last Chance to retrain your brain to focus in the Deepen Your Focus & Flow at Work cohort
When the COVID surge hit a hospital near Brescia, Italy, civil engineer Cristian Fracassi and his partner were called to action. The hospital had a dire shortage of respirator valves, and they wanted Fracassi’s help. The challenge? Their small 3D‐printing shop was accustomed to making bicycles and bandages, plus they had eight hours to design parts that precisely mix airflow into patients’ lungs.
“We were very afraid,” Fracassi recalls in my interview with him. Yet, seeing doctors’ desperation spurred them to “trick our minds and put aside fear.” Their first prototype was rough but functional. A tense half‐hour later, the doctor emerged: “It works.” They delivered a hundred more, free of charge.
Then they did something braver. They open-sourced the design for global use. Support from major companies rolled in. “When people thank us, ‘100 people breathe because of you,’ it’s better than a Nobel Prize,” Fracassi says. “We discovered the world is big and a friend when you try to do good.” In that moment of courageous curiosity, he found both purpose and a love for the world.
Cristian’s valve sprint was Peak Wonder in action as every ounce of focus, courage, and care poured into saving lives. And in so doing, he discovered a greater love in work and in the world. That love seems to ripple. Recently, when he was awarded a special honor, the honoree noted, “Technology and innovation at the service of people is good for the ❤️ and maybe it also makes sense to my job when at certain moments I wonder what’s the point of keeping fighting!” Her admiration - a surprising love for someone’s excellence - also reminded her of her purpose.
Yet wonder also lives in the ordinary moments we rush past. Case in point: Cristian’s recent celebration of new life opens him with love and purpose perhaps even deeper.
Peak experiences can ignite purpose, and ordinary wonders can sustain it.
But what if as you pursue what brings you alive, the world doesn’t love you back? Or a part of the world doesn’t? That’s the killer question, isn’t it?
I know a composer whose work channels the planet’s pulse. Imagine Meredith Monk translating desert insects into haunting vocal landscapes-meets-an experiential composer. He has long followed his young genius reverence for earth, delight, beauty. Audiences are enraptured. Yet some peers have sneered that his music isn’t “serious” or “modern” enough.
That condescension cuts deep if you’ve ever felt the sting of a major wonder block: sophistication. You feel small, your vision diminished by their polished detachment. This is sophistication at its worst, a shield of cynicism that says, “Don’t risk being innovative; better to stay safe in the known.”
Cognitive science even names our urge to cling to familiarity as the “familiarity bias.” Given two options - the familiar or the new - we unconsciously choose the familiar even if the new path is better.
But maybe there’s another stance beyond sophistication or cynicism.
Henri Matisse insisted, “Guard the original naiveté… as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love within the lover.” Photographer Jock Sturges confesses, “I’m guilty of extraordinary naiveté… but it’s one I don’t want to abandon.” Creativity researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that true innovators blend keen intellect with childlike openness.
It’s a stance of intelligent naiveté. This “intelligent naiveté” widens our horizons, inviting fresh possibilities.
Consider the composer again: A part of the world does love him and his music back. His audiences, not his critics.
What matters to you? The Work at Hand. The Art at Hand.
Who matters to you? The Audiences who will benefit. Your business’s, brand’s, organization’s, or art’s heroes who will be changed.
The composer realizes that. Despite the sting of sophistication, he embraces his openness, tracks moments of beauty, follows his love for his audience-heroes, and lets wonder outpace cynicism as he pursues what’s next and possible among many opportunities.
What if you did, too? Choose to meet the world with fresh eyes.
My Own Tracking
I’ve noticed where I feel most open, loved, and loving. Last week during an immersive day of focus and flow at work, I took a wonder walk in the woods. It felt like slipping through a portal: eight bird songs greeted me as if in chorus, the rain-swollen stream laughed, and every oak leaf glowed anew. Nature’s gaze pierced straight to my heart.
I’ve also been tracking daily more natural ways to foster love, care, and strength at home.
Sometimes my bond with my younger daughter lags. She tends to be reserved. So I’ve tracked how simple rituals have arisen organically. Lately we play paddle-ball “tournaments” outdoors, as she hones her keen hand-eye coordination. We share laughter and our day’s stories. (I learn a lot this way.) At bedtime, she now asks to be tucked in, and I ask a single question, “What was your day’s highlight?” That question turns bedtime into a moment of connection and insight.
A couple of days before I left for a deep dive retreat recently, she walked into my studio and said seriously, “I miss you already” and handed me a stuffed bunny I had bought her to her surprise during a birthday outing with her friends. It was a totem to take a part of her with me.
This energy is new.
What about you? What ordinary moments of wonder are worth savoring? What signals do they give you about what you love, how you love, and how you’re loved?
It may sound banal and sentimental, but these ordinary moments of wonder show us where love lives and where our calling waits.
Peak & Ordinary Wonder and Love at Work
I tap into a similar openness when I’m in a strategic jam with clients or leading a mastermind or cohort. The buildup to and then delivering a keynote also fuels me with peak purpose.
These are semi-peak moments when ideas flow and we’re all fully present.
Here’s a prompt I share with managers and teams: What part of your work last week truly lit you up? What drew on your strengths or left you surprised by how meaningful it felt? Studies suggest that when just 20% of our work delivers that spark, we’re far more engaged and fulfilled.
20% of peak or ordinary wonder at work.
A nurse reports that she changes a flower arrangement for a patient who is in chronic condition. The patient might not even notice, but the nurse feels purposeful and thoughtful in such a caring gesture. A startup founder redesigned her 1:1s to focus less on task lists and more on each team member’s proudest moment of the week.
The Genius-at-Work question is similar to my asking my daughter’s “highlight” question: a small inquiry that reveals where our work and our lives come alive and care for us in return.
Ordinary wonder at play.
Your Genius at Work, Play, and Life
Here are some sum-up practices for you to experiment with:
The Day’s Highlights: Each night, ask yourself, “What was today’s highlight?” and jot down one to three moments of ordinary wonder.
Peak Signals: Once a week, recall a high-exertion challenge, opportunity, or breakthrough (e.g. Fracassi’s joy) and note what fueled it.
Naiveté Check: When a new idea scares you, pause and name one assumption you’re suspending to stay wide-eyed open and curious.Genius Q: End each week by asking, “What lit me up?”
“Your Turn to Wonder”
Which small moment today stirred your sense of wonder, and which bold ‘rapture’ will you pursue this coming week?
Let me know what resonates with you in the Wonder HUB comments section, or hit reply via email. I aim to respond to everyone.
From a Reader Last Week in response to Get a Handle on Complexity:
“Good morning, and thank you for this, Jeff.
I seldom reply to these emails because who has the time? Seriously, I've only recently resumed checking this inbox.
I sat with my calendar for the week, scheduled 2-3 Focus & Flow blocks, and identified a single, doable task for completion for each block.
Seems intuitive, but I am increasingly learning that my brain is hardly wired like most, so thank you for the gems in this email. I trust that this method will help me harness the complexity of what I am trying to accomplish, versus delaying and procrastinating, this season.”
Thank you for letting me know!
Hit reply or…
Let’s Focus & Flow Together
Quick announcement: Tomorrow begins the Deepen Your Focus & Flow at Work Cohort. You can take the course on your own, and if you wish you can take advantage of the robust live events and community engagement, too. But take your seat today. We start tomorrow. Alum and Premium members of The Wonder HUB receive a discount. Reach out to get your CODE or check your inbox. Upgrade to paid if you’re not already.
On Our Curiosity Radar
Send us a resource or link that you think readers of a future Dispatch would get curious about. We’ll give you credit.
»> Tracking Wonder on the climbing wall - Northface Athlete Sam Elias said that Tracking Wonder is the book most influencing him these days. A cool way to be read.
»> Ravens, debt, and Ordinary Mind (Your 1 Life | Matt Vest } Substack) - This post captures “ordinary mind” at play in way that overlays with ordinary wonder
»> On the Degrading Effects of Life Online (After Babel | Jonathan Haidt | Substack) - Haidt takes a “hard” look at social media and how he thinks it makes us worse people - not unlike what Sam Harris admitted about what Twitter made of him
I appreciate you, your support, and your showing up for the work that contributes your verse.
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Thanks for running with me,
Jeffrey
Uplevel your support and receive discounts for cohorts and workshops, ongoing useful worksheets, paid-only essays & articles & Shots of Wonder, our comments for connection. And just a good feeling of being a publishing patron and partner to spread this thing called wonder in a world that needs it. Regardless, I’m glad you’re here. - J
I love this melding of peak and "ordinary" experiences. We can say yes(!) to both because both feel so important - peak to gain perspective, ordinary to relish each moment of our lives anew. Thanks for the shout-out, too! :)