Mental Health
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The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead
An eye-opening journey through the magical, yet surprisingly little-understood, human emotion that is wonder.
From the first tickle of curiosity to an unexpected shift in how we perceive the world, there isn't a person who hasn't experienced wonder, and yet the why and how of this profoundly beneficial emotion is only just beginning to be scientifically examined. This inspiring book from thought leader Monica Parker explores the power of wonder to transform the way we learn, develop new ideas, drive social change, and ultimately become better humans.
The Power of Wonder takes readers on a multidisciplinary journey through psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, literature, and business to share some of the surprising secrets behind the mechanics of wonder and guides readers in bringing more of it into their lives. From art and architecture, to love and sex, to sleep and psychedelics, you will learn about the elements and elicitors of wonder, and how it can transform our bodies and brains. Whether it's taking a daily "wonder walk" or discovering a new absorbing intellectual pursuit, this book shows us how to become more wonderprone and reconnect with a reverence for the world and all the magic in it.
From the first tickle of curiosity to an unexpected shift in how we perceive the world, there isn't a person who hasn't experienced wonder, and yet the why and how of this profoundly beneficial emotion is only just beginning to be scientifically examined. This inspiring book from thought leader Monica Parker explores the power of wonder to transform the way we learn, develop new ideas, drive social change, and ultimately become better humans.
The Power of Wonder takes readers on a multidisciplinary journey through psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, literature, and business to share some of the surprising secrets behind the mechanics of wonder and guides readers in bringing more of it into their lives. From art and architecture, to love and sex, to sleep and psychedelics, you will learn about the elements and elicitors of wonder, and how it can transform our bodies and brains. Whether it's taking a daily "wonder walk" or discovering a new absorbing intellectual pursuit, this book shows us how to become more wonderprone and reconnect with a reverence for the world and all the magic in it.
Editorial Reviews
"Monica Parker has taken an undervalued emotion - and demonstrated its capacity to transform our lives. The Power of Wonder delivers on its title by showing how wonder can spark creativity, deepen humility, and boost performance. This book is precisely what we need to cultivate curiosity, empathy, and open-mindedness in our world."
-Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, When, and Drive
"I am in wonder reading this book! Wow! Monica Parker makes the convincing case that wonder is a mindset we can bring to anything to enrich our lives and the lives of those around us. This is a must-read book for our times!"
-Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, author of Choose Growth and Transcend
"Few emotions offer as much potency and meaning as our sense of wonder. Monica offers a whirlwind of science and stories about wonder and its cousins-curiosity, openness, absorption, and awe. An enthralling read."
-Dr. Todd B. Kashdan, PhD, author of The Art of Insubordination and professor of psychology at George Mason University.
"You can't help smiling and sitting straighter and seeing the world afresh when you read this gorgeous book."
-David Eagleman, bestselling author of Sum and Livewired
"Wonder means seeing the artistry in the everyday, and in The Power of Wonder, Monica Parker shares that unique vision with others. Her enlightening exploration of wonder will have you rediscovering the world with fresh eyes and a full heart."
-Nathan Sawaya, artist and creator of The Art of the Brick
As a CEO, I found Monica Parker's The Power of Wonder filled with practical takeaways. As an environmentalist and wonderseeker, I felt even more connected to the wonders of our world. An essential read for all who love the earth.
-Azzedine Downes, president and CEO of International Fund for Animal Welfare
"Fascinating, far-ranging book."
- Harvard Business Review
"Parker's book is the first to examine the concept of wonder through multidisciplinary lenses and to make the subject less ambiguou...
-Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret, When, and Drive
"I am in wonder reading this book! Wow! Monica Parker makes the convincing case that wonder is a mindset we can bring to anything to enrich our lives and the lives of those around us. This is a must-read book for our times!"
-Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD, author of Choose Growth and Transcend
"Few emotions offer as much potency and meaning as our sense of wonder. Monica offers a whirlwind of science and stories about wonder and its cousins-curiosity, openness, absorption, and awe. An enthralling read."
-Dr. Todd B. Kashdan, PhD, author of The Art of Insubordination and professor of psychology at George Mason University.
"You can't help smiling and sitting straighter and seeing the world afresh when you read this gorgeous book."
-David Eagleman, bestselling author of Sum and Livewired
"Wonder means seeing the artistry in the everyday, and in The Power of Wonder, Monica Parker shares that unique vision with others. Her enlightening exploration of wonder will have you rediscovering the world with fresh eyes and a full heart."
-Nathan Sawaya, artist and creator of The Art of the Brick
As a CEO, I found Monica Parker's The Power of Wonder filled with practical takeaways. As an environmentalist and wonderseeker, I felt even more connected to the wonders of our world. An essential read for all who love the earth.
-Azzedine Downes, president and CEO of International Fund for Animal Welfare
"Fascinating, far-ranging book."
- Harvard Business Review
"Parker's book is the first to examine the concept of wonder through multidisciplinary lenses and to make the subject less ambiguou...
Readers Top Reviews
Scrybilkaren dombrow
The Power of Wonder cites anecdotes, quotes and studies from numerous 'big thinkers' - all pertaining positive change through the experience of wonder. Parker brings it all together, compelling the reader to stop and allow awe into our daily lives, making a case for open-minded 'wondering' to enhance work, creativity, leadership, relationships, mental and physical health. I appreciate the end-of-chapter high points summaries, capturing the major take-aways, and reiterating actionable steps. Positive and encouraging - lots to digest here!
E. Robertson
One of my top reads in a long time I am a voracious reader, so it takes a lot for a book to really jump out and grab me, but this one did it! So much research but really lovely stories too. I found the parts about the health benefits of wonder pretty cool. There was even a bit of research about the connection between personality and vision, which as an optician, I loved. If you enjoy an entertaining read that will leave you thinking, you won’t be disappointed.
Sandee Springs
Sometimes I worry about the world. Of course I include in that myself, family and friends. We're rushed and over committed. It seems it's easier to tend to become blasé and calloused about life in general. Electronics that are supposed to help us stay connected seem to really distance us instead from face to face human interaction. We text someone living in the same house. Ms. Parker has distilled ways to reacquaint ourselves with the magic (or FM as her friend Franklin says) in the world. I think I'm ready for that. And I'm already making a list of who I'll be gifting this book to this year.
Lena Mary
Reading is certainly one of my more favorite pass times, but rarely have I read a book that had me exclaiming “Yes!”; ”That’s so true!” and just “Wow” … in wonder. Monica Parker has a true gift to look at the world in a way that brings her peace, joy and childlike wonder, and a beautiful way of showing us why and how we can capture this spirit too. The Power of Wonder can almost be seen as a how-to or a DIY on rediscovering the magic all around us. It’s so beautifully written that any reader will enjoy it, but all of us can benefit from looking around us with fresh eyes, living and working more joyfully and mindfully. As a former counselor, I particularly hope that those who live with, or treat persons with depression might have takeaways that might just change lives. Applause to Monica Parker.
Laguna1818
"The Power of Wonder" by Monica Parker is a wonderful book that encourages readers to tap into their sense of curiosity and wonder. Parker's writing is engaging, insightful, and thought-provoking. She explores the importance of wonder in our lives, and how we can cultivate it in ourselves and those around us. One of the things I appreciated most about this book is Parker's ability to weave together personal anecdotes, scientific research, and philosophical musings into a cohesive narrative. Her writing is both accessible and profound, making this a book that can be enjoyed by readers of all backgrounds and interests. Overall, I highly recommend "The Power of Wonder" to anyone who is looking to deepen their sense of wonder and curiosity in the world around them. It is a book that will inspire and challenge you to think differently about the world, and to embrace the joy of exploring the unknown.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Watch
This is the story of a very unlikely friendship.
Born into a family of intellectual elites in the mid-nineteenth century, William James was the first person to teach a university psychology course in America, joking that the first psychology course he attended was the one he taught. Now considered the father of American psychology, James spent twelve years penning his twelve-hundred-page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology, and his writings are foundational to the field. Young William's life was a peripatetic one. His father believed he and his siblings (including authors Alice and Henry) would benefit from a global education, so he moved the family from the United States to Europe and back again several times, with James having lived in eighteen different homes (and even more if including hotels) before age sixteen. James begrudgingly attended Harvard University Medical School (he wanted to be a painter), but in the end, he discovered he was interested in the inner workings of the mind and soul, not the body. A contemporary of great thinkers like his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bertrand Russell, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and W. E. B. Du Bois, it was the latter, Du Bois, who introduced James to his young friend.
Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy baby girl in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. When Helen was about a year and a half, a fever, perhaps caused by rubella, left her blind and deaf, completely cut off from the world she had known. She would later describe that time in her life as being "at sea in a dense fog." For years following, she descended into a semi-feral state of headstrong chaos until a kindly Alexander Graham Bell took a shine to young Helen and arranged for a recent Perkins Institution for the Blind graduate, Anne Sullivan, to teach her. Sullivan transformed the child's life (Helen referred to the day she met Sullivan as "her soul's birthday"), and their relationship-and Helen's transformation-became lore.
And so it was in Boston, where James and his brilliant radical friend and classmate Du Bois, having taken a short journey from Cambridge to Roxbury, met the then eleven-year-old Keller at the Perkins Institution for the Blind. James brought her a gift that she was deeply moved by, and years later, she still recalled their first meeting vividly. "When I was a little girl he came to see Miss Sullivan and me at the Perkins Institution for the Blind in South Boston. He brought me a beautiful ostrich feather. 'I thought,' he said, 'you would like the feather, it is soft and light and caressing.' We talked about my sense perceptions and he wove a magic web into his discourse." This poignant and perceptive gift was the beginning of a friendship that would last for the best part of two decades until James's death in 1910.
W. E. B. Du Bois also maintained a friendship with Keller. Despite being deaf, Keller had a voice, and it was one she used in support of several issues of the day, including civil rights. "Perhaps because she was blind to color differences in this world, I became intensely interested in her, and all through my life I have followed her career." Du Bois, who went on to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, nurtured Keller's activism, and he remarked on her maturation from child to racial equality advocate (and eventual cofounder of the American Civil Liberties Union), "So it was proven, as I knew it would be, that this woman who sits in darkness has a spiritual insight clearer than that of many wide-eyed people who stare uncomprehendingly at this prejudiced world."
Throughout their friendship, James and Keller often spoke of the ideas of perception and consciousness. James felt strongly that many humans develop their external senses at the expense of their internal ones, and he was in awe of Keller's exceptional aptitude in deploying her interior senses. "You have escaped from your prison-house," he wrote in one of his many letters to Keller. "Most of us are still beating about in the dark round the walls of our prison, and we seldom find the secret door of exit." Du Bois, James, and Keller, each in their own way, were exploring the meaning of watching and openness. Of sight and vision. People can be invisible, and people can be seen-sometimes not for who they are but for who they are perceived to be. People can be sighted, wide-eyed, looking but not seeing. And we can be without the physical faculty of sight but, like Keller, blessed with insight. James described this sort of aspirational, open awareness as "the capacity of the soul to be grasped, to have its life-currents absorbed by what is given... the non-thinking level, the level of pure sensorial percept...
This is the story of a very unlikely friendship.
Born into a family of intellectual elites in the mid-nineteenth century, William James was the first person to teach a university psychology course in America, joking that the first psychology course he attended was the one he taught. Now considered the father of American psychology, James spent twelve years penning his twelve-hundred-page masterwork, The Principles of Psychology, and his writings are foundational to the field. Young William's life was a peripatetic one. His father believed he and his siblings (including authors Alice and Henry) would benefit from a global education, so he moved the family from the United States to Europe and back again several times, with James having lived in eighteen different homes (and even more if including hotels) before age sixteen. James begrudgingly attended Harvard University Medical School (he wanted to be a painter), but in the end, he discovered he was interested in the inner workings of the mind and soul, not the body. A contemporary of great thinkers like his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bertrand Russell, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and W. E. B. Du Bois, it was the latter, Du Bois, who introduced James to his young friend.
Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy baby girl in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880. When Helen was about a year and a half, a fever, perhaps caused by rubella, left her blind and deaf, completely cut off from the world she had known. She would later describe that time in her life as being "at sea in a dense fog." For years following, she descended into a semi-feral state of headstrong chaos until a kindly Alexander Graham Bell took a shine to young Helen and arranged for a recent Perkins Institution for the Blind graduate, Anne Sullivan, to teach her. Sullivan transformed the child's life (Helen referred to the day she met Sullivan as "her soul's birthday"), and their relationship-and Helen's transformation-became lore.
And so it was in Boston, where James and his brilliant radical friend and classmate Du Bois, having taken a short journey from Cambridge to Roxbury, met the then eleven-year-old Keller at the Perkins Institution for the Blind. James brought her a gift that she was deeply moved by, and years later, she still recalled their first meeting vividly. "When I was a little girl he came to see Miss Sullivan and me at the Perkins Institution for the Blind in South Boston. He brought me a beautiful ostrich feather. 'I thought,' he said, 'you would like the feather, it is soft and light and caressing.' We talked about my sense perceptions and he wove a magic web into his discourse." This poignant and perceptive gift was the beginning of a friendship that would last for the best part of two decades until James's death in 1910.
W. E. B. Du Bois also maintained a friendship with Keller. Despite being deaf, Keller had a voice, and it was one she used in support of several issues of the day, including civil rights. "Perhaps because she was blind to color differences in this world, I became intensely interested in her, and all through my life I have followed her career." Du Bois, who went on to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, nurtured Keller's activism, and he remarked on her maturation from child to racial equality advocate (and eventual cofounder of the American Civil Liberties Union), "So it was proven, as I knew it would be, that this woman who sits in darkness has a spiritual insight clearer than that of many wide-eyed people who stare uncomprehendingly at this prejudiced world."
Throughout their friendship, James and Keller often spoke of the ideas of perception and consciousness. James felt strongly that many humans develop their external senses at the expense of their internal ones, and he was in awe of Keller's exceptional aptitude in deploying her interior senses. "You have escaped from your prison-house," he wrote in one of his many letters to Keller. "Most of us are still beating about in the dark round the walls of our prison, and we seldom find the secret door of exit." Du Bois, James, and Keller, each in their own way, were exploring the meaning of watching and openness. Of sight and vision. People can be invisible, and people can be seen-sometimes not for who they are but for who they are perceived to be. People can be sighted, wide-eyed, looking but not seeing. And we can be without the physical faculty of sight but, like Keller, blessed with insight. James described this sort of aspirational, open awareness as "the capacity of the soul to be grasped, to have its life-currents absorbed by what is given... the non-thinking level, the level of pure sensorial percept...
