267: Tracking Wonder with Jeffrey Davis

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello my friends. Welcome back. I am so excited to be here today with Jeffrey Davis. Jeffrey is an author, team culture consultant, educator and CEO of Tracking Wonder Consultancy. For over 25 years, he has inspired thousands of change makers, leaders and creatives to unlock their best ideas through the pursuit of curiosity, innovation and wonder. That that is the topic of his brand new book, the topic of today's show as well. It's called Tracking Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with Productivity. Geoffrey, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. It's an utter delight to be here already.

Likewise. One of the lines that just jumped out of your book to me was love attracts fear repels. Wonder, however, pauses us in openness.

That's really the essence of it too is that we have so many probably misconceptions about wonder, I'm guessing. And part of what I've discovered is it's unique in the human emotional category because it does pause the fight or flight response. And so. Right. Love and other positive emotions do draw us toward the stimulus. Fear can repel us, disgust can repel us, anger can repel us. But wonder pauses us just in openness and receptivity. And that's a beautiful state to not only be in upon occasion, you can't be there all day long, but it's also a beautiful state to keep fostering and tracking.

You call it a biological and neurological pause and reset button. How did you decide to go all in on wonder? Like, when did this become the orienting compass for your work?

Yeah, there were a couple of pivotal moments. The first one was while I was working on another project and book related to creativity and I stumbled upon this not well known text called The Shiva Sutras, that's a seminal text in the longest living yogic tradition, Kashmir Shaivism. And there's just a reference to a seminal reference to wonder in some of the commentaries. And it was saying that wonder is a sense of joy filled amazement when, when you recognize that this ordinary reality is the ultimate reality. And that was kind of reassuring that that's what I've been pursuing since I was a towheaded boy and then in college and graduate school and Even in my 20s, that's what I'd been seeking. I just didn't have a name for it. But it didn't really become real until a couple of years later I married my wife, Hillary. We found our dream house farmhouse in the Hudson Valley. It was our first stable relationship, first foundation under our feet, so to speak. And we're like, okay, let's build our dreams and we're both going to build our businesses, maybe have a couple of wild wonderlings roaming the the woods someday. And within a year, lightning struck and literally struck the house and sent a fire roaring through the house. Just weeks before that, Hillary had had two miscarriages. I had contracted Lyme disease for the first time, which is very debilitating cognitively and physiologically. And then this lightning just sends a fire roaring mostly through my studio, but really would ultimately decimate much of the house that would have to be reconstructed for almost a year and a half. And it was in that time that I realized that there was a whole different angle to wonder, potentially. It's when I got really curious, which was how am I going to navigate this adversity and this, this set of challenges without burning out? And then I got curious about how other people do. So how did. Because I was working with some remarkable people. Some of them flourished, some of them would flounder amidst adversity. And I got really serious about my own regular practices of trying to track these experiences of wonder and really dove more deeply into the emergent research. There wasn't a lot at the time, the emergent neuroscience of wonder and related emotions, of innovation, of resilience. And that's when I got really serious about it. And that's what gradually, all these years later led to this book.

That opening story about the fire broke my heart. Like you wrote in the book, flames roared through the room, burning 20 years of paper archives, destroying 300 books and melting my laptop that contained all the files of a new endeavor. Oh my gosh, Jeffrey, this is, I think so many people have this nightmare that if, I mean, gosh, starting with Everyone being safe and healthy, and that's, you know, number one. But how devastating to have your books, your paper archives, and even your new project just aflame, gone, melted.

Yeah. You know, and I. Yeah. And I just, I know that we all have had our own, let's say, series of tick bites. You know, I contracted Lyme a second time, even worse the next summer. And house fires. We've had all our share of adversity, certainly in the past 18 months. And yet, you know, you just, Sometimes you just want to crumble. And I, I know I did. I, I, I, I wanted to unravel. I wanted to. I wanted to fall apart. I was angry, but I didn't know what I was angry at. I was, I was, you know, I just wanted to cry, but I couldn't find the way to cry. And it was actually, you know, certain moments of wonder, including the next day, that opened me up. I came back the next day. We couldn't stay in our house for almost a year and a half. And I wanted to see what books I could salvage because this was, in part my reality. This was kind of how I define my reality, that it's sort of gone up in FL flames. And I was just looking at this charred black wall, and I see out of the corner of my eye this butterfly that had flown in. And I'm not a big sign seeker, but I'd seen this butterfly just landed in this black char that had flown in through one of the holes that the firefighters had had knocked to let the flames go out. And I just remember that all of the understandable me centeredness just dissolved for a moment. And I just felt this openness amidst otherwise disorientation. And it just gave me enough sense of a small glimpse of hope that there is beauty here, that ultimately we're all going to be okay. We did survive. You know, everybody was living, including our old cat got rescued, but we would be okay in the end. It was those kinds of moments that really did sustain me personally. And it's the. Those kinds of moments that I've recognized really sustain so many people in so many different fields and industries.

This is a strange side question, but you mentioned Lyme disease and getting it twice and tick bites. Michael and I spent the summer, we spent six weeks, actually most of the summer in tick territory. One day we pulled 12 of them off rider. Oh, gosh. And I always wonder for people who live in these areas, the constant fear of getting a tick bite, then Lyme, how debilitating it is. And even if listeners haven't had Lyme's disease, Even the last 18 months of surge capacity and depletion and ambiguous grief, and all of these things that are actually affecting us physically in a major way. I'm just wondering, one, how you navigate living in tick territory, and two, when you get something like Lymes. I've heard how debilitating it can be. And just for anyone, in a situation where, you know, it's easy to talk about wonder and mindfulness and creativity when we feel great and we actually can spring out of bed. But for some people, have small kids or they're not sleeping or they have limes or they have some other immune situation going on, and. And just to get up every day is an accomplishment. And I just wonder how you got through those times. Well, there's my wonder kicking in.

Yeah, it's spirit by you. It's such a central question. Lyme has become more and more pervasive. I contracted it that first July. It really didn't go away. And at the time, my doctor was not acknowledging anything like chronic Lyme. But my symptoms were so severe, I never went to the doctor except once a decade just to get a checkup. And I was going in every six weeks with fevers and continued symptoms even after the first two rounds of antibiotics. And of course, there was all these. All of these other stressors that just compounded it. And then I contracted it again. Our first daughter was born, by the way, within that 15 months. And while I brought her in for a visit, I said to our doctor, I said, I need another Lyme test. I'm just. I'm so depleted. And he kind of rolled his eyes. But I tested positive, like 10 out of 10 indicators that second time. And really, my symptoms didn't fully go away or get better for the next four years. And so that was. That was really hard. And so through those. And then I contracted it a couple of more times, even after that, but it wasn't so bad. And it was in part. I don't want to get completely into a health regimen here, but I do have certain practices that helped me navigate that adversity that definitely include tracking wonder, which I'll talk about in a moment. But fortunately, I already had in place a very consistent, fairly brief yoga, breathing, and meditation practice that I still practice every day, and I have for 20 years. And I designed it for myself 20 years ago to help me with focus and concentration. But I do some variation of that every day. That was profoundly helpful because Lyme has these weird symptoms that will create Pressure points and pain points in different parts of your body. And my yoga practices gives me increased physiological and somatic awareness and so I could respond. I was adept enough at yoga that I could shift certain physical postures and sequences. And breathing, particularly the breathing practices, helped me. And of course, meditation, which continues to help me in my particular form, I even have a certain kind of wonder. Meditation helps me in some ways just observe the emotions, the constant hum of default pattern thoughts that I would observe, acknowledge, feel, and then try to release and move on and recognize that those thoughts are not all of reality. In addition, my wife, over the next few years, who was very adept, used to teach graduate courses in Chinese medicine, recognized the limits of her own training and as an acupuncturist and really an expert in Chinese medicine, and she became quite the specialist in Lyme. And she's well known now in these parts of the Hudson Valley and even now sees people remotely around the world for Lyme disease. So that was fortunate, but it was like four years later that I was able to resolve many of the symptoms through these practices and through diet and through her. Through her regimen.

You are still willing to be living in that area even with all of this and having it repeat.

Yeah. So that certainly. So I am one. I used to. I sign off, you know, now thanks for running with me because I have this sort of wolf tendency. And I like to think I'm running, you know, in a creative pack with other people. But my sign off used to be you in the woods. And it's. It's my favorite place to be to wander and wonder. And I was really resentful after getting it four times that I was afraid of going into the woods for a while. Now I just take lots of precautions. I know even what sorts of essential oils will help detract. I think I was a tick magnet. As I said to one doctor, he's like, yeah, some people do seem to attract tick bites more than others, or at least might get the symptoms of lying more so than others for. For reasons unknown. But yes, I. I insist. I'm not going to deprive my being of being in the woods and being in nature because of that fear. And. And again, this is the way. So the relationship of wonder and fear, there's a direct correlation and it wasn't easy, of course. And everyone that's listening, you know, the message here, just as you said, is not that tracking wonder is just like being, you know, FA la la all the time. Tracking wonder is not kid stuff. It's really radical, grown up stuff. And it does require some deliberate practice, both with our mind, which filters a lot of what we consider to be real and true, and with certain habits that will disrupt our default tendencies. For instance, we can get really locked into our pain and suffering, sometimes with very good reason. Sometimes we're just locked into the pain and suffering of our long to do list. Right. And our, and our over productivity.

I like how in the book you describe it as radio station wrry.

And you said it plays my downer Mind's top ten favorite hits hit number one. You're no good.

Oh gosh.

Oh my gosh.

So true. You know, I know so much about wonder because I know so much about worry and I know so much about how to navigate challenges because I've navigated so many of them. And it's true. I. I still sometimes can wake up at 3:34am in the morning and my frontal cortex is completely asleep. And these other parts that neuroscientists call the default mode network is completely awake and it's just tuning in. It's like scanning. Hmm. What can Jeffrey worry about? What headlines can I give him? Yes, how can I play? You're not a good enough father, you're not a good enough husband, you're not a good enough business strategist. You know, you're just not good enough. And what can Jeffrey worry about? And I really do have to be aware of that possibility at 4am in the morning. And so now you know, I say, okay, thanks little piglet mind, or thanks scout, I'll deal with that later. And then I know that maybe there are some legitimate worries there, but they're not all of reality. This is the thing, right? Just as like any radio station is not giving you all of reality, your internal radio stations are not giving you all of reality either. And what I found is moments of wonder. Whether it's within our minds, whether it's in nature, whether it's in conversation with each other, with co workers.

These moments of wonder do disrupt.

That radio station. They do disrupt our default perception of what we think is real and true and give us a much more beautiful insight into what's real and true.

Your radio station example kind of reminds me. I don't subscribe to cable tv, but when I'll go visit my grandma, it's like you might be watching a really joyful, delightful show, let's say Schitt's Creek. Or not Ted Lasso, because that's on Apple. Anyway, you're watching a show, Hallmark Channel at Grandma's house. We love to do that at the holidays. But then every commercial is for pharmaceutical ads. So it's like this most intrusive, you know, dark worry centric ads. So it's like, yes, there is a channel that has joy and wonder and then. Oh, this other intrusive channel is like popping in.

Yes. With all of the, with all of the lower voiced side effects and. Right, right.

Are you human? If so, you might need this pill. So you've mentioned you have a special wonder meditation. I am curious.

What.

What are some practical things like what can listeners do just today after they finish listening to this that could shift them into wonder? I don't want to say most quickly because that's what your book is about is like not being obsessed with productivity but some of the most kind of like joyful switches that, that help you shift from worry into wonder.

It's a great question. And ironically, experiences of wonder can help us be more productive. But we have to be really careful not to instrumentalize what is really the first of all human emotions. It gives rise to all the others. But yes. So I actually have a set of core morning practices and then there's something I invite teams to do in the middle of their work days and there's something I invite teams and myself, sometimes my family to do in the evening so you can kind of think beginning, middle, end of day practices. So in the morning I have a beta tracking wonder journal. And there are three key things I do and that I have other people do. One is I acknowledge something that I call my young genius that we all have and this comes from even classical Greek thought that we each have a sort of force of character that is unique to each of us, that can guide us toward our best work in the world. And so I recall, and I have other people recall a time when they were really alive and free around 7 or 8, 9 or 10 years old. Regardless of circumstances. Some people have to go a little bit older, just maybe due to different circumstances. And, and the point is to have that sort of memory of, of your young genius. What the Greeks called their, their daemon, this force of character at your best. And what three adjectives would you use to describe that young genius that's still alive in you? So every morning I literally write down those three adjectives that, that come up for me and then I do that so that I can bring those to work with me, so to speak. Like right now I'm trying to bring forward my very imaginative and caring parts of my, my young genius.

The second thing I do is what we call a sort of stand and wonder or stand and devotion practice, which helps so many people not just fall in love with a flashy idea, but actually stand in love and stand in devotion with that project or that endeavor or that startup. And so I ask myself every morning, what am I devoted to? What am I devoted to? And I write that down as well. So I've written down my three young genius traits. What am I devoted to? And then to trip the worry mind, I ask myself, what am I curious about today? What am I curious about? And then I write down a response to that. So those are the three morning practices.

During the day, I encourage myself and I have to remind myself, and I encourage teams as well and show teams how to take wonder interventions or wonder breaks. So there's just incredible evidence that I don't need to detail here about the value, for instance, of stepping away from a screen for a variety of reasons and just stepping outside for five minutes. It doesn't matter whether you live in New York City or the Hudson Valley or Portland, Oregon or Sierra Nevada. You can step outside for five minutes and take a wandering, walk someplace without a clear destination and just allow your senses to come alive, allow your eyes to just take in something very ordinary, like a blade of grass or the way sunlight's cutting across the sidewalk or the drone of traffic. And you just listen to it simply for its sound quality and you just receive it. So then you come back. And potentially, again, lots of evidence is that you will come back that much more refreshed, that much more able to focus, and potentially will boost your ability to come up with some novel and useful insights, maybe into some pressing challenges, you know, basically your creativity. And then at the end, there are other things you can do, but that's a good start. And then at the end of the day.

Here'S where we want to tune out, right? We know that when we get fatigued or we're hungry, our frontal cortex goes to sleep. And then we just want to distract ourselves, sort of edge out, or just spend two hours on social media and then just feel horrible afterwards. So instead of that, take five minutes to reflect upon your day's three highlights. It's not gratitudes, but your day's three highlights. These might have been small sensory moments that were in the margins of awareness or something a co worker said, or just like a moment when you felt just a little more open, more elevated, more buoyant, and write those down and potentially share those with other people. This is something our family does sometimes. Over dinner.

I love these practices. These are amazing. I love how there's three, two, you have a sandwich, something we can do in the morning. And I just love those questions. What am I devoted to? What am I curious about today? The wondering walk or wandering walk? And at the end, these three moments, these three highlights, it reminds me, my roommate and I in college, we used to do our high and low of the day. It was such a good practice. I know Bethany Frankel, she and her daughter do rose in your thorn of the Day.

My daughter came home from school one time with the rose, the thorn and the bud, which is what are you looking forward to? Oh, so we would play that as well. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, I love throwing the bud in there. I love that.

Yeah.

You see how you just lit up, right? And this is like we, we almost have to give ourselves permission to have this much joy and fun in our lives and in our work, Right?

That's so true. I'm curious. Oh, Writing a book requires you to be patient zero in the topic. What I mean by that is you have the front row seat. The book will inevitably make you live this message in a way that you didn't really have to do before you set out. I don't know how this works. This can be part of my wondering. But you, you, I think you know what I'm talking about. And so I'm curious, you know, because you can go into a project thinking, okay, I think I have enough under my belt to write this now. And then, boom, life will just throw you something to say, are you sure? And shape you form you in the process of working on the book to the point where it's coming out now for you. You're different on the other side. And I'm wondering, did you have an experience like that while working on this book?

I had constant experiences like that while working on this book. So, you know, just briefly, the original idea came 15, over 15 years ago while working on this other project. And I thought, oh, I want to write a book about wonder. And I wrote the worst book proposal and outline for it because it was everything I thought I already knew about Wonder.

Wonder is this experience that put you into the space of not knowing. And also after a couple of years, right before the fire and the series of adversities, I just gave myself permission to slow down and be patient. And I wanted to cite at least 250 citations in research before I really started conceiving the next book. Now, 250 was a lot. I think I made that But I did that not because I had to know everything about wonder, but more because I. It was a way researching is for me to put a check on my own reality and. And to spur further curiosity. So I had. So that was part of what happened for me, is I just had to constantly keep questioning what I think I know, particularly about wonder. The other part of it, though, Jenny, was that writing this book, it took so many different shapes. It was very humbling. It just made me all the more comfortable in dealing with uncertainty. And strangely enough, it did. Like I wrote a book that had prepared me for the pandemic in certain ways. And I don't mean that in a glib way, because the pandemic has been devastating, but it did prepare me in many ways to be a bit more flexible, accustomed to the facet of wonder I call bewilderment, which is when we are so disoriented with what we think is real or who we think we are. So it did. It did afford me that ability. And it. Writing it like the pandemic put a lot more in perspective in terms of what was important. It did allow me to put a break on my own productivity treadmill, and.

It invited me to examine a lot of my own assumptions about a hard work ethic and, you know, just that hardness. Right. So, yeah, so I hope I'm coming out on the other side a bit softer as a human being and softer toward myself and softer toward everybody I come in contact with and profoundly more compassionate or at least have the capacity to see other people's points of view, because that's. That's certainly what the book has invited me to.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And it's true. It forced us all to wonder and ask and reimagine what happens when the whole world has to shut down at the same time. How do we behave in this kind of situation? How does our relationship to work shift and evolve? This may be totally unrelated, but last question before we wrap up. In 2008, you wrote a book called the Journey from the center to the Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing. So, first of all, that's the coolest book title, but there is a chapter called Bliss in a Toothbrush, and I just have to know, what is Bliss in a Toothbrush?

Wow, that's great. Well, actually, that was the reprint. The original was in 2004 with. With Penguin Putnam. And it was while working on that project that I was like, what is this that we experience as. As writers? And it was like, surprise, delight. Like this is in part why, why I write and what I want to give other people. And that was actually what led me to that yoga text, the Shiva sutras, to come up with wonder. Bliss in a Toothbrush is one of the chapters that most directly relates to wonder and how to foster it as a writer. So. So I will say I'll try to keep this brief, but we come into this world, every human being, literally wide eyed with wonder. We do come in with this capacity. It's our birthright. And.

I've spoken with scientists to corroborate this. We are all eyes, quite often as infants. And if you've been around an infant, you know, they're just like, all eyes are taking it all in. But over time, of course, for neurological reasons and cultural reasons, our eyes.

Start to just categorize things and we stop seeing truly. So that chapter is inviting you to do something that I actually have teams do, which is to pause.

And gaze upon something ordinary right around you. You know, and you might do this right now, Jenny, in your studio. Just allow your eyes to gaze upon something ordinary and to receive it. Not try to analyze it or figure it out, but just observe its shape, its contours, its patterns.

And then praise. Like, give just a few words of appreciation for that ordinary thing. Now this can seem really kooky to some team members.

Such a cool exercise, but it's the.

Pause, gaze, praise, Wonder intervention and that. Yeah, pause, gaze, praise. And it completely shifts people's reality. I've had, you know, like a VP right back to me, like weeks later. That, oh my gosh, that exercise just opened me up to the world around me and the people around me I wasn't seeing. So that chapter is all about how to foster that quality as a writer.

Wow. Well, look at that. So funny to randomly pull that when I did that. That is so cool, by the way. Pause, gaze, praise. I chose this. I have this little tiny ceramic heart at the corner of my desk. It says good vibes. And while you had me do that, so I just. It's the nearest thing to my laptop. Like, wow, this thing is so beautiful. You know, it's like, oh, look how shiny it is. Look at the rose gold text. Wow, look at the curves of the heart. And I, I love this thing. But I never stopped stopped to, to really gaze and then praise it in the way you just had me do this. So cool.

That was beautiful example, right? Wonder is so pervasive. It's. It's related to awe. But awe is like mighty. And you kind of have to really track hard for awe. But wonder is right. Right here. Yeah. I just want to say briefly and kind of tag another episode of your show with the author of 4000 Weeks, Oliver. I can't remember his name.

Berkman. I love Oliver.

Oliver Berkman. Yes. I'd been reading that book and just my mind was being blown and I was so resonating. But he cites this Harvard professor, this art professor, who has. Students, their first assignment is to gaze upon a piece of art for three hours.

Three hours. And of course, they hate it at first, but then they report after about the first 45 minutes, something happens, and they start to see more deeply and they start to get insight more deeply, too. And so. So, yes, pause, gaze, praise is just an entry point.

I. I would fit in with that group of students. My. Everyone in my family loves museums. My dad's a painter. My mom studied history, My grandma studied art history. Everybody loves museums. And I would go. Before living in New York, I would go to the MoMA and just want to stare out of the windows like I wanted to see what was on the street. I was more interested in the people and the cars, and I felt so horrible and uncultured. And then I married an artist, and.

Over time, I learned to sit in front of. I mean, this is so embarrassing to say out loud, but now I can sit in front of a Rothko and take it in, pause, gaze, praise, and feel what? The feeling of being immersed in a work or something more abstract and energetic. But that door was closed to me for so long, where I would zoom through a museum, bored as hell.

I love it.

It's like admitting you hate culture, you know?

No, but.

No, no. We each have different orientations and we find wonder in different places. I love that. I love that you mentioned Rothko because that is an artist whose paintings, even in. In right out of college, I would gaze at and really absorb and take in. In fact, the publisher of one of my poetry collections got the Rothko foundation to put one of his paintings on my last collection, Poetry Coat Thief. Yeah, so I bet. I so sympathize. I'm not. I not you. Like, that's where I would often find sanctuary, even as a. As a boy. But. But I laugh. I'm in sympathy with you. It reminds me of, you know, my daughter when she was first riding the school bus, she would come home, I said, how'd you like, you know, writing on the school? She's like, oh, the kids were kind of loud, but I just watched window tv And I was like, what's window tv? Oh, my gosh, isn't that great? It's just like, I just look out the frame of the window and just watch everything. She still does it, you know, we. We don't even watch TV that much. And so she was like, wow, that is great window tv.

And I don't have kids, but it was when my friend had a baby, and I was never. I was just never in the right place, right time to be around newborn babies. And it was like newborn tv. I didn't realize you could just stare at this little baby. And they're so fascinating. And I'm not a kid person. I'm not really the person that's cooing all the time for all the kids. Dogs. Yes, dogs. I'll lose my mind whatever dog I see. But. But now I saw, like, infant TV is a fascinating channel. You could just watch them like a fireplace and. And just be totally enthralled.

I love it. No, it's true, because we are. We are seeing mirrors. Right. Of part of ourselves. It's like the dawning of human consciousness in the flesh. And. And certainly that was part of, you know, me being mesmerized in watching both girls. Yeah. There's. There's something beautiful, too, about watching other people and wonder. I've learned, you know, I've learned this being sweet. Yeah. At immersives. I've learned it by watching my children. And.

When I do go to museums, when I did regularly before the pandemic, one of my favorite things was actually to watch the people looking at art.

Yeah.

Oh.

I mean, people watching is people watching. That's why I live in New York City. Okay, I have to cheat. I said that was my last question. But right now I'm geeking out on systems for organizing research and ideas. As you know, Jeffrey, you know me.

This is.

I love doing this. I just finished a book called how to Take Smart Notes. I'll put it in the chat, in the show notes with your 250 citations goal. I just have to ask. Did you invent a cool way of collecting all your notes and observations and citations as you worked on this book?

I did, but then I shifted because there were so many different years. There was a house fire. So at first I was the index card person, which was pretty much how I wrote the Journey from the center.

To the Page and tell listeners, because I've heard such great things about this method. And it's similar to the book I just mentioned, too.

Yeah, it was just what I Learned in college research and in grad school. It was just the index card method. So, you know, I had the different cards for the different categories of the topics related to wonder that I thought I was going to explore and research. I had an ongoing list of working bibliography, but then I would, you know, the upper right hand corner put the topic, I would write down a few notes, put the author and page number and just slide it in. So that was when I had a lot of organized time in part before the house fire, before the firstborn daughter. And I could keep up with that method. And I still, I still salvaged those index or I still have those from the house fire. They're all charred and burnt and I still reference some of them. But then I shifted in part because my business was growing, my life was certainly more full. And I got one of those laundry baskets, you know, like you get at Bed Bath and Beyond. Like you can sort of hold it. It's kind of hard to describe. It's not an actual basket, but it's like a handheld thing. It's like just think of a box, but it's nicer. And I would drop different articles and studies into those different boxes, so to speak, so that I could come back to them later when I had time to assimilate them and start shaping them into actual chapters. So then the, the next thing that I did, how did I allow for that assimilation time? Well, you know, I'm really good at developing focus and flow blocks, but I also, every month I would schedule a year in advance my deep dive retreats. And so for three or four days every month, I would either have an in house retreat or quite often an Airbnb retreat where I would rent an Airbnb within an hour away in the Catskill Mountains during the week. So I usually got better rates and I would negotiate with my host. And then that allowed me to take my baskets, take my index cards and do the further assimilation. So I don't know if that helps.

You with your systems approach. Oh yeah, I love hearing what as soon as you said 250 citations, I thought to myself, huh, those are organized somehow. There's no way to, to be that committed to. Because you and I both love reading and research and cultivating and curating. Not everyone, you know, some people, well, we don't have to get into it on this show, but some people will write just directly from the heart or their mind. And I know that your style is similar to mine. I like to voraciously consume what's out there and Then synthesize it. And it's clear that you did that with this book too.

I did. And I'll just say counter note for other people because everybody is different in this regard. So Susan Cain, whom I admire a great deal, her book Bittersweet is coming out in April and I know that she, she takes a long time to write a book like me. She supposedly just uses one long Google Doc to just like keep up with everything. Like one like 300 page Google Doc to keep up with her notes or citations and so forth. I don't know that I could, that I could do that. But you know, to each their own. Whatever works.

Yeah, I love hearing that. You'd have to use headings. So I wrote free time entirely in Google Docs. I did not use word once. And it can be done if you really work with headings and a table of contents. And then the TOC can run down the left hand side so you can easily click almost in a hyperlinked way within the doc. But I was so paranoid that I copied my doc every day. Even though it's cloud based. I was like, if this file gets corrupted, I will be crushed.

So that's. Yeah, that's actually the method I used once my editor and I got to the point of shaping the book and putting into chapters and so forth. Yes, that is exactly how I used it. But. But Susan just has one long sprawling Google Doc while she's in discovery mode.

But yes, I'm a big Google Docs fan for organizing files.

Yeah, well, this will have to be its own separate follow up episode. Just geeking out about this. We have tracking wonder and then the next could be tracking ideas or tracking research.

Yes, yes.

Jeffrey, this has been so fun. Where would you like to send listeners to learn more and keep in touch?

Yeah, so we put together a few things for your listeners@trackingwonder.com podcastbonus and they can download the first chapter. They can take our Wonder at Work assessment, where we're really flashing out some wonder interventions at work for different teams. And there are a couple of other bonuses just for your listeners. So that's probably the best place to start.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And listeners, you can check out Jeffrey's book, Tracking Reclaiming a Life of Meaning and Possibility in a World Obsessed with productivity. Geoffrey, thanks again for being on the show. So fun.

Jenny, this was a blast. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by Signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotless get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.