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Start a Wow Project!
Use your Passion & Talent to make the World a little Better and yourself a lot Happier.
Work
Work should be Wow; yet for the majority of people, it isn't. A study by Gartner shows that 87% of all employees are not satisfied with their work... People are bored, frustrated, burned out and often deeply unhappy.
World
The world should be Wow, yet for the majority of people it isn’t. Hunger, disease, pollution, repression are but a few of the problems millions of people experience everyday. And now even the world itself is under serious threat.
Companies
Companies face ever-growing problems in recruiting and binding the best people. Classic incentives (salary, corner offices, company cars) are no longer enough when the work itself is devoid of purpose and meaning.
Wow
The Wow Project is meant to help with a simple but powerful approach: start a Wow Project to make the world a little better and find passion, purpose and meaning doing work you love.
The Problem:
There is a gap in our lives that is preventing us from living happy, meaningful, and fulfilling lives.
5 years old
At 5, we are all heroes-in-the-making. We have big dreams for our future: joining the Thunderbirds, becoming a famous inventor, turning into Superman... (those were my dreams at 5)
40 years old
As adults, we spend our days in endless meetings and our nights falling asleep in front of the TV. No Thunderbirds, No Famous inventor, No Superman cape…
At life's end
At the end of our lives, we regret the things we haven't done. The steps we didn't take, the plans we didn't realize, because we were too afraid to try. Because we prioritized safety over our passion. Because we buried our dreams.
Ambition vs reality
There is a gap between our ambitions as a child and the reality we accept as adults. When we grow up, we start living according somebody else's definition of life. We follow the herd. And we settle... That's why most of us feel unfulfilled and unhappy.
The Solution: Start a Wow Project
We think you can cross the Gap by starting a Wow Project: Doing Work you Love, that makes the world a little (or a lot) better.
This site offers help every step of the way. So: Find your inner 5 yo, start a Wow Project and become the Hero you are meant to be.
What is a Wow Project?
Wow projects can take on many different forms, but the underlying principles are often the same:
- They make the world a little (or a lot) better
- They make our hearts glow
- They make optimal use of our passion & talents
- They help us grow and develop ourselves
- They give us a sense of purpose and meaning
- They are not primarily aimed at money (although money can be a byproduct).
- They make us happy
In short: a Wow Project is work as it's supposed to be
Examples of Wow Projects
Jadav Molai Payeng (The Forest Man of India) has singlehandedly planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra turning it into a forest reserve, bigger then Central Park in New York.
Johan the sandwich man has been preparing packed lunches for children who go to school without food because their parents cannot afford it. "If you have money for only one meal a day, you will choose the warm one."
Sander van Bussel started Human Rights Tattoo a movement that sparks social change through the power of art, traveling around the world to tattoo the complete Universal Declaration of Human Rights onto the skins of 6.773 human beings.
Who needs Wow projects?
The world needs Wow projects
The world doesn't need more and more 'new' products or services, that don't deliver any real value. That are nothing more then slightly modified copies of existing products. That need agressive marketing to find (fight?) their way to to the customers, who don't really need them. And that create a shameless amount of garbage that pollutes our world.
What the world does need, are creative and brilliant solutions to real life problems. What the world does need are products or services that make a real difference and make our lives a little bit better. What the world does need, are wow projects.
People need wow projects
Our brains are hardwired to create wow, to find a purpose and make a difference in the world.
But we get educated out of it. To flourish the way we are supposed to, we need a wow project. A worthy purpose that makes optimal use of our passion and talents.
Teams need wow projects
Teams need wow projects too. Don't just work next to each other, but take up a deeply felt team challenge. It's the best way for turning a group of talented individuals into a magical team.
Companies need wow projects
Attracting and binding talent will be the biggest challenge for Companies in the coming decades. Just paying potential employees a good salary won't be enough. They'll demand work with purpose and meaning, where they can grow and make a difference to the world. In other words: Wow Projects. If You don't wow your company you may be in big trouble.
21 signs YOU need a Wow Project
So how do you know if YOU should start a Wow Project? The short answer: when you are not happy at your work...
When in doubt, fill in our checklist. Cross of the sign you recognise in your own life. And see how you score...
Your Score?
The more boxes you ticked, the more you need to start an Wow Project
Why you are NOT making wow (yet)
Baby elephants were traditionally trained by tying one of their front legs to a stake in the ground. Because the elephants are small, only a thin rope is required. When they grow up they are conditioned to believe the rope can still hold them so the never try to break free.
Schools put a few 'ropes around our leg': - "Don't follow your impulse" - "Listen to the teacher" - "Do what everybody else does" - "Forget about your passions" - "Always make the safe choice" When we grow up, the elephants in us still believe these limiting thoughts.
Our fears are holding us back Everyone is afraid. All the time. Even the successfull people have to deal with their fears everyday. We are afraid to fail and we are afraid to lose face in front of other people. That social fear holds most of us back.
We prefer the Comfort Zone. Most of us are downright lazy. We prefer the comfortable life. Watching TV, clicking on social media posts, doing the easy stuff. Wow Project demand you to get out of your comfort zone, but the good news: that's where the magic lives.
How to Start
The 4 Pillars of Wow
Now exactly how do you start a wow project?
Although many things are important, we think you need these 3 pillars
- The CWO Mindset
- Wow Habits
- A Wow Process
Pillar 1: The CWO Mindset
The Mindset
Of all the 4 Pillars in our system, The Wow Mindset is by far the most important. What you need is a growth mindset that can handle uncertainty and setbacks, that can find ideas and opportunities anywhere and that is prepared to learn from your mistakes.
Become a Chief Wow Officer!
This is not just a fancy name in a shallow attempt to impress the world. It's a serious commitment. Chief Wow Officer is not what you are, it's a declaration of your intention. It's a reminder to yourself that you wil no longer settle for less then Wow.
Chief Wow Officers:
Pillar 2: The Wow Habit
Habits
The second most important thing is to create a Wow Habit.
Make it a habit to work on your Wow Project every day (no matter what). Put it as a non negotionable appointment in your diary for every day to come
Create Time
Nobody has time to start for a Wow Project, you create it. Just by saying no to the many things that do NOT create value (e.g. meetings, email, social media, television).
Reach for Wow
Make it a habit to reach for wow in any situation. Just by asking yourself: what would be wow here?
The more you do it, the more natural it becomes and the better you get at it. Strengthen the wow muscle
Pillar 3: The Wow Process
1. Start (Now)
Starting is for many people, the most difficult thing to do. There are two very simple tricks to overcome this form of procrastionation:
Start Now with the smallest possible step and keep taking small steps every day..
We propose starting with our elegant but simple Businesscard Ceremony.
2. Find your Cause
Maybe you allready know what you want to work on. If you don’t, start making a list of all the things you care about that need to be improved upon and where you think you might make a difference. If you can’t choose the right one upfront, tart working on two of three problems. The choice will be clear soon.
3. Explore and learn
Submerge yourself in the world of your cause. Forget everything you think you know, get very curious and discover new things. Online and in the real world. Talk to people. Make notes of everything that draws your attention. Try to formulate the problems you want to tackle with your wow project.
4. Generate Ideas
Generate ideas to tackle the problem(s) you identified in step 3. Use your creativity, think out of the box.
The best ideas come from our subconscience mind, usually when you stop thinking about it. To activate this generate ideas over multiple (even many) days.
5. Build -test - build
Try to build something simple you can pout out in the world and test. It might be a product or a prototype. Make sure you get lots of feedback. Now make a second version on the basis of the feedback and tekst that again. Repeat until you’re ready.
How Wow will you go?
A Wow Project can be very big (ending world hunger) or very small (setting up a food project in your street) or anything in between: you decide. Whatever alines with your passion AND makes the world a little bit better, is a wow project.
Your 3 choices:
For the brave: Quit your current job and go all out on your wow project. Build your own startup and maximize your chances.
Keep your dayjob to pay the bills. Start a side project, where the real magic happens. And who knows, in time it might become your real job.
Don't quit your job, Wow it. With a little creativity, almost any job can be turned into Wow. We offer inspiring examples to get you started.
Our advice for most people is to start a Side Project: you can take your time to slowly build your Wow, without the pressure of earning money right from the start
Is it Realistic?
Yes, It's realistic
Creating Wow is possible and realistic. But just like the elephants in he story above, we are conditioned to believe we can't.
Time and time again, people like you and me prove the rope can't really hold them back. They start a Wow Project and turn into the heroes they were meant to be.
The Best Time Ever
This is the best moment in time, to start a Wow Project. You are in a far better position then anyone in history. You have far better tools then Julius Caesar, Mahadma Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela had.
And as we all know: If you do NOT start right now, chances are you will never do it.
So, what's stopping you?
But What if I Fail?
Fear is the main reason most of us hold back. It's because growing up we've learned to avoid failure like the plague. But failure is our built-in superpower to learn new things. We fail-learn-fail-learn until we succeed. You will fail, and that's a good thing. Because it's your best chance to succeed.
More
Ted Talk
Watch our Tedx Dordrecht Talk on Chief Wow Officers
Keynote
Founder Richard Stomp takes you on an inspiring tour in a presentation that just might change your life.
Fill in the contact form below for more info
Workshop
Founder Richard Stomp helps you kickstart your Wow project in a very practical and inspiring way.
Fill in the contact form below for more info
Contact
Got Questions or feedback? Fill in the contact form below and we’ll get back to you asap.