From a Sense Of Wonder To Yawn

I was speaking with a distant relative who lives in an Indian village over the phone a few weeks back. He is astonishingly healthy & genuinely happy for someone in his 90s, also regarded as one of the wisest.

His secret, he said "above all, never lose your Sense of Wonder". That stuck with me. Intuitively, I knew what he is talking about but never realized it's importance. Having a sense of wonder automatically instills a child-like curiosity to get to know more about the world around you, unveiling an even better authentic version of yourself.

In many ways, Sense of Wonder gives a new lease on life literally kicking the feeling of being "bored", "disinterested" etc. out of your vocabulary forever, do we know why?

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. -Socrates

We are living in an ever-changing world, and every day we are all engineering that change with our ideas and actions. What we take for granted (Yawn) today was impossible at some point of time in the history.

“If you do it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. Yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive.” - Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

Here is one of the best article in recent times that speaks to the velocity of change we are experiencing right now.

At a fundamental level, life on earth must compete to stay alive. Rabbits that evolve longer ears to hear foxes, survive more. Foxes that develop stronger legs to run faster, catch more rabbits and don’t starve. While human biology evolves so slowly, ideas (cultures, strategies, technologies, etc.) evolve quickly. Idea evolution is like biological evolution on steroids.

Ray Kurzweil, the director of engineering at Google says,

We are doubling the paradigm-shift rate every decade. We won’t experience one hundred years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of twenty thousand years of progress or about one thousand times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century.

Entrepreneurs, creators, inventors, people embarking on a new project develop a keen sense of wonder and deliberately channel their resources into it. Each one of them take the epic journey of turning that Sense Of Wonder To Yawn where their idea is normalized in the new world over a period of time.

Everyone's journey is unique, filled with its own demands, constraints, challenges and wins. It is exactly these things that make the journey memorable, exciting and fulfilling while expanding our personal horizons beyond what was possible before.

Being a technology entrepreneur myself for over two decades and having spent enough time with fellow entrepreneurs & many others who have endured this journey from a Sense Of Wonder to Yawn, here are the three rules of thumb that standout for me to develop a Yawn Mindset:

1. Don't start something because you like it or someone likes it. Do it because you can't see the world without it.
2. Let your choices not your circumstances define who you are.
3. Figure out whose advise to take on a given subject.

As challenging as this journey is, most people who went through this epic journey successfully once, willingly put themselves through it again and again in some capacity. Almost all of them say that it's the journey that makes their life more fulfilling, rewarding and exciting as they take on new challenges with people whom they admire, together come up with ideas and planned actions that can and will change the world.

When someone asks you what are you excited about? what gets you going? they are trying to learn your sense of wonder.

What gives me a sense of wonder is that today's Chatbots do not have a Brain so they can't have meaningful conversations to be helpful or effective in getting things done for us.

I envision a world where digital assistants are significantly improving the quality of our professional and personal lives by truly enhancing our productivity, wellness, longevity, technological advancements, governance, happiness and fulfillment.

This the reason why, I am on a mission to deliver meaningful conversations with digital assistants by providing a 'Chatbot with a Brain'.

What's giving you, your Sense of Wonder? What is your Yawn mindset? Where are you in your journey from a Sense of Wonder to Yawn?

Here's to everyone who is embarking/ has embarked on this epic journey: Wishing you an

Enhanced Sense Of Wonder & Expedited Journey to Yawn.