WonderWorks, LLC, Santa Barbara, CA (2026)

12/15/2025

The wonder of the season - what if it’s not just something we see, but something we practice?

Not a catchphrase or sentiment. A daily discipline.

This week: light through our prism landed here. “A Great Day in Harlem.” Last thing off the wall, first thing up, every move we’ve made.

57 jazz musicians. One Harlem stoop. 1958.

I’ve looked at this photo thousands of times. But the rainbow stopped me in my tracks - and gave me an opportunity to appreciate it even more. The deep joy and awe I feel whenever I look at this image. The history. These musicians. All that creative genius, in one frame.

That’s what wonder does. It lets you revisit what was always there - but sometimes less visible to your own hurried eyes.

I didn’t plan this moment. But I caught it - because I’ve spent years strengthening my ability to notice everyday wonder. The more you practice, the more available it becomes.

Not just for photographs. For creativity. For solving hard problems. For reconnecting to what actually matters when everything feels urgent.

12/05/2025

Nobody’s saying it out loud in the meeting.

But I’m hearing it everywhere in my coaching conversations with women executives:

“I’m not sure what my role even is anymore.”

“I feel like I’m supposed to have an AI strategy and I’m just… figuring it out like everyone else.”

“What if the thing I’ve spent 20 years mastering becomes irrelevant?”

Here’s what I want you to know:

You’re not behind. You’re not alone.

The disorientation you feel is a natural response to all of this rapid change.

What’s rarely acknowledged? This disorientation can be incredibly useful.

Leaders who insist they have it all figured out are running old playbooks in a new landscape.

The ones who can sit inside “I don’t know yet” without spiraling - who can stay open and present - are the ones who’ll see what others miss.

If you feel the ground shifting beneath you, it means you’re paying attention.

That’s not weakness. That’s awareness - and it’s the beginning of a new kind of leadership.

12/02/2025

The original innovation labs weren’t digital.

They were rooms built for wonder.

Renaissance scholars called them Wunderkammers—and they followed a deliberate sequence: Wonder → Discovery → Understanding.

Not accidental. Programmatic.

500 years later, we’ve flipped it. We start with data, analysis, frameworks—then wonder why discovery feels so rare.

What if we’ve been starting at the end?

You can’t think your way to wonder.
But you can wonder your way to understanding.

Wonder isn’t the escape from hard problems.
It’s the doorway in.

11/25/2025

What if your biggest breakthrough came from subtracting, not adding? ✂️
From the Wonder Room Vault: The Kodak Trimming Board

Inside the Wonder Room Experience, this vintage tool has sparked insights I could never predict—because every leader sees something different.

Someone notices the worn edge. Another sees uneven patina. Someone else fixates on ruler marks.

That’s the power of perception, not prescription.

Today, this trimming board whispers to me about strategic subtraction. While everyone else is adding (more meetings, more metrics, more initiatives), we’ve mistaken more for better.

The object doesn’t hold the answer. It holds questions you haven’t thought to ask yet.

What needs trimming in your leadership today?

First in my Wonder Room Objects series—each piece a doorway into dimensions of leadership you might not have considered.

11/21/2025

When everything feels complex, our thinking often gets smaller without us noticing. 🤍

During rapid shifts—
AI implementation, expanding roles, constant adaptation—
the mind subtly contracts.

The right hemisphere (context + perspective) gets quiet.
The left takes over and doubles down on analysis.
But in moments of complexity, analysis without perspective only shrinks the frame we’re thinking from.

A simple way back to whole-brain clarity?

👉 Notice one small thing that makes you pause.
A tiny imperfection in the paint on your bookshelf—one you’ve walked past a thousand times.
The repeating pattern of windows stretching across the building opposite yours.
A teammate offering a brief, sincere “I’ve got this part—go take a breath,” shifting the energy of the whole moment.

Meet it with real curiosity for a few breaths.
No analyzing.
Just noticing.

This brief moment widens your perception, interrupts looping thoughts, and restores clarity.

A tiny reset.
A wider mind.
A different kind of day. 🤍

What made you pause today?

10/28/2025

We call it burnout.
But often, it’s something quieter —
the static of too many tabs open.
The sense that even when you stop working,
your mind doesn’t.

It’s not always long hours.
Sometimes it’s the constant availability,
the flood of pings,
the pace of too much, too fast.

Vacations can interrupt it,
but they rarely prevent it.
Because if nothing changes in how we show up daily,
the glow fades as soon as we’re back in the grind.

What does make a difference —
is awe. ✨

It lowers stress.
Expands perspective.
Restores the aliveness beneath the overload.

And it’s renewable.
You don’t need a plane ticket.
You just need to notice:

☕ the steam rolling up and out of your tea,
🌿 the coral bloom on your desk succulent,
📊 the spreadsheet that suddenly makes sense,
🌇 the golden lines of light and shadow across your wall.

Burnout thrives on overload.
Vitality begins with attention.

Sometimes wonder does what effort can’t —
it resets how we see,
and how we begin again. 🌤️

PS: The photo? That was the moment.
I’d been stuck on a project when I looked up and saw afternoon light turning my office wall into art.
That pause did what another hour of pushing couldn’t — the solution appeared.

10/07/2025

I watched Dr. Jane Goodall’s “Famous Last Words” interview last night—the one filmed earlier this year with the understanding that it would only be released after her death.

Something about that alone hit a place beyond words.
The quiet courage of speaking to the world one last time, knowing you won’t hear its reply.

And still, her message was clear: hope and action.
Hope for the planet and the courage to protect it.
Hope for humanity and the will to act.
Hope that we might remember who we are and what matters while we still have time.

She told again the story of her childhood curiosity—how she once hid in a henhouse for hours to see how a hen lays an egg.
No one knew where she was. Her mother couldn’t find her and feared she’d gone missing.
When Jane finally came running home, cheeks flushed with discovery, her mother could have scolded her—but instead, she listened as her daughter described exactly what she’d seen.

Jane Goodall often reflected on that moment—how her mother’s reaction invited the little scientist in her to step forward.
Had her mother met that excitement with anger or fear, “it would have killed the magic,” she said later.
Instead, that single act of listening protected something essential: the wonder that shaped a lifetime.

Watching her now, her voice carried forward through time, I felt that same invitation—
to notice, to listen, to protect awe and wonder—especially when urgency or fear would make it easiest to shut them down.

Because the way we respond to curiosity—our own or another’s—can shape what survives of us.

Thank you, Jane Goodall, for reminding us that hope and wonder are not luxuries.
They’re responsibilities.
And they’re how life keeps speaking, even after we’re gone.

📷 Photo by me, California sky.
For Dr. Jane Goodall, whose wonder will always take flight.

09/30/2025

Your brain generates thousands of thoughts each day.
One study estimated about 6,000.
Most of them? Noise.

Fantasies about the future. Replays of tense conversations. Mental to-do lists you’ll abandon by noon.

Why? Because you’re human.

Your brain’s autopilot (neuroscientists call it the Default Mode Network) churns constantly — whether you need it to or not.

Here’s what I’ve learned working with leaders and in my own life:

When we try to decide from that chatter,
we react to what’s loudest,
not what matters most.

✨But here’s what changes everything:

Research shows that awe — when you encounter something vast that challenges your current understanding — quiets the mental chatter. Wonder opens up, and a different intelligence emerges.

One that lifts up what’s worth acting on and lets the rest fall away.

Some call it wisdom. Others, clarity or inner guidance.

In my work with executives, this is the difference between:
→ Reacting to the loudest thought
→ Acting from what the team truly needs

Your brain is wondrous — capable of both rumination and revelation, often using the same networks.

The Leadership Shift: Knowing how to move from mental noise into the clarity that lets genuine insight — and vitality — emerge.

✨ Next time your thoughts are racing, pause and notice:
→ Which deserve your attention?
→ Which are just autopilot?
→ What clarity appears when you listen beneath the noise?

09/26/2025

She stepped outside after back-to-back meetings.
Mind racing. Deadlines. Decisions. Static.

Then — a deep breath. Shoulders drop.
And suddenly, she sees it:
A smooth, perfectly round stone on the path.

Its symmetry. Its balance.
The very thing her team’s challenge was missing.
✨
In that moment, everything clicked. The roles. The structure. How it could all interlock.

This is her brain doing what it does best once the noise quiets. Neuroscientists call this pattern recognition. It connects dots you couldn’t see before. Links ideas across contexts. Finds solutions hiding in plain sight.

💭 Next time you pause, notice:
→What small detail might spark a new way of seeing ?
→Where is balance — like that stone — showing you what’s missing?
→What hidden pattern is waiting for you to see it?

09/19/2025

Pulled in a thousand directions.
Hard to focus on what matters most.

I hear this from leaders all the time.

Here’s what’s really happening: overwhelm shrinks perspective.
When everything feels equally urgent, clarity disappears.

✨ That’s when stepping back becomes the golden opportunity.

Perspective — one of awe’s greatest gifts — shows us how small pieces connect into a larger whole.

🎈 Try this: The Hot Air Balloon View
Next time you feel overwhelmed, pause.
Imagine rising in a hot air balloon above the situation — high enough to see with fresh eyes.

From that vantage point:
→ What feels less urgent?
→ Which priorities stand out?
→ What points of clarity emerge?

The result: the noise quiets. What matters most comes into focus.
Research even shows this kind of perspective shift lowers stress and leaves you calmer.

From overwhelm to clarity.
From reacting to leading with intention.

🌿 I’d love to know: if you tried the Hot Air Balloon View this week, what shifted for you?

P.S. This photo is from a balloon festival in Queensbury, NY. Watching those balloons rise against the Adirondack mountains was a powerful igniter of awe and wonder for me — and a reminder that even from the ground, watching them fill the sky gave me an entirely new perspective. 🎈

09/11/2025

✨ What if not all time is the same—and great leadership depends on knowing the difference?

The ancient Greeks had two words for time:
⏱ Chronos — clock time (schedules, deadlines, ex*****on)
🌌 Kairos — opportune time (strategy, collaboration, reflection, purpose)

We’ve become Chronos addicts, trying to treat everything—innovation, vision, even breakthroughs—as if it belongs on a timeline. But the most important leadership work doesn’t happen on a schedule.

This distinction matters more than ever in a world of rapid change and AI—when innovation and creative problem-solving are essential. And if we want more of both, we need to cultivate awe and wonder as core leadership tools.

Breakthrough insights emerge when our brains aren’t under constant pressure. One of the most powerful catalysts? Wonder and awe.

Chronos can keep things moving, but it can’t answer the deeper questions leaders face. Kairos asks us to create space for awe, curiosity, and encounters with the unexpected—the conditions where true breakthroughs arise.

The best leaders know which bucket their work belongs in:
→ Quarterly planning? Chronos.
→ Sensing market shifts? Kairos.
→ Budget reviews? Chronos.
→ Breakthrough strategy? Kairos.

👉 Try this: Before your next important challenge, ask yourself—does this belong to Chronos, or to Kairos? And if it’s Kairos, how might you invite wonder into the process?

P.S. I chose this photo because it holds both kinds of time: Chronos in the literal clock, and Kairos in the beauty of its design. This is the Ankeruhr Clock in Vienna, Austria—an Art Nouveau masterpiece. Research from (UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center)shows that one of the most common ways people experience awe is through admiring visual design, including architecture.

09/03/2025

Walking into Whole Foods yesterday, I spotted four words on a bright green T-shirt:

“The wonder of light.”

Simple. Profound.

But if we only stop there, we miss the fuller story.

Real wonder isn’t just about light and positivity. It lives in the interplay between light and shadow.

Just as I was thinking this, another moment arrived...

Walking past the berries, I noticed a man with his phone’s flashlight accidentally on in his back pocket. A bright beam swept across the strawberries and raspberries as he moved - completely unaware.

The light was almost piercing, disruptive, impossible to ignore. And I found myself watching in quiet awe.

Two encounters with “light” in sixty seconds. The pattern felt meaningful.

It’s the contrast that reveals clarity and truth.

In leadership, our hardest moments are full of this contrast. The real work isn’t choosing light over shadow - it’s learning to hold both together.

Research shows that awe and wonder expands our ability to hold contrasting perspectives simultaneously.

Not either/or thinking. But both/and.

That’s where wonder - and breakthrough clarity - live.

WonderWorks, LLC

12/15/2025

12/05/2025

12/02/2025

11/25/2025

11/21/2025

10/28/2025

10/07/2025

09/30/2025

09/26/2025

09/19/2025

09/11/2025

09/03/2025

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category