Chapter 1
Wonder in a World of Worry: The Radical Potential of Awe
In an era where productivity reigns supreme and burnout is epidemic, Jeffrey Davis offers a revolutionary antidote: wonder. Oprah Winfrey calls "Tracking Wonder" one of her most transformative reads, while LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman credits it with reshaping his approach to innovation. This isn't just another self-help book-it's a cultural phenomenon that has sparked wonder retreats across Silicon Valley and mindfulness programs at Fortune 500 companies. Davis, a former skeptic with a background in literature and psychology, experienced wonder's power firsthand when a devastating house fire destroyed twenty years of his work. In the charred remains of his study, a yellow monarch butterfly appeared-a moment of unexpected beauty that shifted his perspective from despair to possibility. This book reveals how such moments aren't just pleasant diversions but essential resets that can transform our creative capacity, resilience, and relationships in a world obsessed with productivity and certainty.
Chapter 2
The Birthright We've Forgotten
Wonder is our innate capacity to be transfixed by beauty and possibility. It dissolves our habitual filters so we can see what's real, true, and beautiful again. Think of those moments when you've been stopped in your tracks by a harvest moon, a mathematical insight, or a child's eloquent observation-that's wonder working its magic.
Most of us begin each morning with two competing mindsets: the excited summer camper eager for new experiences and the anxious Piglet fretting about the day's challenges. Our culture conditions us to favor the worried mind, treating wonder as childish or unproductive. Yet visionaries from Einstein to Picasso maintained their capacity for wonder throughout their lives, giving them a surprising advantage in manifesting great work.
The bias against wonder runs deep. Adobe research shows eight in ten people feel pressured to be productive rather than creative at work. Even millennials strive to be "work martyrs" by avoiding vacations. This "Workism"-treating work as life's centerpiece-comes at significant cost to our wellbeing and creative potential.
Historically, many cultures viewed wonder as an illness called "the wonders"-a state of unproductive daydreaming. Yet wonder puts us in a receptive state unlike other emotions; it doesn't compel us to react or flee, but allows us to receive without manipulation. Like Frederick the field mouse who "stores up" poetry while others gather nuts, wonder may seem unproductive but ultimately nourishes us through dark times.
Our default mode network (DMN) produces steady cognitive activity even when we're not consciously thinking, often keeping us in agitated, glum states. These "downer patterns" manifest as negative self-regard ("I'm not good enough"), negative situation assessment ("This situation is wrecking my life"), and devaluing our ideas ("My projects aren't important"). We can disrupt these patterns through simple practices like Pause-Gaze-Praise-stopping to look at ordinary objects with soft eyes and appreciation.
The goal isn't to live perpetually in wonder but to increase our "wonder ratio" throughout the day. While we all visit the "neighborhood of worry" where our minds play the top hits from station WRRY, we don't have to dwell there. By contrasting default days with wonder-infused alternatives and setting simple intentions, we can shift our attention and experience of life without making wonder just another chore.
Chapter 3
The Six Facets of Wonder
Wonder is the singular experience that momentarily disrupts our awareness and dissolves biases, allowing us to see what is real, true, beautiful and possible. It serves as our biological reset button that makes us feel wildly alive again. Wonder differs from curiosity (which investigates while wonder receives), joy (wonder's more effusive cousin that can include melancholy), and awe (wonder's larger-than-life relative).
To track wonder effectively, we must understand its six facets that reflect upon each other like gems in Indra's Net:
Openness, the Wide-Sky Facet is the wide-eyed wonder that adults can reclaim-the capacity to perceive situations anew while pursuing knowledge or launching endeavors. It's the talent of suspending biases, daring to un-know, and remaining receptive to possibilities rather than immediately judging them. This "intelligent naivete" helps us taste more than just vanilla in life.
Curiosity, the Rebel Facet is the proactive, playful mindset emerging from wonder's receptive nature. This rebel facet questions "the way we've always done things" and prompts action on those questions. With curiosity, we become more engaged with new experiences and actively seek novel perspectives for both everyday problems and creative pursuits.
Bewilderment, the Deep Woods Facet is wonder's disorienting facet-a response to simultaneous positive and negative input that might spark inaction or fear. By tracking this facet, you learn to fertilize confusion, using the restless energy of profound uncertainty as creative fuel to redefine your purpose and evolving identity.
Hope, the Rainbow Facet is a buoyant feeling of possibility amid uncertainty that illuminates profound life changes. This facet of wonder points proactively toward a better future while we endure adversity or crisis. Much richer than mere wishful thinking, hope buoys us in turbulent times.
Connection, the Flock Facet is what we feel when wonder allows us to be, create, and feel supported with others. This facet teaches us how to attune with loved ones and deepen working relationships. True connection fulfills our basic human need for belonging, contributing to health and happiness.
Admiration, the Mirror Facet builds on the other facets as an emotion focused on others whose character or craft encourages us to become more of our genius selves. To admire someone is to feel wonder at their excellence. Learning to praise, appreciate, and create enchanting experiences for others keeps this mirror facet reflecting in multiple directions.
Tracking wonder requires different faculties than standard awareness, similar to how master animal trackers detect signs of specific animal behavior. A tracker is both scientist and storyteller, using imagination to envision an animal's shape and movement, empathy to sense its mood, and intuition to find where it might go. Similarly, tracking wonder means noticing when you feel surprised and elevated by ordinary experiences, finding uplift even during emotional storms, and recognizing when your mind surprises you with insight.
Chapter 4
Your Young Genius
Wonder wanes as we age-our brains prune synapses by puberty, society emphasizes productivity over play, and trauma hardens us into realists and pragmatists. Yet our capacity for wonder hasn't fully vanished. To retrieve these youthful qualities without abandoning adult responsibilities, we must explore our interior landscape in search of our "young genius"-our most essential ally on the journey to tracking wonder.
Psychologists Zabelina and Robinson discovered that simply instructing adults to adopt a seven-year-old's mindset dramatically changes their approach to free time. While adults typically list obligations-checking email, doing homework-those told "You are seven years old" described adventures focused on desires rather than duties: eating ice cream, visiting pets, playing with friends. This childlike mindset not only produced more enjoyable scenarios but also significantly improved performance on creative thinking tests.
Your "young genius" reflects inner gifts that evolve throughout your lifetime. The concept traces back to ancient Greek philosophers who believed each person is born with a distinct force of character-a daemon or "genius"-unique to their personality. This inner force reminds you of your true nature and calling. Childhood memories offer glimpses of this unique character-moments when you felt most alive, open and free to be yourself, whether riding bikes, painting, exploring libraries, or following creek paths.
Charles Baudelaire recognized that innovative artists possess a childlike openness to ordinary things combined with adult understanding and follow-through. His declaration that "Genius is the capacity to retrieve childhood at will" predicted the qualities of innovative creators like Matisse, who dissolved conventional standards while guarding his "original naivete." This childlike creativity has become a through line across fields from poetry to physics, enabling once-inconceivable achievements from space travel to the internet.
Reclaiming your young genius is essential to expanding your capabilities and advancing culture at large. Through exercises of remembering childhood moments where you felt most alive, recognizing your distinct traits, activating your "Wild Thing" through playful creation, and intentionally bringing these qualities to your daily work, you can reclaim your genius. As Baudelaire noted, "genius is the capacity to retrieve childhood at will," but it's also the capacity to reimagine and reclaim childhood intentionally.
Chapter 5
The Wide-Sky Perspective
The first facet of wonder is openness-a wide-sky perspective that allows for dreaming and idealism in a cynical world. Dreams begin in wonder, requiring both idealism and practicality: "Head in the sky, feet on the ground."
Openness boosts on-the-job creativity and fuels unique dream pursuit. Consider Carey Smith, who wasn't afraid to rename his business from HVLS Fans to Big Ass Fans after listening to customers. During the Great Recession, while competitors laid off employees, Smith maintained competitive wages and gave bonuses. This approach paid off spectacularly-sales jumped 47% to $49.7 million (2008-2010), then another 41% to $70 million, reaching $175 million by 2014 before selling for $500 million in 2019.
Cultural attitudes influence our comfort with openness. Sophistication and cynicism often overlap-the "been there, done that, nothing can impress me" attitude that convinces people of the futility of creative pursuits. Many of us curb enthusiasm or hide naivete to avoid appearing foolish. Leaders often bypass dreamer qualities, preferring to appear smart and aggressive, sometimes shouting down viable ideas too soon. But cynicism, though masking as sophistication, is merely rigid thinking.
Recent studies show we can induce positive emotional experiences through physical responses-genuine smiling broadens participants' minds. Both closed and open states serve roles in creative well-being, but without tracking this facet of wonder, we might spend more time in closed states than we realize.
You can practice seeking novelty through your perception of what's familiar. Remember that wonder sneaks into the creases and cracks of everyday life-not just fireworks and waterfalls. When you open your eyes to wonder, you can see unexpected connections if you practice recognizing them. Consider how a tree might resemble an umbrella, or an umbrella a question mark. The ordinary becomes extraordinary when you find new perspectives, like Pablo Neruda writing an ode to worn-out socks.
You can track your own openness by taking deliberate actions: Visit a new place at least once a month, like a lesser-known art gallery where you'll have fewer expectations. Pursue a hobby with abandon-the word amateur comes from Latin amatore meaning "lover." Find a horizon spot where you can gain visual expanse, ground yourself in the present, and then gaze toward the future.
Chapter 6
The Rebel's Curiosity
Cristian Fracassi never thought his curiosity could save lives. As a civil engineer with a PhD in polymer science, Fracassi and his business partner responded to a nearby hospital's desperate need for respirator valves during the 2020 pandemic. Though they had only made practical objects before, never life-saving medical devices, they pushed aside their fear when they saw the doctors' desperation. After hours of rapid design work and testing, they created viable 3D-printed valve prototypes that worked. This is what happens when you pursue your curiosity-you see the world as brimming with beautiful possibilities.
Curiosity, the second facet of wonder, is a proactive, playful mindset driving us to pursue discovery, seek knowledge, and question the status quo. Studies show that curiosity triggers dopamine release in the brain, activating reward systems that encourage deeper exploration. This neurochemical response explains why discovery feels so exhilarating-your brain in discovery mode resembles your brain experiencing love or enjoying chocolate.
Many ancient stories portray curiosity as dangerous-Adam and Eve's curiosity got them banished from Eden, Pandora's curiosity unleashed evil. While excessive curiosity can indeed be distracting, authority figures often suppress curiosity because it's inherently subversive. Curiosity questions everything, overturns orthodoxy, and challenges convention. Anyone wielding curiosity inevitably confronts authority-just ask innovators from Darwin to Susan B. Anthony to Martin Luther King Jr.
Research from Yale and Stanford shows that people who rigidly "follow their passion" end up less satisfied than those who follow diverse curiosities. The latter develop what psychologist Carol Dweck calls a "growth mindset," finding fulfillment in learning rather than just rewards. Neurologically, dopamine releases not just when receiving rewards but during pursuit itself, making discovery inherently pleasurable.
Wonder helps you recognize what uniquely fascinates you. Consider Oliver Sacks, who as a boy visited London's Science Museum and encountered the periodic table. Standing before it, he felt "an overwhelming sense of Truth and Beauty," certain he was seeing "the elemental building blocks of the universe." This moment ignited his lifelong curiosity about existence, leading him to become "the poet laureate of medicine." Your peculiar interests may not lead to scientific theories, but innovators and everyday geniuses share one advantage: they honor their quirky curiosities, tracking and pursuing them even down uncertain paths.
Questioning is living for creative geniuses whose curiosities make a difference. Alan Lightman, theoretical astrophysicist and novelist, embodies this through his innovative work "Einstein's Dreams"-a plotless novel exploring fictional thought experiments about time. "Asking questions about the world is an active way of being in the world," Lightman says. "It's life for me, it's living."
Approach everything hypothetically and bravely test your assumptions. Embrace experimenting over perfectionism and over-planning by taking what author Peter Sims calls "little bets"-small, low-risk actions to discover, develop, and test ideas. What's essential is getting curious about both your process and results, asking reflective questions: What worked? What didn't turn out as assumed? Where did I find fulfillment?
Chapter 7
Finding Clarity in Confusion
Bewilderment represents the disorienting facet of wonder-to "thoroughly go astray" or, reframed, to "be wilder." It emerges during profound transitions when we feel simultaneously exhilarated by new possibilities yet confused or lost. This facet might spark fear and inaction, or it could reawaken our young genius, intelligent naivete, and curiosity in new contexts.
Tracy Fullerton's story illustrates embracing bewilderment's potential. At 37, she had achieved remarkable success as a female pioneer in the 1990s digital world, founding Spiderdance, Inc. and earning an Emmy nomination for interactive television programming. When the dot-com bubble burst, destroying her business, Fullerton chose not to immediately seek another job or numb her feelings like many peers. Instead, she took an extended break to reflect on her purpose and gifts.
Wonder challenges our self-defined roles and "de-centers" the self. As cognitive neuroscientist Kelly Bulkeley notes, wonder "dramatically alters" our identity, leading to new knowledge that ultimately "recenters the self." Unlike emotions that entrench our ego, wonder drops our guard, leaving us vulnerable to reinvention as rigid roles dissolve.
Tony Robbins understands this wisdom, giving standing ovations to those who admit confusion at his seminars, recognizing uncertainty as the bridge between levels of understanding. Research confirms that surprise amplifies learning-infants pay more attention to and learn better from objects that defy their expectations.
Navigating bewilderment amid fear requires boundaries and breathing. Unchecked anxiety triggers a negative cycle-the sympathetic nervous system activates, causing shallow breathing or breath holding, which compounds anxiety and complicates creative response. Yet the same hormonal reactions that create fear also induce excitement. You can transform fearful reactivity into creative excitement through breath control-slowing exhalations and pausing briefly between breaths calms your nervous system.
After feeling, celebrating, and getting curious about confusion, you can fertilize it by directing your attention toward activities demanding full-spectrum focus and creativity. Top performers aren't calm during peak performance-they're in a positive state of activation that enhances concentration and performance. Embracing this energy creatively rather than fearfully transforms your underlying physiology.
"Fertile confusion" is the state where you refrain from seeking easy solutions or reverting to old patterns long enough to transform your worldview. Tracy Fullerton's "What if" questions about converting Walden into a video game were followed by the daunting "How?" question. Without funding prospects-"you can't pitch this idea" in the game industry-she formed a book club with team members to discuss which passages from Walden personally resonated. Five years later, they secured their first grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, followed by funding from the NEH and Sundance Institute. After a decade of development, they created a contemplative video game with stunning visuals, moving narrative, and deep learning discoveries.
Chapter 8
The Rainbow of Hope
Hope emerges as a facet of wonder that appears during extreme difficulties, offering glimpses of possibility amid darkness. Naturalist Nikki Van Schyndel's shipwreck experience illustrates this perfectly-stranded on a tiny island in hypothermic conditions without supplies, she and her partner witnessed bioluminescent algae creating neon-green sparks with each paddle stroke as they rowed toward safety. This magical phenomenon distracted them from their dire situation and gave them unexpected strength.
Hope as a facet of wonder arises from surprising moments that reveal possibility toward an uncertain future. Psychologist C.R. Snyder describes hope as "a personal rainbow of the mind," a fitting metaphor as rainbows have been central to wonder studies for centuries. Unlike mere optimism, hope is action-oriented vision that builds fortitude and resilience, allowing us to find purpose and creativity despite setbacks.
The science of hope has led to therapeutic practices with tangible benefits. People who track hope share common traits: they doggedly pursue two to three specific goals, interpret adverse events as challenges rather than threats, and connect their actions to desired outcomes. Unlike wishful thinking, which is passive like casting a magic spell, hope empowers you to forecast pathways from crisis to safety.
Deliberate daydreaming can boost your chances of achieving goals, particularly for achievement-driven individuals. Psychologist Jerome Singer identified three types of daydreaming: distracted daydreaming (poor attention control), guilty-dysphoric daydreaming (catastrophic thinking), and positive-constructive daydreaming-the sweet spot where imagination explores possibilities for a better future.
After the September 11 attacks, psychologists discovered that students who actively sought experiences that sparked interest or gratitude were less likely to be depressed than their peers. By responding with interest during crisis, you broaden awareness to new creative possibilities. Elisabeth Tova Bailey, bedridden with a neurological disorder, found unexpected hope through observing a woodland snail that arrived in a potted plant. This tiny creature became her fascination, inspiring her to take notes and research mollusks, eventually writing a book.
Lee Rankin's story illustrates how wonder can inspire bold life changes. At nearly forty, with no farming experience and a two-year-old son, she pursued a dream of creating a mountain farm sanctuary with alpacas. Despite early disasters-a contractor dying in her basement, mountain lions killing her first alpacas, brutal winters-she persevered. Her journey began at the Kentucky State Fair when she locked eyes with an alpaca, experiencing a profound connection that awakened a deep yearning. Twenty years later, Apple Hill Farm thrives with rescue animals and produces prized yarn.
After musician Nick Cave's fifteen-year-old son died in a cliff fall, he lost his creative discipline and daily writing routine. His path back began through connection-responding to supportive fans by creating "The Red Hand Files" blog where he answered their questions with eloquent honesty. Cave recognized that hopeful people reach out for support and spread hope to others. Through practice and imagination, Cave reclaimed wonder, finding that "the color came back to things with a renewed intensity and the world seemed clear and bright and new."
Chapter 9
The Power of Connection
Wonder can create profound moments of connection when words often fail. Davis describes watching a murmuration of starlings with his young daughter, where hundreds of birds synchronized in a midair dance like "an animated van Gogh painting." This shared visceral experience bonded them where his tendency to "teach" often created distance.
Wonder isn't limited to solitary experiences but thrives in relationships, bringing adaptive advantages. Martha Nussbaum argues that wonder fuels compassion and love by suspending judgment and opening us to others' beautiful differences. Connection, the "flock facet" of wonder, dissolves biases and reveals what's true and beautiful about others, amplifying our creative endeavors when harnessed in supportive groups.
Isolation threatens our health as severely as smoking fifteen cigarettes daily. With loneliness affecting 40% of Americans-double the rate of twenty years ago-and empathy declining among college students, our connection crisis demands attention. The shift from physical gatherings to online platforms has disrupted our evolutionary need for eye contact, touch, and real-time sensory connection.
Amelia Terrapin, a dancer-turned-science educator, applies ensemble principles from dance to education through her company Mobius Method. By teaching students to create movement-based representations of scientific concepts like planetary relationships, she fosters physiological synchrony-where people align their gestures, heart rates, and hormones-building trust and closeness.
Our adaptive unconscious-the mind's automatic categorizer-helps us process thousands of sensory inputs efficiently but also leads us to stereotype people. This "Bias Box" causes us to dismiss colleagues' ideas and contributions based on past patterns, limiting collaborative potential. Our brains naturally seek sameness and comfort, making us try to shape others to think and act like us, ironically fostering division through our pursuit of uniformity.
The DIY (do it yourself) philosophy can be a harmful myth that leaves ambitious people isolated and struggling. A more powerful approach is DIT-do it together-where independent minds collaborate to amplify their collective impact. After studying wolf behavior, Davis adopted the term "pack" for the Tracking Wonder community, appreciating how wolf packs travel at the pace of their slowest member.
Three types of packs can support creative endeavors: Support Packs (people with complementary skills), Nourish Packs (confidantes who provide emotional support), and Wild Packs (peers pursuing parallel dreams who mutually encourage each other). Growth happens faster when we work well with others-DIT truly beats DIY.
Chapter 10
The Mirror of Admiration
As a nonconformist teenager in the 1970s, Davis found himself captivated by David Bowie's transformative performance on Saturday Night Live. Watching him shape-shift through different identities while maintaining his vocal and songwriting virtuosity opened his eyes to a life of creative reinvention-a stark contrast to the conventional adult lives he observed around him.
Admiration-from the Latin "mira" meaning wonder, which also gives us the word "mirror"-is experiencing a surprising love for someone else's excellence that awakens us to improve what we do and how we do it. Unlike connection, which focuses on mutual exchange, admiration redirects attention outward, both in admiring others and potentially being admired.
Healthy admiration differs fundamentally from deference or idolization. While skeptics might flinch at the idea of admiring others, there's an important distinction between uplifting admiration of skill and character versus unhealthy veneration that diminishes your own potential. Psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Sara Algoe studied how this "other-praising" emotion can inspire self-improvement when directed toward "exemplary others."
Those prone to admiration are also susceptible to envy, which can trigger sadness, fear, or shame. But not all envy is harmful. "Benign envy" occurs when someone else's excellence spurs us not to outdo them but to rise to our own potential. Dutch psychologist Niels van de Ven's research showed that students experiencing benign envy (believing success comes from hard work) pledged to study more hours and achieved better creative results than those feeling only admiration.
Poet Lucille Clifton demonstrated how to transform envy into self-admiration and creative power. Visiting Harvard where her husband taught, she felt diminished among the youthful female students despite her own considerable accomplishments. Rather than shrinking from these feelings, she created her poem "what the mirror said," which begins: "listen, you a wonder. you a city of a woman. you got a geography of your own."
Dean Keith Simonton's study of 772 eminent artists revealed that relationships of admiration-both those you admire and those who admire you-have more positive effects on creative development than family relationships. Berkeley researchers found that peer admiration contributes more to well-being than wealth or economic status-a "local ladder effect." Admiration works best when reciprocal, like two mirrors reflecting the best in each other.
Many of us struggle to accept positive feedback due to ingrained beliefs against self-satisfaction and feelings of imposter syndrome. Yet gracefully accepting admiration allows others to experience the benefits of giving appreciation. A simple, genuine "Thank you" often suffices rather than deflecting attention or deprecating your talents. The trap comes when seeking adulation becomes your primary motivation-when the actor becomes addicted to applause or the influencer to likes.
Chapter 11
Standing in Wonder
Wonder doesn't require permission-it's our innate state. Just as love requires more than "falling for" someone but rather "standing in" love with mature dedication (as Erich Fromm wrote in The Art of Loving), wonder requires devotion that goes deeper than fleeting passion. Devotion meets challenges as opportunities to deepen rather than fleeing from them.
A "dream endeavor" is any initiative that puts your dreams for a better life or world in motion, whether it's writing a screenplay, renovating your house, or starting a school program. Though such endeavors stretch you beyond comfort zones, wonder becomes your versatile ally. Wildlife biologist Imogen Daly exemplifies this-her wonder-filled connection with desert tortoises taught her patience and presence, freeing her from self-doubt and allowing her to "walk in alignment with purpose" while protecting these ancient creatures.
The seed of your dream can be crushed before it sprouts if you let detractors influence you. Some people may try to stop you because your audacity threatens their paradigm of what's rational, while others believe they're protecting you from failure. Fear takes three common forms: fear of looking foolish, fear of criticism and vulnerability, and fear of wasting resources. To counter these fears, practice the "Miles Davis Shrug"-responding to naysayers with a cool "So what?" as Miles did with his groundbreaking album Kind of Blue.
Creating a physical space for wonder-however small-provides a container for your insights and helps you embrace uncertainty rather than flee from it. This "Wonder Lab" needn't be elaborate; Annie Dillard wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning book in a tiny shed. Research shows that natural environments boost creativity-a study found people who hiked for three days increased creativity scores by 50%.
Wonder is meant to be shared. At a certain stage of your endeavor, you'll want to bring your work into the public arena through connection and admiration. This isn't about flashy self-promotion but about developing your own style and designing delightful experiences for others. The most powerful gesture of love may be connecting with others through wonder.
In our age of constant change, wonder serves as the reset button against panic while fueling innovative curiosity. If Kahlil Gibran is right that "work is love made manifest," then we must bring wonder to the heart of our work and workplaces. Recognizing genius in one another, fostering connection among team members, designing wonder-conducive environments, and supporting wonder breaks are small but meaningful starts.
If wisdom begins in wonder, wonder begins in nature. Like the chimp gawking at a waterfall for no reason other than he must, or Rachel Carson shifting from writing to marine biology upon first seeing the ocean horizon, our connection to earth transforms us. Carson reached out to mothers in 1956 with "Help Your Child to Wonder," reminding us that children know we are not apart from nature but a part of it.
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. Do it together does beat do it yourself.
