That is the time of yr when every post, article, and email blast centers across the concept of gratitude.
All of us love encouraging and hopeful stories that highlight humility, appreciation, and generosity of time, money, and spirit. Being grateful for acts of kindness and generosity is compelling and healing, but reasonably than concentrate on this idea directly, I would like to take this time to highlight one other side of gratitude … wonder.
Introducing Elliot
Five months ago I lost my dog, Daisy. She had been my office buddy and considered one of my best friends and co-workers, and when she passed away, my space felt empty.
A few months ago, my husband and I made a decision the time was right for us to welcome a recent dog into our family. We began the journey of visiting animal shelters in our area, leaving somewhat piece of our heart with all of the dogs we met as we looked for the ‘one’ that connected to us each. It took some time, but finally, three weeks ago we met Elliot.
Elliot is an 8 month old mixture of what we expect is a German shepherd and a yellow lab, but quite truthfully we don’t know obviously. What we do know is that he’s a bundle of affection.
Elliot (the name the shelter gave him and we decided to maintain) was found abandoned in an open desert field. After we saw him, he was skinny, wild, and scared, but someway his past hadn’t disturbed his spirit for love and trust.
We connected with him immediately, and despite the fact that we had no intention of adopting a puppy, Elliot happily joined our family the following day.
Transitioning to domestic life was a shock to Elliot.
First, he had never been in a house, and we consider the indoors symbolized entrapment to him, so getting him to come back inside our home took a whole lot of patience, cajoling, and treats.
The following big hurdle was the steps. He was absolutely frightened of the steps once we brought him inside, and for the primary few nights, we carried him up and right down to show him it was secure.
The last big hurdle for him has been walking on a leash. Being a wild puppy meant no restraint, so the primary day we took him on a walk, he was a little bit of a banshee. Thankfully, patience and treats, once more, played (and proceed to play) a giant part in our progress along with his training.
My Training Begins
Having a puppy, and much more so – a wild puppy with no predispositions to all the trimmings of domesticated life, has been a tremendous eye opener for me.
I’ve been taking Elliot on quite a few walks (he has a whole lot of energy to burn), and he’s, thankfully, starting to turn into more comfortable on a leash. It’s work, though, and I miss the simple days of walks with my senior dog who didn’t have energy enough to drag or wander.
While on my walks, I even have a tough time staying within the moment and find myself fascinated with work, and much more, the work I ought to be doing reasonably than occurring yet one more walk.
A number of days ago, after I leashed Elliot up and headed out the door, I intended to be mindful and let my brain rest from work while we walked. As an alternative, nonetheless, I began going through the lists in my mind of all of the things I needed to perform after I got home.
With each step, I grew ever more stressed by my to-do list and that unsettled feeling was exasperated by Elliot’s excitement and distraction as he pulled and crisscrossed on the trail, nearly tripping me at every turn.
At one point, he suddenly lunged ahead and off to the side. As I tripped and caught my balance, I pulled back on the leash to reign him in. To no avail, he happily lunged and lurched from one direction to a different. The zoomies had set in. He went one method to watch a bunny race right into a bush and one other to spy three squirrels chasing one another across the upper branches of a tall tree.
It took a very good 10 minutes to get back on our way, however the world had opened for Elliot and his curiosity kept leading him in recent directions. Each equally necessary and fascinating to him. From bunnies to crows, squirrels, lizards, blowing leaves, and so many pinecones … he was filled with wonder.
After 20 minutes attempting to keep him to my schedule, I made a decision to relent. I attempted to know his perspective and the incredible change and newness his world had taken on since joining our family and moving to this recent place.
I attempted to assume the view he saw through his fresh unobstructed eyes, and it was an epiphany for me.
Comfort Zones vs. Wonder and Curiosity
On that walk, I quickly realized that I even have been stuck in a comfort zone of my very own definition for productivity, creativity, and wonder. I’ve had blinders on that limit the complete expansion of ideas available to me.
I’m a creative person, but running my very own business has made me construct partitions and barriers around a few of my more dreamy thoughts and ideas I had prior to now. I notice what’s comfortable and secure to me, but what I haven’t seen or paid attention to are the opposite things along the trail. The things that lie outside my comfort zone and space of information.
This made me take into consideration how I approach my business and work.
As an entrepreneur, the direction of my work depends upon the direction and vision I steer it in.
I don’t have a whole lot of outside influences telling me what I should or shouldn’t do in my business, so I move within the direction that feels most comfortable to me. I trust my instincts and intuition, but as I grow old and more experienced in my business, I find that also signifies that I are inclined to move within the direction that feels essentially the most secure. That might be prudent, but sometimes stifling.
It occurred to me while watching Elliot happily leap from one exciting recent thing to a different not knowing what response or response those things would have back, that I want to re-open my curiosity to the world that’s not familiar to me.
I want to remove the blinders and renew my wonder.
How Fresh Eyes and Being Stuffed with Wonder is Good for Business
In Francesca Gino’s article in Harvard Business Review, The Business Case for Curiosity, she discusses the advantages of curiosity within the workplace and how leaders can avoid quelling productivity once they fall prey to stifling inquisitiveness and wonder.
Noted in her article there are three primary advantages to curiosity:
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Fewer decision-making errors
We’re less prone to succumb to “confirmation bias” (on the lookout for information that supports our beliefs reasonably than for evidence suggesting we’re flawed) and less prone to stereotype people or make broad judgements of others.
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More innovation and positive changes in each creative and noncreative jobs
In studies conducted by Ms. Gino, her research showed that encouraging people to be curious generated workplace improvements. By engaging with controlled groups of staff, she was capable of conclude that curiosity increased creative pondering and solutions with less defensive responses and stress provocations. Performance also increased leading to positive evaluations by direct bosses.
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Reduced group conflict
Empathy increases with curiosity and encourages people to place themselves in one another’s shoes, shifting away from a myopic perspective and allowing for a more positive collaborative effort with higher results.
For me, I’d add three additional advantages to introducing a proactive and healthy curiosity to business:
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Gained confidence within the work produced
Curiosity encourages a broader perspective to the work you do and the products you create. This wider vision allows space for a bigger range of influence, leaving less room for doubt by the point you submit your work to the world.
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Greater sense of freedom and liberty to create
Reaching wider and opening as much as a bigger perspective when approaching the product you create and the work you do gives a way of liberty and expansion. Being confined by what’s comfortable and secure, or what has all the time been done, limits you.
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Strengthened resiliency
As I learned watching Elliot overcome obstacles, hurdles, and fear, his curiosity made him stronger and more resilient to vary. I saw his ability to pivot quickly and advance in his responses to recent experiences. Curiosity and wonder on the planet around him introduced him to recent ways of pondering and doing, in addition to invited greater adventure.
Prioritizing Wonder
Elliot is onto something that I used to be missing or had lost some time back after I became encased in my very own way of doing things.
Sometimes it takes a straightforward thing like a walk together with your dog to make you pause and re-evaluate the way in which you think that, see, and do.
As a businesswoman, I feel it’s a giant a part of my job to maintain wonder for all times and curiosity for what the world has to supply within the forefront of my efforts. Now we have a chance in business to introduce great things and goodness to the world. That could be a gift.
Wonder and curiosity is a blessing and also a tool we are able to use to grow.
We keep moving forward, opening recent doors, and doing recent things, because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down recent paths.” — Walt Disney
Like Walt Disney and many other inspirational innovators, leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, educators, tradespeople, inventors, and more, learning to embrace and constantly live with a mind and heart that’s crammed with wonder appears to be the magic pill to a wealthy and full life each at home and within the workplace.
This week, I encourage you to take a moment and go for a walk.
Whether it’s in a city, a suburban neighborhood, a park, beach, or forest, remove the ear buds, be like Elliot, and take a number of moments to check a leaf on the bottom or flower in bloom. Watch a bird because it flies overhead. Notice if there are any recent smells. Take a look at some fun cloud formations within the sky, or hearken to the sounds around you. Feel the wind in your face and the sun in your shoulders.
Be aware of the emotions these experiences provide you with, and see in the event that they spur any recent thoughts, curiosities, or directives. You only might end up inspired in a recent direction.
Gratitude and wonder are the identical. Allow them to expand you.