The Idea: A study by Stanford researchers found that being awed, radically shakes your perspective and expands your ability to use time effectively. The research suggests that being awed makes you smarter, happier and more capable. It expands your mind and shifts you to a place of creativity and possibility.
A Gallup poll from 2008 found that 47% of Americans felt they lacked enough time in daily life. We get tired; we get stressed; and become inefficient because of it. This lack of time drains inspiration and infects many parts of our lives. A more recent Gallup poll documented that a frightening 70% of employees surveyed either hate their jobs or are completely disengaged.
How do you create a meaningful shift?
A study by Stanford researchers found that encountering a moment of awe forces you to reconfigure the way you view the world – as a result expanding your ability to use time effectively. Awe, as defined by the study, is “the emotion that arises when one encounters something so strikingly vast that it provokes a need to update one’s mental schemas.”
Awe expands your mind and shifts you to a place of creativity, inspiration and possibility. Being awed creates momentum.
Many companies (in particular, tech companies) try to replicate this phenomenon. They incorporate playful or disruptive activities into their workspace. They catalyze moments of creativity and energy. Because you see something magnificent – something irreplaceable – you are consumed by it entirely. You are in the moment, focusing only on that one thing and reconciling within yourself what is possible in this world.
What are you doing to disrupt yourself and unleash inspiration with your team, customers and most importantly, your family?
How are you purposefully discovering daily moments of awe?
