How to Lead with Wonder (and Live a Happier Life)

How do you live a lead your company and still live a wonderful life? This is a question small business owners have been trying to answer forever, but it is now even more important since the COVID pandemic.

On The Small Business Radio Show this week, I discussed perhaps an ideal solution with Monica Parker who is a world-renowned speaker, writer, and authority on the future of work and has spent decades helping people discover how to lead and live wonderfully. The founder of global human analytics and change consultancy HATCH, whose clients include blue-chip companies such as LinkedIn, Google, Prudential, and LEGO, Monica challenges corporate systems to advocate for more meaningful work lives. In addition to her extensive advocacy work, she has been an opera singer, a museum exhibition designer, and a homicide investigator defending death-row inmates.

We discussed how to lead with wonder:

Do more daydreaming. Monica says it’s a gateway to wonder. She adds that “PCD, or positive constructive daydreaming, consists of envisioning yourself in the future in a positive light. It’s associated with all the ingredients of wonder.”
Let yourself be bored! With social media like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, Monia believes we stop observing what’s around us and seek stimulation from the constant stream of images, sounds and sensory information provided by these apps. “By letting yourself experience boredom, you open your mind to what’s around you, and you’ll find yourself leaning into the present.”
Be curious! She says that we should learn because you want to and keep exploring possibilities. Go down that YouTube or Wikipedia rabbit hole. And don’t focus on a “single right answer.”
Allow your expectations to be flexible. Monica believes this is the first step in embracing a new solution, and in doing so, welcoming wonder into your life in small ways.
Stop chasing happiness. She believes we mis-want so often as a whole chasing happiness that what we should be chasing wonder. “You’ll find happiness through the experiences wonder can bring.”

Listen to the entire episode on The Small Business Radio Show.

Image: Monica Parker

This article, "How to Lead with Wonder (and Live a Happier Life)" was first published on Small Business Trends